Gateshead Lib Dems had yet another action day on Saturday. This time it was in Lamesley ward. It was also the 2nd action day in Lamesley (soon to be renamed Birtley North and Lamesley) in the past month. 500 doors were knocked on and there was a positive response to us. The returns were terrible for Labour. This is not just in Lamesley. Everywhere we are canvassing, the result for Labour
On Wednesday, Sunniside History Society held their monthly meeting at Sunniside Social Club. My job was to chair the meeting. The talk was given by Dr Alice Burridge and the title of the talk was "Small but Deadly". It was a look at how bacterial and virus based infections were treated throughout history and how they spread. It was a fascinating talk which kept the audience spellbound. The next
I was in the Lib Dem office in Co Durham on Friday. My job was to print 500 surveys for the Lamesley Lib Dem Focus Team. They were due to do some more door knocking on Saturday. It was a quick job, less than 20 minutes to print the required numbers. I like jobs like that!
Embed from Getty ImagesAnd not more votes, as the Independent headline has it. Either they don't employ subeditors any more or this one has not read the article properly. Anyway, here is John Curtice speaking at a Conservative Party Conference fringe meeting today: The polling expert told a fringe panel at the Conservative party conference in Manchester that the party needed to make it to "base camp" before they could even think about climbing the electoral "Himalayas" of getting back into government. Recent YouGov polling showed the Liberal Democrats on 15 points, one behind Kemi Badenoch's party on 16. Reform ...
We are reeling from the terrible attack on Jews in Manchester on Yom Kippur. Shocking, but sadly not surprising. Perhaps now politicians should dial down the hyperbole around the Middle East. Words such as "apartheid" and "genocide" shed more heat than light, obscuring rather than clarifying a conflict that demands honesty. The attack brought home the real meaning of "Globalise the Intifada". Israel's government is distinct from Zionism, which is distinct from Jews. Yet most of Britain's 300,000 Jews feel connected to the world's only Jewish state, home to half of global Jewry. That is why events in Israel reverberate ...
I recently read a paper Ribonucleotide incorporation into mitochondrial DNA drives inflammation which I found very interesting. The reason I found it interesting is perhaps summarised in the first paragraph of the discussion section which I will quote: We demonstrate that increased incorporation of rNTPs into mtDNA during replication leads to the release of mtDNA fragments from mitochondria and
[IMG: The optics of the arrests in so-called liberal London yesterday were appalling and the words of a Labour Party lurching to the right on civil liberties were spine chilling] Anyone who is concerned about civil liberties in the UK will have been chilled at the words coming from Labour over the weekend about tougher action against repeated protests. Of course, the statement was issued after more than 500 people were arrested in London at an event to support Palestine Action. Let me be clear from the start that whilst I support the people of Palestine, I do not support ...
In 2022, shortly after Russia's illegal expansionist invasion of Ukraine, I took to Twitter to keep up with any updates. One post in particular caught my attention: a Russian ambassador pushing the Kremlin line of "saving persecuted Russians in the Donbas region". I clicked on the comments, only to find a small group of people with cartoon dogs as their profile pictures, sharing memes mocking Putin and the Russian army. I first thought nothing of it until I saw a follow-up post from the ambassador, in which he said, "You pronounced this nonsense, not me." I remember commenting, over and ...
Peter Jukes reveals that, during the crucial period when Nathan Gill, the former MEP convicted of accepting bribes, was most active, working directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin's most senior ally in Ukraine, he was also one of Nigel Farage's closest confidantes. "Labour's former tough talk on sleaze and lobbying has largely melted away. Aside from tinkering with rules on MPs' second jobs, there has been no sign of meaningful reform - despite the lobbying industry's own trade body, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, calling for it." Peter Geoghegan went to the Labour Party Conference. Fiona Harvey fact checks ...
I heard this a couple of weeks ago on one of BBC4's numerous Friday reruns of vintage editions of Top of the Pops. The Tourists were the band Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were in before they formed Eurythmics. Before she formed The Tourists, Lennox had been the flute player with a folk rock band called Dragon's Playground - she left before they appeared on the TV talent show New Faces. And before that she had been studying flute, piano and harpsichord at the Royal Academy of Music. Maybe I'm being fanciful, but I detect both the academic in her ...
Drone wall The EU heads of government—and the British Prime Minister—have given their go-ahead to establish a "drone wall" on the border with Russia. The move follows Russian invasions by jet fighters of Estonian, Polish and Romanian air space; a cyber attack which closed Berlin Airport and drone activity which closed Copenhagen and Oslo Airports. The plan is to deploy a multi-layered "drone wall" to quickly detect, track and destroy Russian drones. A nirvana for anyone who has grown to adulthood with hand attached to a joystick. Ten allies are providing anti-drone and surveillance support. They include: Poland, the UK, ...
Editor's Note: In November party members will be voting to elect our next Party President. At Lib Dem Voice we welcome posts from each of the candidates - one to launch their candidature plus a maximum of one per week during the actual campaign. Misogyny is not just a political issue — it is a deeply personal one. As I stand to be elected Vice President of the Liberal Democrats, I so carry with me the voices of countless women who have been ignored, dismissed, or silenced for too long. I have listened to friends, colleagues, and campaigners tell me ...
With thanks to SJ Bogue and Dundee Memories, a fantastic photograph of the former Magdalen Green Railway Station in 1956, the year it closed.
The Independent reports that new research has found that more than 180 constituencies are threatened by Reform UK's controversial pro-fracking agenda. The paper says that the analysis by Friends of the Earth this week identifies the parliamentary areas that could be vulnerable to development for fracking if Nigel Farage's party were to get into government: More than 180 constituencies are threatened by Reform UK's controversial pro-fracking agenda, new research has revealed. The analysis by Friends of the Earth this week identifies the parliamentary areas that could be vulnerable to development for fracking if Nigel Farage's party were to get into ...
