This has to be one of the weirdest Reform defections. Amelia Randall is, or rather was, a Reform councillor in Kent. Now she has defected to UKIP. Yes, you read that correctly! UKIP! We all thought UKIP had disappeared down a plug hole. Whether the defection was because Cllr Randall felt Reform was too rightwing or not rightwing enough is the big unknown. Jumping ship is normally something to be
On Saturday 6th September, I arranged for the Mayor of Gateshead, Cllr Freda Geddes, to open the new sports bar at Sunniside Social Club. She then had a game of darts with Cllr Marilynn Ord. Luke Liddler's title is safe! See the video above.
Lib Dems call for mandatory origin labelling on beef Davey on Doha Strikes: Starmer must summon Israeli Ambassador Ed Davey on Mandelson: Civil Service Commission must investigate if ambassador has broken diplomatic code Lib Dems push vote on banning loud music on public transport as new poll reveals impact of "headphone dodgers" on commuters Chamberlain writes to Health Secretary over stroke patient's 80-mile journey for care Greene: Asylum motion shows desperate Conservatives aping Reform Lib Dems call for mandatory origin labelling on beef On Back British Farming Day, the Liberal Democrats are urging the Government to protect British farmers by ...
Another gem from BBC Archive, which is well worth subscribing to on YouTube. Derek Cooper and his wonderful BBC voice travel the 63 miles from Dingwall to Kyle of Lochalsh by train. Cooper meets some of the people who live and work along the route. This is a clip from a programme screened in 1974, when the future of the line was in doubt. Happily, it's still open today. I've taken the train to Mallaig and to Wick and Thurso, but not yet been on this line.
It's not all one-way traffic as far as Reform UK are concerned. Jonathan Wallace writes on his blog: Two of Reform's constituency chairmen in Gateshead constituencies have defected to Advance, the party that split from Reform and was created in the image of its founder Ben Habib. According to an Advance news release, Damien Heslop, who was Reform's candidate in Gateshead Central and Whickham, as well as chair of Reform's constituency branch, has defected to Advance. He was the only Reform candidate in the local elections last year in Gateshead. And in neighbouring Jarrow and Gateshead East constituency, the chairman ...
Marios Richards has put together this great graph, based on the British Election Study data: [IMG: Marios Richards party attitudes graph] Graph from Marios Richards. As he points out, Reform's net ratings are worse than those for Ukip in 2014, making Reform UK's progress much more a story about relative Labour and Conservative failure than a story of Reform progress. The Lib Dem line also tells the story of the post-2015 election sympathy surge, the 2019 boom and bust, and the steady progress through the last Parliament. As with Ed Davey's own ratings, the party figures here show the potential ...
Wed 10th
15:54
How the Labour Government's "soft" approach to challenging regimes allowed transnational repression ...
How had the Rules-based International Order ('RBIO') influenced UK-China affairs on Hong Kong? A good example would The Handover. Britain transferred sovereignty to the People's Republic of China ('PRC') under the Sino-British declaration 1984 which promised a high autonomy to Hong Kongers with ever progressive democracy in Hong Kong. The transfer of sovereignty occurred as promised regardless of the human rights turmoil between the signing of the treaty and the TianAnMen massacre. Yet, do challenging regimes like China followed international treaties to the letter? No. First, China under the Chinese Communist Party ('CCP') imposed Chinese laws into Hong Kong and ...
The Greens had only one target seat in the local elections in Gateshead last year. While they closed the gap on Labour in Bridges ward, where Labour normally comfortably win on a low turnout, the Greens did not quite make it to victory in the ward. Labour won with a significantly reduced majority of 290. In September, along came a by-election in the ward. The Greens lost their coveted 2nd place
In this era of political party start ups, party splits and splits splintering further, an interesting piece of information came my way. Two of Reform's constituency chairmen in Gateshead constituencies have defected to Advance, the party that split from Reform and was created in the image of its founder Ben Habib.According to an Advance news release, Damien Heslop, who was Reform's
The recent shift forcing the Alan Turing Institute toward defence-focused AI research has sparked major questions about the UK's innovation strategy. Many argue that the government should have created or funded a dedicated defence AI institution with a clear mission, avoiding dilution of the Institute's vital civil AI research and social innovation. The sudden pivot caused staff unrest, leadership upheaval, and risked ongoing societal research programmes. Public trust and accountability are also crucial. National security projects need specialist oversight, ethical governance, and transparency—elements compromised when defence priorities are fused into a broadly purposed public research institute. The UK already has ...
"The puzzle for me is what drives Labour politicians (and some others) around the ID card loop? What is the enduring appeal of ID cards that always survives facts and logic? Paul Krugman talks about 'zombie ideas', ideas that keeping coming back to life no matter how many times they are apparently killed off by reason and experience, such as the idea that the path to national prosperity is taxing the rich less. For New Labour, with Tony Blair still out ahead, ID cards are a beloved zombie."David Howarth on Labour's fixation with the idea of a national identity card. ...
Our Culture and Media spokesperson Max Wilkinson MP, has written to the head of OfCom requesting that the BBC carries proportionate coverage of political parties. It's hardly surprising. We have 72 MPs, Reform have 5. Yet the BBC pumps out wall to wall Farage like he is some rock star. I thought Chris Mason knew better, but he wrote about the Reform conference with the excitement of a child in a sweetie shop next to a McDonalds. While Reform spit like sausages in a pan, our MPs get on and get stuff done – from Josh Babarinde getting the Government ...
Before anything else, I want to make clear what I mean by "good policy." I specifically am not defining it as policy I agree with, I mean policy that is specific enough to be implementable without a significant amount of further policy development, lacks vagary and stands up to basic intellectual scrutiny. Plenty of policy which I am opposed to passes that test. So does our party's policy meet this standard of good policy? As a test case, let's look at the agenda for our upcoming conference and it's first policy motion, F5: Backing Youth Work to Build Communities. It ...
There's a TV themed quiz night in the Corso Street Complex this Friday - 12th September - at 7pm. All welcome!
