Christine Jardine says it was a privilege to support the Assisted Dying Bill: "The debate has been for all of us MPs a harrowing experience as we welcomed into Parliament the families and friends of terminally-ill adults, who either had to live in pain, or make the heartbreaking trip to Dignitas alone to avoid the risk of their family being investigated for assisting a death." "Nobody identified more strongly with Britain than that generation, many of whom had a picture of Queen Elizabeth II on their living-room wall. When the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury docks in Essex, its occupants ...
Tue 24th
13:07
19 July 2025 - Social Liberal Forum Conference: Building a Liberal Vision for Britain's Future
Tickets for this event are available via the Social Liberal Forum website. The Challenge We Face Nine years have passed since the Brexit referendum divided our nation. The narrow Leave victory, driven primarily by the "left behind" communities in Wales, the Midlands, and Northern England—areas that felt abandoned by decades of economic neglect—set us on a path that has fundamentally reshaped British politics. Those of us who supported Remain were left grappling with profound questions: How do we understand what happened? How do we respond constructively to the concerns that drove that vote? The 2024 election brought hope that Labour ...
My thanks to Tony Vickers for usefully setting out his take on the subject of GDP in last Friday's Lib Dem Voice, Global Capitalist Economics: time to unmask GDP?. Here in response is my own take, which isn't far from his. I see the fundamental aim of any progressive movement to be the enhancement of human well-being, including that of future generations. A progressive government needs to recognise four preconditions for sustainable and enhanced well-being: a supportive physical environment, such as a stable climate, clean water and fertile soils; a healthy economy free from such scourges as poverty, squalid public ...
At Boxmoor County Primary School we had only two pieces of music: Morning by Grieg and Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia. And, as far as I recall, the headmaster, Mr Staten, had only two stories. That was me writing in 2009, when I found one of those stories repeated in Roger Scruton's Gentle Regrets, where he reports hearing it from Monsignor Alfred Gilbey, who was the Catholic chaplain at Cambridge during his undergraduate days. As Mr Staten told it, a great artist was painting scenes from the life of Christ. Having begun with the Nativity many years before, he was on ...
It's the Lib Dems who can beat Reform Here are some statistics that should both encourage us and spur us on. They are for principal authority council by-elections since May 1st where a Reform candidate finished as one of the top two: Reform and Conservative in the top two : 0% Conservative wins Reform and Labour in the top two: 17% Labour wins Reform and Lib Dem in the top two: 78% Lib Dem wins In fact, the figures are even better than that, because those other 22% of contests where Reform finished first and the Lib Dems second were ...
Our joint weekly ward surgery takes place tonight. This week it is as follows : Blackness Library (Tuesdays 5pm - every week during school term time) All welcome - no appointment necessary! Please note this is our final surgery before the school summer holidays - surgeries return after the holidays - but we will be continuing our weekly street surgeries over the summer.
