It's time we had another good disused railway video. This one follows the route of the old LNWR branch line between Weedon and Leamington Spa. Wolfhampcote is mentioned. As I discovered at the age of 10 on a family canal holiday, here you will find a deserted medieval village whose church still survives, two abandoned railway lines (the one the video is about and the Great Central main line) and an abandoned meander of the Oxford Canal, complete with a tunnel. Is it any wonder I turned out how I did?
Our democracy is under sustained attack. Repeated scandals and corruption have hollowed out trust, while powerful men who hate our democracy – from Silicon Valley to the Kremlin – undermine our social fabric and institutions. It is nothing short of a national crisis. It has therefore been deeply frustrating to see the litany of lost opportunities in the government's "Representation of the People Bill". What is called for is transformation – to restore trust and make our brittle, fragile democracy more resilient. This bill does not meet that moment. In all its 186 pages, it manages to avoid measures that ...
I once wrote of C.F.G. Masterman, Lucy Masterman's biography of her late husband Charles Masterman, in Liberator: There are too many undigested extracts from her diary for it to rank as great literature, but besides its value as a picture of Masterman, it is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to understand the big beasts of that Liberal government. For not only did Masterman serve under both Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, he and Lucy became friends of both families On 3 November 1939 the Salisbury Times published a long review of the book by Alan Campbell Johnson. He was ...
There were five principal council by-elections this week, four of which had a Liberal Democrat on the ballot, up from just one last time these wards were contested. In Kent, Ashley Wassall and the Sevenoaks team earned a quarter of the vote from a standing start, as the Conservatives picked up the seat from Independent. This is a good base to start from in the next campaign here. Good effort! Sevenoaks District Council, Hextable Conservative: 600 (38.9%, +19.3) Reform UK: 406 (26.3%, new) Liberal Democrats (Ashley Wassall): 367 (23.8%, new) Independent: 108 (7.0%, new) Green Party: 62 (4.0%, new) Conservative ...
On Wednesday 4th March 2026, Sunniside History Society had its monthly meeting at Sunniside Club. Instead of a speaker, at this meeting we had a lantern show! The Society had been given the photo collection of Francis Newman, a former member who passed away a few years ago. It included over 1000 slides. The Society has not yet gone through the slides so a random selection of a couple of
On Tuesday 3rd March Gateshead Lib Dems held their next executive meeting. I had to use the wide angle lens to fit everyone into the photo! Most of the business was about the local elections. Polling day is just 2 months away and there is much to be done. The exec meeting got many of the smaller jobs done - the sort of jobs that can be done now rather than left until the last minute. But
I'm lucky to represent an amazing area as a district and town councillor. Since I was elected at the age of 19, becoming Huntingdonshire's youngest ever councillor, I've had a huge amount of support from the community, friends, family, officers, and councillors of all parties. At the same time, I've also heard every "are you old enough for big trousers?" and "did you finish college last week?" jibe you can imagine. Let's be honest – most of the time that's good humour. Young people in politics are rare, people find it unusual, and people are excited to see a young ...
This week Southwark Liberal Democrats launched our manifesto for what will be our largest local election campaign in decades. After 16 years of Labour control, many residents feel the borough has been taken for granted. Southwark also illustrates a wider challenge facing the Liberal Democrats: how we rebuild our presence in major cities. Much of the party's recent growth has come in Tory-facing suburban and rural areas, but cities like London remain politically competitive and full of liberal minded voters looking for an alternative to Labour. If the Liberal Democrats are serious about becoming a national force again, we must ...
Among liberals, "populism" is a warning sign. It brings to mind angry speeches, conspiracy theories, and politicians who promise easy answers while blaming outsiders. Many of us instinctively reject it. That instinct is understandable. Yet it may also be a mistake. Populism, at its core, is a simple claim. It says that power has become too concentrated in the hands of a few people, and that ordinary citizens deserve more control over the decisions that affect their lives. That idea is not automatically extreme or dangerous. In fact, it fits comfortably within the liberal tradition. Liberals have always believed that ...
Five principal authority council by-elections this week, with four of them having Liberal Democrat candidates. That's up an impressive three on the previous time these wards were up, and in fact in all three of those wards it had previously been a long run of Lib Dem no shows as you'll see from the details below. The results also brought us the first Labour council by-election gain from Reform in this cycle of by-elections (i.e. since the last May local elections). Given there were none in the previous cycle it is possible that this is the first ever such one ...
The Guardian reports on the views of climate groups, academics and energy experts that the UK government must double down on its clean energy drive to protect bill payers from increasingly volatile fossil fuel markets in the wake of the US-Israel war on Iran. The paper quotes research published on Thursday, which shows that the last fossil fuel energy crisis, caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, cost the EU and the UK $1.8tn between 2022 and 2025, driving up bills and fuelling a devastating cost of living crisis. Now, the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, which started at the weekend, ...
