Gateshead Council's budget will go before full council next week. On Monday the Lib Dem group had a meeting with the Chief Exec and Director of Finance to go through the proposals on which we will be voting a week tomorrow. After the officers left, the group had a discussion about our budget. The end result was an amendment which Cllr Ron Beadle, as Leader of the Opposition, will move. At this
Martin Parr looks at successful and unsuccessful attempts to depose a prime minister: "Labour, significantly, has never toppled a prime minister. It's not in the culture of so cooperativist a party: there's no equivalent of the 1922 Committee. And whenever it might have happened, the challenger blinked: Herbert Morrison with Attlee; Roy Jenkins with Wilson; David Miliband with Brown; Wes Streeting may have just joined the roster of the rueful." Sumaiya Motara on the brutal contest for low-paid work: "It's like The Hunger Games, but you're all trying to get a job in a shop where you're going to be ...
Matthew Spender's book A House in St John's Wood is a portrait of his father, the poet Stephen Spender. Stephen's father was Harold Spender and the Michael mentioned below is Stephen's brother Michael Spender. The third brother was Humphrey Spender- they were very much a family of Wikipedia entries. Early in his book, Matthew Spender writes: When Stephen was twelve, Harold stood as a Liberal candidate in a general election. My father remembered being hauled around Bath in a pony-carriage with his two brothers, each with a placard round his neck saying "Vote for Daddy". Harold lost and the effect ...
I am sure that I cannot be the only person to notice that this week marks the start of two major religious festivals. In fact, it is more than that - it is the celebration of two festivals which have many similarities. Christian will have enjoyed Pancake Tuesday yesterday. It is a day when you brought all your food together and ate it to mark the start today of Lent. Today is Ash Wednesday. During Lent it is customary for true believers to 'sacrifice' a luxury or pleasure typically food. At the end of Lent, they celebrate Easter and do ...
Liberal Democrats along with the SNP, the Green Party and several Independent MPs have recognised that Israel has committed genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention. So far so good. The bad news is that the failure to act by the British and other governments frankly amounts to complicity in war crimes. The UK Government still hasn't announced how it plans to follow up the 2024 ICJ judgements which warned of the plausible risk of genocide, confirmed that Israeli settlements are illegal and stated that other countries should not have any dealings with those settlements. The Trump 'Peace Plan' has ...
It can be argued that the Labour Government's decision last year to postpone the local elections due next next May was sensible. The councils concerned are to be reorganised and their new councillors would be in office for only a year. Then the councils i would be abolished. Why waste money on elections when it could be better used for mending the potholes, as Labour's current response argues now that "legal advice" obtained as a result of protests by Farage's Refom Party indicates that the move is illegal and will probably be reversed if it goes to court. Such an ...
Recorded at the Marquee Club in February 1965, so Steve Winwood (on vocals and piano) is 16 here.
Last week, Rupert Lowe launched his new "Restore" party. Restore what, exactly? Strip away the branding and the flag-waving and what you're left with isn't renewal. It's resentment. It's grievance politics dressed up as patriotism. To me, it looks like a diet BNP the same division, repackaged for the social media age. And I'm tired of pretending it isn't dangerous. Circling this movement are voices openly advocating "re-migration" the idea that British citizens like me should be sent "back" somewhere else. Steve Laws has pushed exactly that kind of rhetoric. According to this worldview, my place in this country is ...
The Independent reports that Reform UK has been accused of "pitching for the votes of misogynists, homophobes, racists and antisemites" after Suella Braverman, the party's new equalities chief, announced plans to scrap the Equality Act. The paper says that at a press conference in London on Tuesday, Nigel Farage unveiled his party's top team, appointing Ms Braverman as the party's education, skills and equalities spokesperson: Addressing the conference, she said Reform would repeal the Equality Act on day one if it wins the next election, claiming that Britain is being "ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion" policies. The Equality ...
