More than 1.3 million PIP claimants at risk of losing support with worst hit areas revealed Davey: Starmer must rule out Trump tax on life-saving drugs Casey Review: Victims must finally get the justice they deserve McArthur: SNP must explain why it is using England as 'dumping ground' More than 1.3 million PIP claimants at risk of losing support with worst hit areas revealed The Government's cuts to Personal Independence Payments could leave 1.3 million people claiming the standard and enhanced-rate payment for daily living activities at risk of losing some support, analysis of the Government's response to a Liberal ...
Saturday was Carnival day in Market Harborough. The crowds were so large in town that I gave up trying to photograph the parade and headed for the showground in the afternoon. The lovely Debbie, who I used to work with, was on the Co-op stall. She's worth knowing as she gives out free bananas.
As we approach the first anniversary of Labour's loveless landslide general election victory, it is worth taking stock of the current state of British politics. The Starmer ministry has committed a series of unpopular acts, many of which run contrary to the ethos of the Labour Party as the left-leaning of the two major parties and have proven alienating to some of their key voters. The Conservatives have failed to make any significant recovery in the opinion polls, likely due to ongoing backlash against their disastrous decisions over austerity, Brexit, coronavirus, the cost-of-living crisis and the mini-budget. And Reform UK ...
Embed from Getty ImagesAfter covering its lost gardens and the drought of 1947, we're going back to Stonton Wyville. Reader's voice: At least it's not bloody Snailbeach again. Jeremy Benson, who has visited every village church in Leicestershire and put together a Bluesky thread with photos of each one, told me Stonton Wyville was one of those villages where he struggled a bit to find something interesting to say. But I think he found something very interesting, because he put me on to another forgotten disaster. Over to the Leicester Advertiser for Saturday 18 January 1862: Dreadful Boiler Explosion. - ...
Imagine that, having committed some unspeakable acts in a former life, you were asked in this one to deliver a verdict on whether the Spending Review was good or bad for UK Growth. What would be your answer? The most honest one would be shrug, followed by a rant about the slipperiness of Treasury communications. The second of these is not some cosmetic point: the way numbers are presented at fiscal moments appears designed to impress the foolish and exasperated the better-informed. As The Economist put it, on June 11th the House of Commons felt like a bingo hall, or ...
No one can deny the reality that we live in an increasingly dangerous world. Russia's attempted invasion of Ukraine. Israel's war with Hamas. The dangerous stand off between Iran and Israel. Ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan. The Democratic Republic of Congo. And on and on. With the benefit of hindsight how foolish it now seems for the political scientist Francis Fukuyama to have declared, in an at the time much lauded book in 1992, the 'end of history.' The argument that, with the conclusion of the Cold War, Western liberal democracy had won the battle of ideas and beaten ...
We live in a post-truth age. No longer is there any such thing as objective reality. On both Left and Right, the media, commentators and politicians present their own subjective reality, primarily based on feelings and lived experiences. These alternate realities allow facts to be denied, history to be altered and new 'facts' to be created which are more conducive to the mindset of other people who live in this particular simulacrum of 'real' reality. When facts do not matter, when a lie is believed even when all the evidence points to the contrary, when we cannot or refuse to ...
It is a Labour pledge to empty all hotels of asylum seekers by the next general election. So how are they going to do it? I sincerely hope not by expanding sites like Wethersfield where, as the Helen Bamber Foundation has said that accommodating people at the base causes harm to their physical and mental health and "Housing people, including survivors of torture and trafficking, in an isolated, overcrowded camp reminiscent of an open-air prison, with inadequate healthcare and legal services, is an inhumane way to treat those seeking protection.". There are Liberal Democrat alternatives, other than "I wouldn't have ...
A strong sales pipeline is essential to developing new business as a solo consultant. The sales pipeline starts with relationships. Relationships with potential and existing clients can lead to opportunities. Opportunities can lead to you being asked to submit a proposal to work on a project. And proposals can lead to you being commissioned to undertake consulting assignments. [IMG: A strong sales pipeline helps you to develop new business as a solo consultant] The sales pipeline for developing new business as a solo consultant But the sales pipeline is leaky. Not all relationships yield opportunities. Not all opportunities result in ...
There's a strange fact which you may not know about the UK. You live in the world's only country that tells the world that no person (man or woman) can ever be raped by a woman. Imagine telling a lesbian that they don't count because their assaulter wasn't a man? We live in a time where it is in vogue to put on a rainbow in June but gay or lesbian survivors of same-sex assault aren't even recorded. Is this not the peak of homophobia? But this is our law. Here's another funny fact. We're the world's only jurisdiction that ...
Gloucestershire Live wins our Headline of the Day Award for this tale of tourism in Bourton-on-the-Water. The judges left me to comment, so I shall merely point out that all tourist areas have honeypots where visitors tend to congregate. If you go to the Shropshire hills but don't want crowds, then avoid the Carding Mill Valley at Church Stretton. And if you find St Ives in Cornwall too crowded, walk a mile along the cliffs towards Zennor and you'll have an amazing landscape all to yourself. Or you could forget the Cotswolds and visit the Notswolds. This post is sponsored ...
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT REPORT FOR THE WEST END WARD - WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 16 JUNE 2025 Blinshall Street (Douglas Street to 50 metres south) - closed until August 2025 for construction works. Douglas Street (Blinshall Street to Brown Street) - temporary traffic lights until August 2025 for construction works. Scottish and Southern Energy Networks Elmwood Cable Renewal Scheme - temporary traffic lights and road closure from Tuesday 4 March for 19 weeks insofar as it affects the West End Ward: Ancrum Road (at Peel Street) - temporary traffic lights for 4 weeks; andTullideph Road (City Road ...
Nation Cymru reports that this week, Members of Parliament will vote on a series of measures which will drastically cut the financial support given to disabled people and people with long-term health conditions across Great Britain. However, it is becoming clear that Wales is going to suffer more than the rest of the UK, having a higher proportion of people receiving support for health conditions than in England. As a result, these cuts will be particularly harmful, with 91% of recipients of standard daily living and 16% of enhanced daily living rate recipients set to lose their Personal Independence Payment: ...
