On Thursday I have arranged for a reporter/photographer to come to Sunniside where he will be reporting on the proposals by Banks Group to build 210 houses on the land immediately to the south of the village. Residents fighting the proposals are welcome to join us at midday at the Burdon Park/Burdon Lodge entrance to the Tanfield Bridleway.Councillor Marilynn Ord and I are opposing the plans
I got on better with Ludlow today. In the past I've not always loved it as much as I should - I think this dates back to the time that the tourist information centre told me off for not booking accommodation before I came to the town. But today I arrived with the firm intention of finding and photographing a rather unLudlowlike building on the edge of town, and that gave me a sense of purpose beyond wandering about the centre waiting to be smitten. I fulfilled that intention, even though I found I had set off without a memory ...
"Our promise should be: We don't want power so we can run your life. We want power in order to give it back to you." Roz Savage asks what has happened to Liberalism and what would make it relevant again. Simon Pearson rightly says that the online left has lost sight of issues like class, ownership and material power: "The left needs to recover the harder ambition that once defined it: taking people divided by culture, race, sex, nationality and countless other experiences and building a common politics around material interests without pretending those differences do not exist. That requires ...
On May 7th I was elected as a Councillor on Lambeth Council – 35 years after standing down as a Councillor in Kingston after a 9-year spell. So, what have I found is different - and what is the same? The first big difference is the amount of casework - it is far greater - I would estimate 5-10 new items per day, plus the follow up on existing cases. I think the big difference here is emails and mobile phones/WhatsApp. They have made it far easier to contact a Councillor with associated increased expectations of speed of response. The ...
What exacctly does Reform UK offer to cryptocurrency investors that comepels them to give their money to the party? The Independent reports that Nigel Farage's party has received £20m in donations from cryptocurrency investors since the general election. The paper says that an analysis of Electoral Commission data shows that a staggering 60 per cent of the right-wing eurosceptic group's funding comes from wealthy individuals associated with the digital currency since the beginning of 2024: The largest donations, totalling £15m, came from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, whose separate undeclared donation of £5m directly to Mr Farage is the subject of ...
After yesterday's exertions on the Stiperstones, I decided to spend today exploring the backstreets of Shrewsbury. This photo was taken in Belmont, a backwater behind the town's Roman Catholic Cathedral.
I was recently reading through the agenda for the Autumn Conference this year (2026, if you're reading from the future) and I came across a motion that particularly bothered me; the motion in question that I am referring to being F6, titled "The Liberal Democrats Mean Business" the part that irked me in particular was this description of the Party: "The Liberal Democrats are the natural party of business, as the only truly internationalist, pro-enterprise and fiscally responsible political force, advocating for a mutually beneficial partnership between the public and private sector." I feel this has come as part of ...
A local press release brings the news: Councillor Graham Oakes has been unanimously chosen by local members as the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Bridgwater at the next general election. The Liberal Democrats finished 6,500 votes behind the Conservatives in Bridgwater in 2024, and the party is now aiming to build on its growing support across Somerset. Graham Oakes is a well‑known Somerset councillor, serving on both Somerset Council and Yeovil Town Council. Until May 2026, he held a senior role on Somerset Council with responsibility for Public Health, Climate Change and the Environment, leading key initiatives to improve local ...
In Gateshead, the new Reform administration is learning the hard way how to put one's foot in one's mouth and look ridiculous in one go. Council Leader Nick Allan thought it was a good idea to back a proposal for defense manufacturing hubs to be set up at five locations in the UK, one of which was Blaydon Quarry in Gateshead. The proposals were the work of the Adam Smith Institute, not
Liberalism seems to be going through an identity crisis. Within a few months, three very different thinkers have published books asking the same question: what has happened to Liberalism, and what would make it relevant again? Adrian Wooldridge has given us Centrists of the World Unite!, David Howarth Being Liberal, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu What Happened to Liberal Democracy? We are halfway through this parliament, barring Andy Burnham calling an early election. So it's a good time to search our collective Liberal soul in a quest for clarity of purpose. We have 72 MPs, our largest parliamentary party ...
On Sunday, the Government announced plans to give elected mayors new powers to instruct councils to approve or refuse major planning applications. That would bring them in line with the powers already held by the Mayor of London. Major developments will be eligible for mayoral intervention if they involve more than 150 homes, more than 15,000m² of commercial space, or buildings over 30 metres (around 10 storeys) tall. Sadly, this shows that Andy Burnham is continuing the centralising tactics to force developments through for the benefit of developers that we have seen under Tory governments and that of Keir Starmer. ...
This topped the US singles chart in 1962. Gene Chandler, who sang it, later took to calling himself the Duke of Earl. I don't know when this suitably aristocratic live performance dates from, but Chandler (who is still with us) was later better known as a producer than a singer.
The Guardian reports that MPs have been accused of failing to learn their lesson over freebies after taking almost £400,000 of hospitality to concerts, sport matches and other events this year, with Louise Haigh, Lucy Powell and Wes Streeting among those accepting tickets. The paper says that despite the outcry in 2024 over Keir Starmer accepting football tickets and gifts of clothing, MPs appear to have been declaring hospitality since the start of the year on a greater scale than previously seen: The most recent disclosures include £858 worth of tickets to a Harry Styles concert at Wembley from the ...