It's almost 10 years since I was given a late-night cup of tea in this imposing village hall. It's Godmersham and Crundale Village Hall, and if you go to the gallery on its website you will see what an impressive space it is. I was there because my train had been derailed - I may have blogged about it once or twice at the time. Looking for media reports about the accident today, I found one on Kent Online I had not seen before:Residents and Southeastern employees have been commended for their actions after a train derailed near the village ...
Tue 15th
19:21
Reform council leader pleads for government to soften new visa regime for care workers - Welcome to ...
The Reform UK leader of Kent County Council has written to the home secretary expressing "grave concerns" about government proposals to reduce health and social care visas. In the letter, which was also signed by the council's cabinet member for social care Diane Morton, she said: "Across the contracts for the council's adult social care and health services there are approximately 150 providers we are aware of who have sponsorship licences which is equal to 20-25% of our social care workforce being from overseas. "There are a number of displaced social care workers who may have lost their jobs, or ...
It is something of a cliche to argue that Britain is running out of money, living beyond its means, wandering through a fiscal fool's paradise – but no less true for that. The trend of old-age payments will make it even worse (read The Economist). It was the great unspoken theme of the last election – well, unspoken except for every damned think tanker with a spreadsheet, who could in half a minute explain that Jeremy Hunt's departing NICs cuts were unaffordable, and Rachel Reeves' incoming promise not to raise the major taxes just as unrealistic. And things have gotten ...
KTLA, a Los Angeles television station, wins Headline of the Day: A man who ran for Ventura County sheriff will stand trial for allegedly trying to register four cats to vote. Bruce Boyer, a Chatsworth resident, is accused of trying to register four cats to vote ahead of the 2024 election. He pleaded not guilty to those charges earlier this year. As detailed by the Ventura County Star, Boyer allegedly tried to enroll Cool T. Cat, Estrea D. Tigre, Fritz T. Cat and Sylvester T. Cat as voters. My own view is that cats are certainly intelligent enough to vote, ...
Tue 15th
11:42"Let's get him out before he poisons all the fishes": Robert Jenrick in the River Teme at Leintwardi...
What the hell is Robert Jenrick doing in the River Teme at Leintwardine? Readers of this blog will remember that Malcolm Saville's 11th Lone Pine Club adventure, The Secret of the Gorge, opens in this Herefordshire village, though most of the action takes place a couple of miles downstream in the Downton Gorge. Seeing this photo of Jenrick, I was reminded in particular of this encounter with the villainous Simon Blandish in chapter 7: Macbeth advanced and so did the Lone Piners, for they already sensed what was going to happen. Macbeth made another little sortie and again Blandish swore ...
This was the first UK number 1 to feature a sitar (played by Brian Jones) and an influence on the emerging genre of psychedelic rock. And I've always loved it.
The Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza has produced a totally damming Report on Child Poverty in the UK. The report is based on listening to children about their experiences of poverty - not just statistics but what it feels like - the sense of shame of being poor, a great awareness of their families financial situation, the challenges of keeping homes warm and of living in temporary accommodation. What struck me in particular was children hiding the family's financial circumstances and feeling embarrassed about it and being bullied and shamed by other children for being poor. The commentary by ...
One of the brightest stars on the Lib Dem front bench, Josh Babarinde, has been talking to Nick Robinson on this week's Political Thinking podcast. He described his ultimately successful tenacious pursuit of Labour ministers to get them to bring in a specific category of offence for domestic abuse. He saw the need for this when Labour released many prisoners early to make room in our crumbling and inadequate prison system. He was furious that Labour could not make good on its promise not to release domestic abuse perpetrators early because they couldn't identify them all. He talks about his ...
Just a reminder that our Tuesday surgeries today do not take place as it is during the school summer holidays. However, we can be contacted at any time on Dundee 459378 or by email at westend@dundeelibdems.org.uk - many thanks! Please note that our street surgeries on a Thursday will take place as normal.
One of the fundamental tenets of Reform's policy platform is to cut immigration, no matter what the damage to the UK economy or the health service. Despite the impact on social care, they even want to deport all foreign-born care workers. As the Guardian says, while Reform does not have a definitive national position on this issue, the general approach set out by Farage and his fellow MPs has been to push repeatedly for a significant fall in overall migration and curbs to work visas: In May, Farage said care staff were not skilled and overseas care workers should only ...
Trump state visit: PM should invite Mark Carney for official visit and to address Parliament Lib Dems slam "astounding" arrogance of Thames Water following hosepipe ban announcement Trump state visit: PM should invite Mark Carney for official visit and to address Parliament Responding to the date of Donald Trump's state visit being confirmed, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said: The Prime Minister should invite Mark Carney for an official visit to the UK just ahead of Trump's visit, including the opportunity to address Parliament. This would send an important signal that Britain stands shoulder to shoulder with Canada against Trump's ...
I knew Charles Masterman had won the enmity of Horatio Bottomley, the publisher of John Bull magazine, over the Home Office inquiry into alleged abuse at the Akbar Nautical Training School at Heswall on the Wirrall. The report of the inquiry, which Masterman led, failed to accept many of the allegations published in John Bull, with the result that Bottomley regarded it as a whitewash and used the magazine to attack Masterman ever afterwards. As Bottomley spent some of his childhood in a Birmingham orphanage, I suspect he might have had a better knowledge of the abuses that can take ...
Embed from Getty ImagesEd Davey has called for Mark Carney to be invited to pay an official visit just before President Trump and for him to be invited to address parliament too, reports The London Economic. Trump will be here on a state visit from 17 to 19 September, while parliament is in recess. In a statement quoted by the digital newspaper, the Liberal Democrat leader said: "The Prime Minister should invite Mark Carney for an official visit to the UK just ahead of Trump's visit, including the opportunity to address Parliament. This would send an important signal that Britain ...
An inadvertent nomination from a reader sees the Independent win our Headline of the Day Award: Pictures from the aftermath of the scene show crew members smiling and posing with the pets, with the flat understood to be only lightly damaged by the fire. A spokesperson for London Fire Brigade said: "A mischievous tortoise and his canine friend were rescued last week from a fire on London Road in Mitcham." "The fire was caused by the naughty tortoise knocking over his heat lamp which fell onto the hay, a combustible material, in his aquarium."
Well, that was all quite a shambles wasn't it? A political own goal if ever I've seen one. No, on this occasion I'm not speaking of Labour on welfare, the Tories on, well, pretty much everything, or Reform UK on its failing candidate vetting. I'm speaking of our leader Ed Davey's sacking of Christine Jardine after she voted in line with our party's values on a welfare amendment last week and, in doing so, nominally broke the party Whip which was (inexplicably) to abstain. As a Lib Dem MP source said to me (in news I broke on my Substack ...
Another week brings another public disagreement between Labour's leaders and the trade unions that once formed the backbone of their movement. This time, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner faces criticism after being suspended by Unite the Union for not supporting striking bin workers in Birmingham. Unite's general secretary, Sharon Graham, was clear: "We will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette." Graham argued that the Labour-run Birmingham Council has let its workers down, and Rayner, who had "every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute," instead sided with the council. There's a sense of déjà vu ...
The Liberal Democrats are a flexible party on the spectrum. Coming from the traditional centre ground, it has attracted many voters who have come from different perspectives on politics. Recently, we have won a lot of votes from the centre right of the political spectrum with Sir Ed Davey's focus on 'Middle England', taking votes away from Conservative leaning voters who feel that the Tories have gone too far right or neglected the 'Blue Wall'. There is also the Progressive base who have gone to the Liberal Democrats in the Brexit era, aiming to reverse that referendum result in 2016. ...
One of the larger and better-known international management consultancy practices has been in the news in recent weeks for advising on the much-criticised distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza and, more critically, the mooted plan for the mass relocation of Gazans away from their homeland. The firm has explained that, essentially, this was all a big misunderstanding. It was, they said, due to the unauthorised actions of a few rogue partners, who have since been asked to leave. The firm has returned the multi-million-dollar fees it was paid and is looking to draw a line under the matter. This is ...
I've had more reminders than I needed about how old I am getting this weekend. First of all, both brilliant finalists in the men's singles at Wimbledon were born in the 2000's. And we won't dwell for too long on the knowledge that people getting the vote next year will have been born in the year of the 2008 Financial Crash. And then I spent many hours on Saturday evening watching the re-run of Live Aid. How can it possibly be 40 years since Bob Geldof put together the spectacular transatlantic concert to raise money for aid for those starving ...
Ben de Pear and Ramita Navai tells the story of how the BBC repeatedly delayed and ultimately shelved a damning documentary on the destruction of Gaza's health service. Gaza: Under Attack was eventually screened by Channel 4. "Resilience is critical to manage global heating: housing, food defences, water supplies, food supply, healthcare, finance and workplaces. Too often we are fighting last centuries' wars by insulating homes from cold and failing to protect them from heat; hence, we install air to water heat pumps, where other countries are promoting air to air (which provides cooling in summer)." Simon Ferrigno asks if ...
The Labour manifesto of Liverpool for the 2023 elections boasted that they would build 8,000 new units of accommodation mover 4 years. This fact was repeated when The Leader appointed a new Cabinet Member for Housing in May. When I became our housing spokesperson in May I decided to find out what this really means for the people of Liverpool. I was surprised that it took 7 weeks to find out given that it was a well-known figure and one would assume that they could justify it immediately. In fact I now think that they were trying to hide just ...
[IMG: Cheney Payne - photo from Cambridge Lib Dems] Following Katie Mansfield's selection for Hampstead and Highgate, comes news of another Liberal Democrat selection of a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) for the next general election. This time it is for Cambridge with Cheney Payne's re-selection: I have some news.... It is such a privilege to be reselected as the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Cambridge @LibDems Excited to get back to work! https://t.co/ONNNe9yEMB — Cllr Cheney Payne [IMG: 🔶] (@CllrPayne) July 13, 2025
The City Council's electoral registration team is getting in touch with every household to check that the electoral register is up to date, and to identify any residents who should be registered but are currently missing. When responding, please remember, to include 14 and 15 years olds in the return as once they turn 16 they will be eligible to vote in the Scottish Parliament elections taking place next year. You can register to vote at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
The Observer reports that the singer Charlotte Church and veteran peace campaigners are among hundreds who have signed a letter describing the move to ban the group Palestine Action as "a major assault on our freedoms". They add that trade unionists, activists and politicians have also added their names to the letter opposing the group's proscription under anti-terrorism laws last week: Church said: "I sign this letter because history shows us that when people stand up to injustice, those in power often reach for the same old playbook: label dissent as dangerous, criminalise protest, and try to silence movements for ...