Lib Dems celebrate Sunshine Bill victory Chamberlain supports constituent's pancreatic cancer petition David Chadwick MP challenges Lloyds CEO over bank closures Lib Dems celebrate Sunshine Bill victory Liberal Democrat win as Government accept Max Wilkinson's campaign for renewable energy technology to be mandated for new homes Mandated solar included in the Government's Future Homes Standard Max Wilkinson MP is celebrating victory in his campaign for solar energy generation technology to be included in all new homes as standard. Following his Private Member's Bill earlier this year - known as the Sunshine Bill – the Government today announced that all new ...
This week may have seen a Parliamentary by-election, in Scotland, but there is plenty to report on the local election front, with eight principal local authority polls, each with a Liberal Democrat candidate. Despite the talk of multi-party politics, in terms of local by-elections, it seems to have been a period of 2-party politics win-wise, (albeit not the traditional one), since 1st May. Today's wins split four each for the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK. Let's start in Wokingham, which garnered interest from several parties. Maiden Erlegh & Whitegates is a Conservative defence in a Labour constituency and a Liberal ...
Just a year ago we won the Parliamentary seat of Wokingham with a huge swing. And today, as a result of a Council by-election, we have gained overall control of Wokingham Borough Council. By the way, don't confuse Wokingham in Berkshire with Woking in Surrey, which we also control. The received wisdom was that Lib Dems had to win a Council before they could hope to win a constituency, but now we are seeing the reverse effect. The key thing is that a winning campaign at either level, if carried out with care and foresight, can build local capacity which ...
Fri 6th
17:02
The England cricketer Peter Richardson used to fill the Telegraph with hoax reports of private-schoo...
Embed from Getty ImagesRemember that absurd Telegraph story about the investment banker his and wife who have a joint salary of £345,000 but are no longer able to take five holidays a year because of VAT on school fees? As everyone suspected it was phoney, and PressGazette blames a finance industry PR for pitching it. My own view is that even if every word were true, it would still have made most people cheer the idea of VAT on school fees. So I blame the news editor for putting in the paper at all. But then the Telegraph has always ...
The past week has been an eventful one vis a vis discourses relating to the Indo Pacific. It started for me at a round table held at RUSI's HQ in Whitehall on Thursday 29th June on the topic of "UK & Europe's Relations with the Indo-Pacific". Then to keeping a watching brief on the Shangri-la Dialogues organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in Singapore (30th May - 1st June), and ending with the Government's Strategic Defence Review 2025 which was unveiled on Monday 2nd June. So what is the significance of the "Indo-Pacific" region? A German academic ...
As the Labour Party prepares to make devastating cuts to disability support, the Mayor of London has remained conspicuously silent. While Labour leaders in other parts of the country have spoken out, Sadiq Khan has so far proved content to more or less toe the party line. Yet with hundreds of thousands of disabled Londoners set to be hit by sweeping cuts to Personal Independence Payment, whatever his political calculations may be, there is still no excuse for Sadiq Khan failing to step up now as Mayor and use every lever at his disposal to engage and support disabled Londoners ...
[IMG: Green redevelopment at Nottingham Broad Marsh] "The answer was a two-pronged attack. The first was a wholesale culture war against 'social justice', which presented BLM, climate, feminist and migrant rights activists as a fifth column determined to bring the country to a halt. The second was passing new and draconian legislation to tackle this so-called left-wing 'threat'."Open Democracy researches the tactics used by the last Conservative government to ban protest. Mic Wright looks at the way the 'no English food on my holiday' woman was stitched up by the local and national press. Chris Taylor pulls no punches on ...
Obviously when mtDNA is damaged in neurons that can have various effects depending on the damage. A key point, however, is that if there is a process which is damaging mtDNA then if that continues then the mtDNA will get further damaged. As some relatively minor damage appears to be caused by the replication of mtDNA itself then it is like there is a very slow moving footpath moving towards
A few days ago, I authored an opinion piece examining the measures the Welsh Liberal Democrats must undertake to avert total defeat in the 2026 Senedd elections. This piece advocates for a renewed emphasis on federalism, and as one commentator articulated, "Devo-Maxing" (a term I have come to employ quite frequently). In this article, I intend to investigate an alternate approach that embraces the principles of social democracy. It is widely acknowledged that Wales embodies a social-democratic ethos. Since 1999, it has consistently elected Labour into government, routinely repudiating free-market rhetoric in favour of left-of-centre ideals, regardless of whether a ...
Eight principal authority council by-elections this week plus a Scottish Parliament by-election. Let's start with a gain for the Lib Dems from the Conservatives, one which gives the party now an overall majority on Wokingham Council: Maiden Erlegh & Whitegates (Wokingham) Council By-Election Result: [IMG: 🔶] LDM: 31.2% (+3.2) [IMG: 🌹] LAB: 24.1% (-0.2) [IMG: 🌳] CON: 23.9% (-4.2) [IMG: ➡] RFM: 14.8% (New) [IMG: 🌍] GRN: 5.5% (-6.2) [IMG: 🧑🔧] TUSC: 0.5% (New)No Ind (-8.0) as previous.Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative.Changes w/ 2024. — Election Maps UK (@electionmaps.uk) 2025-06-06T00:09:18.651Z Congratulations to both Mohtasem Billah and Kirsten Sutton, and their ...
Lib Dems call on Labour Government to rule out real-terms policing budget cuts as unsolved vehicle theft epidemic continues Water company bonuses: Half baked announcement won't reform industry Government listens to Liberal Democrat calls to end "corridor care" but cannot lead patients "up the garden path" Lib Dems call on Labour Government to rule out real-terms policing budget cuts as unsolved vehicle theft epidemic continues Shock new data crunched by the Liberal Democrats reveals that last year, more than 75% of vehicle thefts went unsolved while just 2% of cases resulted in a suspect being charged or summonsed. 13 police ...
All are welcome at the Victoria Gardens big lunch this Sunday - 8th June - from 2.30pm!
It seems that the more we see of Reform the more chaotic they become. The Mirror reports that the party's chairman has hit out at a "dumb" PMQs question asked by the party's newly elected MP. They say that Sarah Pochin, who was elected in last month's Runcorn by-election, yesterday demanded the government ban the burka face covering, the problem is that this is not actually party policy: During Prime Minister's Questions, she asked Keir Starmer whether he would be joining countries including France, Denmark and Belgium in banning the face and body covering worn by some Muslim women. Reform ...
