In a week where Nigel Farage seems to have had the stage to himself to talk about his plans to do away with anything remotely woke and to get women, British women that is, (and we all know what he mean by that) to have lots of babies, to ruminate on curtailing access to abortion, we can see that the right are not going to stop curtailing people's freedoms once they've dealt with trans people. This year's Pride month comes as the rights of trans people have already been rolled back as a result of over-zealous interpretation of April's Supreme ...
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: Let us start with the straightforwardly good news for Reform in the polls. Since the local elections, there have been 20 voting intention polls1 from seven different pollsters. They all put Reform in the 27%-33% range, and all have put Reform in first place. There are caveats to add about... Find out more by reading this edition of The Week in Polls here, and you can sign up below to receive future editions direct to your email inbox:
Reform UK nominated four candidates for a postponed election in the Higham Ferrers ward of North Northamptonshire Council. Which was good going, seeing as it's only a two-member ward. One of them withdrew in time, but there will still be three Reform candidates on the ballot paper come 12 June. And one of those three has since moved to China, which means that if he's elected he'll have to resign and cause a by-election. A Reform councillor told the Northamptonshire Telegraph:"He has just had a change of circumstances. He has got a Chinese wife and something has happened and he ...
Sun 1st
17:16
Lord Bonkers 30 years ago: The Book of Revelation and Earl Russell (but not his Big Band)
"The first of the month," observed Lord Bonkers this morning. I knew what he was hinting at: it's time again for me to see what the old boy was doing 30 years ago. So here's an entry from Liberator 229 (June 1995): Sunday To St Asquith's, where the Reverend Hughes is in particularly good form. His text is taken from the Book of Revelation (3: 15-16): "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out ...
The elections for the Officers of the Lib Dem Group at the Local Government Association and for Lib Dem members of various Boards have started. When nominations closed on 23 May, three of the most senior officer roles were unopposed and saw the incumbents re-elected : Cllr Joe Harris, who recently stepped down from his role as Leader of Cotswold District Council, will be starting his third term as Leader. Cllr Bridget Smith, who is Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, continues as Deputy Leader. Cllr Heather Kidd, who has just become Leader of Shropshire Council, will continue as the ...
"Bewdley is, perhaps, the crown jewel of the plotlands movement - it's one of the biggest UK sites, home to roughly 163 households," writes Samuel McIlhagga for The Dispatch: After days of research, a trip to rural Worcestershire and lots of unanswered emails, I'd uncovered a saga involving dead horses, a legal case no one will - or can - talk about, and a landlord allegedly disrupting the water supply to push tenants out - a potentially criminal offence. Clearly, trouble was afoot. I visited the Bewdley plotlands myself back in 2010, inspired by one of Jonathan Meades's television programmes, ...
Sun 1st
12:10
Thinking of standing for election or re-election next year? Helpful questions to consider
This May's council elections extended, yet again, the run of net gains for the Liberal Democrats, this time to seven rounds in a row and also saw a welcome boost in candidate numbers. But when it comes to counting councillor or council candidate numbers, we still have some way to go to being one of the top two parties. So we need more people than usual to think about standing next time, and also more people than usual to encourage others to think about standing too. Of course, saying yes to standing isn't the right answer for everyone. There's a ...
Were the police right to partly reveal details of the suspect?. I say, "Yes!" In answering this question, I need to go back 10 months to the dreadful events in Southport. Everyone reading this will recall that three young children were killed and others seriously injured by a young man who entered their play activity with a knife. The man was indisputably of African descent. That was enough to spark a series of lies and rumours which within minutes sent parts of the community throughout the country into paroxysms of righteous anger. With no proof the rumour said that this ...
Let's be blunt: Britain's war on drugs has failed. From cannabis to crack cocaine, we've chosen criminalisation over compassion, prohibition over prevention and the result has been more addiction, more crime, and more lives destroyed. I've worked in prisons. I run care services. I've seen the human cost of our broken policies—kids groomed into gangs, people with addiction sent to jail rather than treatment, families torn apart. It doesn't have to be this way. We need to legalise and regulate cannabis and we need to start having serious conversations about the wider reform of drug laws, including decriminalising hard drugs ...
I heard this on Radio 6 during the week. An old NPR article tells the story of Sachal Studios. Lahore, where its players come from, once had a thriving film industry - Lollywood - and many musicians made a good living from it. Then, amid a period of religious conservatism, the film studios closed down, leaving the musicians without any work. But they found a saviour: Izzat Majeed made his money overseas, in finance. But he was born in Lahore in 1950, remembers Lollywood's heyday and greatly admires its musicians. "It was a brotherhood of great musicians," Majeed says. "I ...
I can't believe that it is a decade today since we lost Charles Kennedy. I don't think I'll ever forget the moment I first heard the news and how upset I and so many others felt. His sudden death at the age of 55, from a haemorrhage linked to the effects of alcoholism, came just three weeks after he lost his Ross, Skye and Lochaber seat. He had been in Parliament 32 years, virtually all his adult life. Ed Davey said today: Ten years on, we still feel the loss of Charles Kennedy. Charles was principled, kind and possessed an ...
With thanks to Mila White Photography, a superb photo of the Queen's Hotel in the Nethergate :
The Independent reports that Nigel Farage's claim that Reform UK is the "party of workers" has been called into question as figures show his plans to slash taxes would benefit the richest most. The paper says that the Reform leader has sought to entice Labour voters to his cause by outlining up to £80bn of welfare and tax handouts without saying how he would fund them, however economists have warned that these pledges are unfunded, would cause economic chaos, and would benefit top earners far more than those on the lowest incomes: The centrepiece of Mr Farage's tax plans was ...
