"Unlike the England cricket team," remarked one of the judges. Together with her fellows, she gave our Headline of the Day Award to Essex Live.
The House of Lords also paid tribute to Jim Wallace yesterday. Our leader in the House of Lords, Jeremy Purvis led the speeches. You can watch here. My Lords, many of us aspire to be a good politician, to do good and to be a good person. More times than not, we fall short. Jim Wallace was a good man who saw it as his role in life to do good things. He did, and they will last. With great sorrow, we have been denied the opportunity of hearing a valedictory speech in this House from Jim. He would have ...
It is part of Jim Wallace's legacy that three of our MSPs worked for him in some capacity. Willie Rennie was the Chief Executive of the Scottish Lib Dems who helped us win 17 seats in the new Scottish Parliament in 1999. He then went to Holyrood to head up our operation there for the first term. This is his tribute to Jim yesterday: The text is below: Even though it seemed that Jim Wallace had lived many lives in one, he was taken from us far too soon. I worked for Jim as the party's chief executive during the ...
Alex Cole-Hamilton also worked for Jim Wallace – in the Scottish Parliament Liberal Democrat staff pool. Here is his tribute in yesterday's Scottish Parliament session, detailing when Jim and his wife Rosie first met. The rest of the speeches can be seen here. The text is below. Presiding Officer, I start by thanking you and the First Minister for such heartfelt words. Jim's family and my party have been overwhelmed by the kindness that has been shown to us in these difficult days. We are heart-sore at his loss, but the outpouring of love and respect that has come forth ...
There have only ever been two MSPs for Orkney: Jim Wallace and his successor Liam McArthur. Liam worked for Jim as a Special Adviser when he was First Minister. You can see Jim's influence in the way that Liam works to bring people together. Yesterday the Scottish Parliament held tributes and flew flags at half mast. We start with Liam's heartfelt tribute to his old boss and mentor. The text is below: I thank colleagues for their generous comments this afternoon, and I thank those who have been in touch over recent days with wonderful messages. I have drawn huge ...
It has been said many times over the past few days that Jim Wallace was a kind man. It speaks volumes that almost everyone you might ask has an example of this kindness. Here is my own. It is a doubly useful anecdote because it is quite embarrassing for me, and very complimentary to Jim. Just a day or two into the Shetland by-election of 2019, when I was but a stripling in the world of political campaigning, I was assigned to go door knocking with Jim and another gentleman whose name, face and history I have entirely forgotten. Despite ...
I'm enjoying Alwyn Turner's new book A Shellshocked Nation: Britain Between the Wars, and not just because my name turns up in the acknowledgements at the back. As Andrew Marr says in his New Statesman review, Turner builds his account on newspapers and popular magazines. This produces a bottom-up, sharp and often surprising read. And Turner's research is commendably thorough. Here he is on L. du Garde Peach, sharing far more than I knew about the author of most of Ladybird Books' Adventures from History series: If the stage and screen were tightly censored The same was not quite true ...
When Jeff Buckley drowned at the age 30, he had released just one album but was an internationally celebrated artist. His name is often yoked with that of his father Tim Buckley, who died two years younger, but they only met once.
Today is going to be a bit of a Jim Wallace Day here. There have been so many wonderful tributes to him from people in and beyond the Liberal Democrats, a testament to how loved he was and how important he was a figure in Scottish life, not just politics. But we start with his own words, a speech he gave in 2025 to Scottish Conference, three days before the election was called, marking 25 yesrs of the Scottish Parliament: Grateful for the invitation to speak. Fascination with anniversaries which end in a 5 or a 0. I once heard ...
The Mirror reports that Nigel Farage has been accused of choosing to plunge half a million children into poverty after unveiling plans to slash a vital benefit to fund 5p off a pint. The paper says that the Reform UK leader has announced a £3 billion support package for pubs, funded by restoring the two-child benefit cap: The plans would see VAT reduced to 10% for the hospitality sector, the employer national insurance increase for hospitality businesses scrapped, beer duty cut by 10%, new staggered business rate abolition for pubs and fresh regulation to support landlords. It is estimated that ...
