This photo of our street surgery in Sunniside on Saturday arrived a bit too late for inclusion in an earlier post but here it is now, in all its splendour! Our next surgery is Saturday 28th March 2026 at Whickham Library.
Last week, the agenda for Lib Dem spring conference arrived. Conference is again being held in York, a favourite for the March gathering. Back in 2012 it was held at the Sage, Gateshead, which made attendance much easier. York however is only an hour on the train. I've had a quick look through the agenda. Most of what interests me is the training and there are plenty of sessions from which to
Mon 2nd
18:00
Mathew on Monday: What a Liberal Response to the Middle East crisis actually looks like
This morning I appeared on BBC Radio Leicester about the escalating situation in the Middle East. As ever with the region the headlines move fast, the rhetoric moves faster, and the human cost is felt fastest of all. For me, this is not abstract. I have family members who live in Dubai. When tensions rise across the region, when missiles are launched, when airspace closes, and you read of security warnings flashing up on phones, it stops being a matter of general interest and becomes something deeply personal. You find yourself not as a commentator, but as a relative. You ...
What have Putin, Stalin, Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ayatollah Khomeini got in common? Race? No. Religion? No. Intelligence levels? No. Gender? Yes, they are all men. This list could have gone on and on because too many leaders in history and still in our present time are men which means that not enough of them are women! As 52% of the population of the UK are female you might this that this blog is a shameless attempt to procure their vote for the Lib Dems but that would not be the case. I say this, and have been ...
Immediate domestic reactions to American bombing of Iran have displayed how divided British political parties are on Israel, Iran and US approaches to Middle Eastern politics. Priti Patel as Conservative shadow foreign secretary was firm in her support. Nigel Farage was even more enthusiastic and uncritical. Liberal Democrat MPs have been critical, and insistent that the UK should not become directly involved. Labour has been cautious, contributing only to 'defensive' operations against Iranian responses. The Greens have condemned the American attack. The old idea that politicians of all parties should stand shoulder to shoulder when international crisis threatens has long ...
Back in the Brexit years, the European Research Group of hard-line Conservative MPs christened themselves the "Spartans". Perhaps they were drawn to the image of an elite warrior brotherhood, standing firm against overwhelming odds. Or perhaps they admired Sparta's reputation as one of the most austere and uncompromising societies of the ancient world. Either way, they might have profited from a closer look at how Sparta's story actually ended — and why. Sparta guarded its citizenship with exceptional rigidity. Full political membership was reserved for those born to two Spartan parents, and even then only after passing through an unforgiving ...
A reminder of the importance of ensuring that political leaflets have imprints on them: Reform had to go to court (at their own expense) to secure legal relief for a missing imprint on some of their literature in the Gorton and Denton Parliamentary by-election: I've been in the Rolls Building this morning, where Justice Christopher Butcher granted an application on Goodwin's behalf to formally exempt him from any actionThe judge said he was satisfied that the evidence met these requirements because it "arose from inadvertence" via an error by printers — Lizzie Dearden (@lizziedearden.bsky.social) 2026-02-25T12:28:28.316Z
There is so much talk these days about integration, multiculturalism and ways in which people settle in after moving to a different area, country or a continent. The narrative, driven by a number of politicians and media outlets, is most of the time negative and selective. It is not created for a reasonable debate, rational discussion, but rather to steer division and hatred. Now...I am saying that the multiculturalism doesn't bring social, cultural and economic challenges. I am also not saying that I naively believe in open borders and building "happy-clapping" society. I am talking about finding a balance, pragmatic ...
It's clear Keir Starmer never believed in much of what was contained in these pledges. They were written for him so he would appeal to Labour members in the party's last leadership election. More and more, I favour Neal Lawson's account of how we ended up with a prime minister who possesses so few of the qualities you look for in a political leader:Wes Streeting was always meant to be their Labour prime minister. The plan, hatched by a tiny clique of right-wing faction fighters, was this: find a candidate on whom they could fake a continuation Corbynism project to ...
Time for another London walk with John Rogers: A walk from Acton Town Tube Station down Bollo Lane looking at the changes taking place there, then across Turnham Green where I talk about the Civil War battle that took place there in 1642. The video ends at the beautiful Chiswick House Park. This walking tour explores West London history, urban change, and hidden landscapes, moving through Acton, Bollo Lane, Turnham Green, and Chiswick. Along the way it touches on London regeneration, psychogeography, Civil War history, grand houses, and the last industrial London. Most signs of the Acton Town to South ...
From time to time on this site there has been reference to the limited usefulness of left and right in terms of describing political parties and the boundaries between them – including Roz Savage's recent piece. In a less fluid political landscape I can remember the Huddersfield West Liberal MP wrestling with this in the 1960s. One of the curious features of left/right models is that parties find it easier to use the tags to describe their opponents than to define themselves. So what alternative labels are there? Are progressive and conservative any use? The former tends to be more ...
The Bloomberg site reports that Reform Party Leader Nigel Farage has accused the Greens of winning the Gorton by-election by "cheating," after independent observers reported several instances of the banned practice of family voting. Farage wrote on Twitter after the count that"This election was a victory for sectarian voting and cheating." Farage later issued a statement saying he'd reported the matter to the Electoral Commission and the police: "What was witnessed yesterday is deeply concerning and raises serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas," he said. Farage's remarks appear to follow the same playbook ...
Here is a list of the councillors which Reform has shed from the May 2025 local elections and from those elections in by-elections since. The latest update is the pair of councillors in West Northamptonshire becoming independents. Donna Edmunds (Shropshire, suspended by Reform UK and then quit the party) Luke Shingler (Warwickshire, now an independent) Desmond Clarke (Nottinghamshire, resigned as councillor) Andrew Kilburn (Durham, resigned as a councillor) Wayne Titley (Staffordshire, resigned as a councillor) Mark Broadhurst (Doncaster, expelled by Reform) Adam Smith (West Northamptonshire, suspended by Reform and then expelled) John Bailey (Durham, resigned as a councillor) Daniel Taylor ...
A fellow Liberal Alliance councillor told me back in the Eighties that, when he was a small boy, he and his friends were avid listeners to Dick Barton - Special Agent. When they heard that a new series called The Archers was to occupy its slot, they naturally assumed it would be about Robin Hood and his Merrie Men. Imagine their disappointment when they tuned in for the first episode... At the start of this year, the Guardian celebrated 75 years of The Archers with 75 of its most staggering moments. Here are few they chose:Outsiders have always been treated ...
Writing in the wake of the Gorton and Denton by-election, Hannah White says our political institutions are dangerously underprepared for a multi-party future. Jane Green and Marta Miori argue that the electoral challenge Reform represents to Labour is widely misunderstood: "Focusing on Labour voters misses the much bigger threats to Labour from Reform, which is Reform overtaking the party in Labour councils and constituencies by continuing to capture Conservative voters and 2024 non-voters - the latter small in proportion, but currently larger in size than for other parties. This is made likelier if Labour's vote continues to splinter broadly, to ...
Labour's old coalition was always a coalition of convenience. On one side: socially conservative, economically anxious working-class voters, whose politics were shaped by trade unions, community, and a deep suspicion of those at the top. On the other: socially progressive, increasingly comfortable metropolitans, whose politics were shaped by universities, public service, and a belief that social liberalism was self-evidently correct. These two groups shared little except a common enemy: the Conservative Party. That enemy is gone, at least for now. And without it, the coalition is falling apart. Lib Dem CEO Mike Dixon sent members a thoughtful analysis of what ...
The opening of Chartwell Dutiro's obituary on Afropop Worldwide: Chartwell Dutiro has joined the ancestors. More than a brilliant Zimbabwean mbira player and a pillar of Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited during their rise to international fame in the late 1980s and early '90s, Chartwell was a musical visionary with a deep and abiding fidelity to the Shona tradition in which he was raised, and a wry, witty cosmopolitanism that made him a singularly effective ambassador to the world. Shorayi Dutiro's journey began in a Kaganda village in the Bindura region of then-Southern Rhodesia. According to his passport, he ...
State of the Union What a politician omits to say is often more important than what he says. There were two significant omissions during President Trump's record-breaking State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The first concerned Ukraine and the second Iran. Tuesday was also the day that Ukraine marked the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of their country. Notables from around the world gathered in Kyiv's Maidan square to mark the occasion. Every Western country was represented – except the United States. There was no American diplomat, politician or Trump-appointed delegate at this important and moving ceremony. ...
Not Left. Not Right. Liberal. The Green victory in the Manchester Gorton and Denton by-election should stiffen every Liberal Democrat spine. Not because we suddenly face a new political opponent. But because it reveals something important about the electorate. Voters are restless. They are frustrated with managerial politics. They are wary of institutions. And when they sense conviction, clarity and purpose – even if they do not agree with every detail – they respond positively. That matters to us, and our future strategy. If we do not define clearly what Liberalism stands for, others will fill that space with their ...
Sun 1st
08:12Ed Davey: "The UK can't be dragged into another protracted Middle Eastern war by a US President"
I was relieved that a long drive to the rural Highlands of Scotland prevented me sitting in front of a news channel with my head in my hands for most of yesterday. The sight of Donald Trump in a baseball cap looking the exact opposite of dignity and statesmanlike calm did nothing to quell my anxiety levels. It is absolutely clear that the Regime in Iran was awful – illiberal, disgustingly misogynist with no care at all for the human rights and freedom of its people. It's hard to see how the actions yesterday helped the plight of the Iranian ...
The Guardian reports that Keir Starmer is facing an ultimatum from his own party to change direction or risk a leadership challenge within months after the Greens humiliated Labour with a historic byelection victory in Gorton and Denton. The paper says that the scale of defeat in an area that had returned Labour MPs for nearly a century, and where Starmer's party still believed it could win even on polling day, plunged his ministers and MPs into renewed despair just weeks after he saw off a challenge to his position: While only a handful of backbenchers called openly for Starmer ...