Over on Liberal Democrat Voice Leicestershire's own Mathew Hulbert asks how we Liberal Democrats can improve our media coverage. In this post, he quotes a former lobby correspondent who suggests it is not all down to media bias. Ian Silvera says (among other things): Spoke to upwards of 10 lobby journalists at the Reform Conference. Sounds like Lib Dems have a media crisis. Overriding sentiment is that hacks and editors think Lib Dem Conf will be a waste of time, the party isn't engaging on the big issues and it's not as reactive as it used to be. The sentiment ...
I found this video, Dickens in Parliament, via an article about the reporters' gallery in the 19th-century House of Commons by Kathryn Rix. It reminds us that the Palace of Westminster the young Dickens knew was largely destroyed by fire in 1834, and that he was reporting the proceedings of the Commons in the days of the Reform Act. And I like the picture of Dan Jarvis reading Dickens while on active service in Afghanistan.
Switch on the news and you'd think British politics is a two or three party show... and we're not one of those. But beyond the red and blue and now turquoise noise, we Liberal Democrats are out there shaping debates, winning councils, and fighting for fairness. The only problem? You'd hardly know it from the coverage. So whose fault is that? Well, I gently suggest, it is both the media's partly but, yes, also at least in part, our party's. There's no doubt that we're not getting the coverage that the largest third force in the House of Commons deserves ...
The past two weeks have exposed British politics as squalid and dysfunctional. Having probed for over a year without much success the right-wing press have at last exposed a chink in the armour of the Labour Party's deputy leader and cabinet minister, Angela Rayner. She has been found to have failed to pay sufficient stamp duty, something in the region of £40 000, when she bought a flat in Hove, has admitted culpability and resigned. The Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has joined the witch-hunt, having declared that Ms Rayner's continuance in office would have been "untenable." That's a bit ...
On Sunday BBC Sounds repeated a 2022 abridged reading of Jeremy Paxman's "Black Gold" on Radio 4 Extra. It is a social history of how coal "made Britain". Like the slavery which also helped to make Britain, it is an element of history which many will ignore or dismiss as irrelevant in a future where we aim to put the extraction of fossil fuels and the enslavement of human beings behind us. I worked in Barnsley between 1979 and 1986, as well as being the Liberal parliamentary candidate for Barnsley Central in1983. I also lived across the road from the ...
James Ball argues that the tech bros have outsourced social media moderation to British police forces - not surprisingly, they're terrible at it: "It shouldn't become normal that the police get involved in social media disputes. They have better things to do, and it's bad for freedom of expression - even if people aren't actually being sent to the gulags, self-censorship based on fear is real and a problem. We should be trying to tackle this. And that means looking why it's happening." "I can understand why he took the job. I can understand why he left Meta after Donald ...
This year's local elections in England saw tremendous council gains for Liberal Democrats across the country. Even after the highs of last year's General Election, we remain a party on an upward trajectory with a clear liberal vision, international values and a determined drive to change our communities for the better. But while celebrations were welcome and deserved, we should also take stock at how unrepresentative the elections were just months ago. First Past the Post caused havoc across England, resulting in councils made up of seats that didn't fairly reflect how people voted. When it came to mayoral elections, ...
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT REPORT FOR THE WEST END WARD - WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2025 Lochee Road (at Smellies Lane) - stop/go traffic control for one week for bollard upgrade works. Shaftesbury Park - road closure for 5 days from Monday 8 September for carriageway resurfacing. West Marketgait - closed northbound between Greenmarket and Nethergate on Sunday 14 September for one day for road defect repairs. Forthcoming Roadworks Riverside Avenue (near Wright Avenue) - temporary traffic lights from Monday 15 September for 2 weeks for Network Rail work.
The Independent reports that Keir Starmer has been warned Labour's deputy leadership contest is a make or break moment for the government, with the party facing "the fight of its life" amid the rise of Reform. The paper says that with Nigel Farage comfortably leading in the polls, Dame Emily Thornberry and Andy Burnham said the PM must listen more to his backbenchers to stop Reform UK from winning the next general election: Dame Emily said she was considering running for the deputy leadership after Angela Rayner was forced to resign over her failure to pay £40,000 in stamp duty ...
It seems the Party With No Name met in Newcastle over the weekend to listen to a speech by Not Party Leader Zarah Sultana. I am still confused as to what the Corbyn Party is to be called. Your, You or Ewe or a combination of these are the front runners to be the name of the "I can't believe it's not the Corbyn Labour Party." A photo from the conference, held at the Discovery Museum, showed a
