Despite the judges raising a collective eyebrow at the newspaper's choice of plural for "flamingo", our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Guardian.
In the 22nd June this year the Observer published a useful article by Will Hutton containing some useful facts and perspective on taxation in the UK. This is a summary (published without his permission, but I hope he won't mind. I have tried to put information from the article in bold type, and my own minor interpolations in ordinary type 1.Next year (2026) the UK's tax take as a share of GDP will rise to its highest level in 70 years. The right-wing press will have a field-day flaunting this as speculation in the next few months continues about almost ...
Twenty years ago, I published a chapter ("Histories of child abuse") in the book Making and Breaking Children's Lives. In it, I was feeling my way towards the thesis that child abuse is less a new discovery than a phenomenon that has been regularly uncovered and then forgotten. This belief grew from a time when I was producing psychology newsletters in my day job and studying for an MA in Victorian Studies in the evenings. This belief was strengthened as I came to realised that the caring professions knew as much about their own history as they did about 19th-century ...
Having blogged about the explosion that killed four men at Stonton Wyville, and then about the dangers posed by the boilers that powered steam threshing machines, I thought I would see how two masters of 19th-century rural literature wrote about these machines. Here's Thomas Hardy in Tess of the d'Urbevilles: Close under the eaves of the stack, and as yet barely visible, was the red tyrant that the women had come to serve—a timber-framed construction, with straps and wheels appertaining—the threshing-machine which, whilst it was going, kept up a despotic demand upon the endurance of their muscles and nerves. A ...
With the end of another, rather interesting, quarter, another update to PollBase, my database of British voting intention opinion polls since the 1930s is now up. It includes the first PM approval ratings from 1938 and first national voting intention scores from 1939. Download the new version here. Changes this time include: Additional Stack Data Strategy polling from the 2019 and 2024 Parliaments. Additional Gallup data from pre-1945 and from the 1945, 1950, 1951 and 1955 Parliaments. Additional and corrected data for some MORI polls from the 1974 Parliament. Additional NOP data from the October 1974, 1979, 1983 and 1987 ...
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention polls for the next general election, along with the latest MRP projections and party leadership ratings. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls PollsterConLabLDGrnRefLab leadFieldwork Techne 18% (nc) 22% (-1) 16% (nc) 9% (+1) 29% (+1) -7% (vs Ref) 9-10/7 GB Find Out Now ...
Trump's Big Beautiful Bill helps the rich and hurts the poor. And yet, Trump was elected by a demographic shift of poor voters to Republican ranks. They voted for him not because they believe he supports the rich instead of them, but because they feel he speaks to their values, frustrations, and identity in ways that matter more to them than traditional economic policies. Trump validates their worldview.He gives them someone to blame for their struggles. He channels their anger into a story where they are the true Americans under siege. So how loyal is that base? Pretty loyal. For ...
In Woking, two seats were successfully defended, both with overwhelming victory, with both a county and district by-election. Well done to Louise Morales, Deborah Hughes and the local team for ensuring these seats remained with us. Surrey CC, Woking South Liberal Democrats (Louise Morales): 1,939 (63.8%, +5.8) Reform UK: 584 (19.2%, new) Conservatives: 291 (9.6%, -16.0%) Green Party: 134 (4.4%, -2.5) Labour: 91 (3.0%, -4.6) Liberal Democrat HOLD Woking BC, Hoe Valley Liberal Democrats (Deborah Hughes): 1,118 (63.3%, -8.1) Reform UK: 379 (21.1%, new) Conservative: 130 (7.2%, -9.0) Green Party: 83 (4.6%, new) Labour: 69 (3.8%, -8.6) Liberal Democrat HOLD ...
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT REPORT FOR THE WEST END WARD - WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 14 JULY 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: Ancrum Road (at Peel Street) - temporary traffic lights for 4 weeks; andTullideph Road (City Road to Greenbank Place) - closed westbound for 5 ...
I was looking through the list of purple plaques in Wales when I came across a familar name. As the site says, Val Feld's plaque, the first Purple Plaque in Wales, is located on the Senedd building in Cardiff Bay, and was unveiled by her daughters and granddaughters on 6th March 2018: Val was born Valerie Breen Turner in Bangor on 29 October 1947 and died in Swansea on 17 July 2001. She was one of the most highly regarded members of the National Assembly for Wales across the political spectrum, as one of the leading architects of devolution, achieved ...
Well done Planting Up Sunniside. Their volunteers have been at work maintaining the planters at the Kingsway/Sunniside Road junction in Sunniside. Great work and a great display of flowers.
I was in the Lib Dem office this morning to print surveys for four of our key wards to deliver over the coming days. Two of the wards are not (yet) held by us but as we look to expand our beachheads in Gateshead, we need to take on Labour and beat them. The two other wards are split between Lib Dems and Labour. We are looking for a clean sweep in the all out elections in those wards next
