The big news from today at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Bournemouth is that the leadership wants to change the party's policy of opposing the introduction of a compulsory national identity card. A fringe meeting at eight o'clock this morning, reports the BBC, showed strong support for the our existing policy of opposing the introduction of compulsory national identity cards: The majority of those present argued against digital ID cards, over civil liberties and data security concerns, among other things. Veteran MP Alistair Carmichael told the meeting: "It seems to me if we are going to go along with the ...
So here it is! Rule Britannia as sung by Lib Dems at the rally on Saturday 20th September at Bournemouth conference.
The pay-off for last week's embarrassing grovelling to President Trump is apparently £150bn of American high-technology investment in the UK. Even spread over ten years that's a lot of investment. I suppose investment from anywhere is to be welcomed, but foreign investment of this kind has two disadvantages: 1. If it is successful (which is dearly to be hoped) it leads to a flow of profits out of the country on the "invisible" part of the balance of external payments. We hear little of the balance of payments these but the persistent deficit on it dominated politics for the first ...
Today, I was late for a training session on how to squeeze the vote of opponents. With Labour's vote disintegrating, a few interesting ward results were flung around the meeting. In one ward in Cornwall, the winning candidate got only 19% of the vote. In another ward in Hull, Labour's vote crashed from its normal region of 1000 to 200. Could the same happen in Gateshead? We shall see.The
As you can see, I am in Bournemouth for the Lib Dem conference. I arrived on Friday evening having endured a seven hour journey by train to London and then picked up the connection at Waterloo. For me, the most important point about conference is the chance to get to training meetings (there must be dozens of them) and indeed, my first event yesterday was to go to a training session (
-That was the title of a Bournemouth fringe meeting today. It was hosted by Liberal Democrats for Peace in Middle East. Their President, Leon Duveen, was on the panel with their Chair, Mohammed Amin. The panel (above) featured Sharon Booth, who is the Chief Executive and founder of Solutions Not Sides. SNS "is an education programme that exists to provide humanising encounters, diverse narratives and critical-thinking tools in order to empower young people with the knowledge, empathy and skills to promote dialogue and conflict resolution, and to challenge prejudice in the UK." Also on the panel were two peace activists ...
Serious questions have to be asked about whether the Your/You/Ewe party will ever be launched. Recent events look more like a political boxing match rather than the launch of a political party. It is not uncommon for there to be divisions and civil wars at the top of political parties. The Your Party however hasn't even launched and yet the "leaders" (Sultana and Corbyn) are already
[IMG: The sun rises over Bournemouth Pier] It's 10 am on Sunday morning as I write this. I've already been to an 8am consultation session, of which more later. So far my Conference has been everything I've wanted it to be – a wonderful catch-up with friends, meeting lots of new people and playing shops at the stalls with the enthusiasm of a 5 year old in a room full of lollipops. I arrived from drizzly Scotland to the warm, sunny and temperate climes of the south coast on Friday morning. I had planned an afternoon on the beach but ...
United Kingdom The world was focused on Britain this week. A state visit is a big symbolic event but usually the public interest is confined to the two countries involved. Not this time, Trump's unprecedented second state visit to the United Kingdom, was front page news in Sweden, Germany, Japan.... Would the president behave? If the US-UK special relationship faltered in the face of MAGA what chance was there for the rest of the world? Well, the visit was a diplomatic triumph for both countries. The president and King Charles got on famously and their speeches were the epitome of ...
This, says Rhino, was the sound of the summer of 1967 in the United States, but it wasn't in the UK, where it reached only no. 63 in the singles chart. Windy was written by written by Ruthann Friedman, who gave two different readings of the song. First she said: I have heard so many different permutations of what the song was about. Here is the TRUTH. I was sitting on my bed - the apartment on the first floor of David Crosby's house in Beverly Glenn [sic] - and there was a fellow who came to visit and was ...
With thanks to George Smith and Dundee Memories, a great photograph looking up Blackness Road in 1962.
As the chair of a charity mysef, I am very conscious of the impact that recent government measures have had on the sector. Costs have increased due to rises in the minimum wage and the employers' national insurance levy, while the financial pressures felt by families have reduced contributions and even hit turnover in charity shops. The Independent reports that the upshot of all this is that the number of UK charities that have been forced to shut their doors for good has jumped by 74 per cent this year. The paper adds that the sector has raised fears that ...
