The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: Each May sees a big round of local elections on the first Thursday of the month. But councillors are elected for either four or five year terms of office and some councils elect all their councillors in one go, some elect one third at a time and some elect a half at a time. Add to that the smaller effect of council reorganisations and boundary changes and you end up with a lot of variation from year to year in what seats ...
For someone so fond of the phrase "You ain't see me, right?", Violent Bonham Carter - gender-fluid London crime boss and friend of Lord Bonkers - appears in a remarkable number of history books. I have found four mentions via a brief search on Google Books. The Life and Times of Anthony Eden, First Earl of Avon, 1897-1977 by D.R. Thorpe (2003). The Radical Quarterly, Issues 1-6 Labour Women in Power: Cabinet Ministers in the Twentieth Century by Paula Bartley (2019). The Secret World: A History of Intelligence by Christopher Andrew (2018) Violent's appearance in a history of intelligence lends ...
When I go to St Peter's, Church Langton, to pay my respects to Paddy Logan, I also visit the grave of Colonel Hignett. Hignett bought East Langton Grange, Logan's old home, in 1935, and was still around 50 years later when I got involved in local politics here. He was a Conservative of the old school. I thought of him when Kemi Badenoch made her invaluable (to us) remark about the Liberal Democrats being the sort of people who repaired your church roof. As I once recalled here: I came across him several times and he had an unnerving habit ...
New polling of Members of Parliament shows that Bluesky has firmly established itself in the mix of social media channels used by MPs – but also that Conservative MPs are largely avoiding it: [IMG: Frequency of social media consumption among MPs by channel] [IMG: Social media consumption among MPs by party] You can read the full report, Influence and Information: The Media Habits of Westminster, here. Sign up to get the latest news and analysis
I never got on with Slade. The worst kids at school loved them, and I could (just) remember the music of the Sixties. Though I followed the charts avidly in 1973 and 1974, I sensed even at the time that it was no golden age for the singles chart. And they couldn't spell. But this is a good cover of a song from Traffic's first LP - respectful, but stamped with Slade's identity. It's taken from the album Live at the BBC and is on the first disc, which is taken from sessions the band played between 1969 and 1972. ...
The welfare cuts - which according to charities are bigger than the Tories' - are set to impact 15,000 disabled households here in Southwark alone, costing most thousands of pounds a year. That is not what people voted for. That is what Rachel Reeves and the Labour Party has chosen to do. When people put their cross next to Labour in 2024, they did not vote to push 250,000 disabled people, including 50,000 children, into poverty. But that's exactly what's happening - not to fund hospitals, or schools, or social care - but because Labour refuses to tax tech giants ...
Pakistan and water Pakistan is a water-stressed country. It is totally dependent on the Indus Valley Basin for survival. That is why it has threatened war in response to India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty following the killing of 26 Indian tourists in Kashmir. The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty is considered the most successful treaty of its kind in the world. Probably in the history of the world. It has held through three wars and numerous skirmishes between two countries whose religious difference mean that they truly detest each other. There are six rivers in the Indus Basin (Indus, ...
With thanks to Catherine Blatch and Dundonian History for All, two great historic photos : + The back of houses on Logie Street from Tullideph Place in 1977 + The pend from Tullideph Place to Logie Street in 1977. It came out across the road from Cobden Street.
The Guardian reports that Keir Starmer is facing a rebellion over his plan to use direct deductions from people's bank accounts and the cancellation of driving licences as part of a government crackdown on welfare fraud and over-claiming. The paper says that in an attempt to claw back the annual £9.7bn in benefit overpayments made by the Department for Work and Pensions due to fraud or error, the government has adopted Conservative plans for debt recovery: A fraud, error and recovery bill would give the DWP the power to require banks to provide data to help identify when an applicant ...
