This photo has been doing the rounds on Facebook. It is the ballot paper for the Clacton by-election. At this point in the contest the supply of jokes about this absurd contest have been exhausted. 34 candidates are competing for the crown, making for a ballot paper that is more like wallpaper.The jokes may be exhausted but it is still possible to engage in fantasy outcomes. The idea that
Last week, Andy Burnham became Labour leader and thus Prime Minister. Labour hope that his leadership will reverse the party's political misfortunes and poor polling under Keir Starmer, while many hope that his new policy priorities and governing style would bring about vital change. Electoral reform advocates hope that such change will include Proportional Representation, given his past and recent vocal support for it and the proposal of an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill calling for a National Commission on Electoral Reform. However, the latest speculated change, as reported by several outcomes, may come in the form ...
Lisa Smart, the Liberal Democrat cabinet office spokesperson, has referred Richard Tice to the parliamentary standards commissioner over an undeclared loan of nearly £80,000 from Nigel Farage's aide George Cottrell. The Guardian reports that Tice, the Reform UK MP for Boston and Skegness, received a loan of nearly £80,000 from Nigel Farage's aide George Cottrell some months after he was elected parliament. This transaction, says the newspaper's report, caused bankers to raise concerns with authorities. In her letter to the commissioner, Lisa Smart wrote: "Mr Cottrell is not merely a private acquaintance of Mr Tice, he is an official adviser ...
Wed 29th
13:27
Ed Davey and Andy Burnham are right to try to work together to solve the adult care crisis
It is quite clear that if we carry on the way we are doing at present the problems of adult care, especially for the elderly, will continue to grow to a point where the finances to support them will no longer be sustainable. That is why I'm delighted to see both that Andy Burnham has issued an invitation to Ed Davey and Kemi Badenoch to join with him to try and deal with this crisis and that Ed Davey immediately agreed to such talks. As Ed Davey himself put it, "There have been 22 failed attempts at reforming social care ...
"The idea that England has always been governed from a single political centre is surprisingly recent. Westminster may now appear almost inseparable from the state, but for much of English history, government was far more mobile."Stephanie Brown says Andy Burnham's No 10 North has a precedent in medieval York. Nafeez Ahmed examines the links between George Cottrell's Reform UK network in Montenegro and sanctioned Russian oligarchs."When social workers become involved with a family, the focus is often on parenting, safeguarding concerns or family relationships. But new research suggests that one of the strongest drivers of repeated involvement with children's services ...
Proof, I think. that Lord Bonkers reads this blog. The theory that Starmer was never meant to be prime minister, but was put in place as a move in Labour's civil war, comes from a Guardian article by Neal Lawson, and I have referred to it here more than once. Friday That Starmer fellow didn't amount to much, did he? Cook, with her generous heart, always thought the best of him and refused to "listen to incinerations"; for myself, there's an old Gypsy saying that holds... To be honest, I can't remember what it holds, but I know it would ...
John Lennon once said: "I think the first English record that was anywhere near anything was Move It by Cliff Richard, and before that there'd been nothing." It takes an American podcast to take Cliff and the Shadows (as they soon became) seriously: We Say Yeah!
The Independent reports that Andy Burnham is set to unveil the biggest overhaul in education in England in 15 years with an end to a system which prioritises preparing children for university at the expense of technical training. The paper says that the changes are part of a new drive to tackle "a lost generation" with 1 million young people unemployed or trapped outside education: It comes after he revealed to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that he plans to bring down the welfare bill by making benefits conditional on people finding work, especially ones linked to mental health issues such ...
Given how popular (and lengthy!) my list of Reform councillor departures after the May 2025 elections turned out to be, here is a new list, this time for councillors elected under the Reform banner on 7 May 2026, or in by-elections after that date, who have already departed the party for one reason or another. Jay Cooper, Sefton: declared "not welcome" by Nigel Farage following reports of him calling the Holocaust a hoax and then resigned from the party (May 2026). Stuart Prior, Essex: expelled by Reform and resigned as a councillor after "he was accused the week before the ...
The news that the Jodrell Bank telescope may soon be no more sent me back to a piece by Jonathan Meades: Concorde was seen in the sky over West London for the first time in late June 1969. Less than a month later Neil Armstrong stepped from Apollo 11 onto the moon. The future had arrived. It was tangible, it was thrilling, it was now. We came to believe that we were all part of an adventure without end. This was just the beginning, the new beginning. What we didn't realise was that this was it. A peak had been ...
Britain's universities aren't just getting rid of the arts and humanities: they're getting rid of collegiate governance too. Here's Krzysztof Nawratek, senior lecturer in humanities and architecture at the University of Sheffield, writing in Times Higher Education: I started my university career in Poland in 1988, a year before communism collapsed. I joined an underground anti-communist student association, went on strike and saw my hierarchical, conservative university slowly crumble. However, even within the oppressive communist regime, Polish universities held on to one core belief: the university belonged to its academic community. Rectors and deans were elected. Senates and faculty councils ...
On Saturday 25 July, I attended the counter-protest at Glasgow Green in response to the so-called "Unite the Clans" demonstration. I did so because I believe Scotland is at its strongest when we stand together against hatred, division and extremism. Our country has a proud tradition of welcoming people from different backgrounds, cultures and faiths, and those values must be defended peacefully and democratically. During the event, there were several reports of threats being made towards those intending to attend the counter-protest. Such intimidation has no place in a democratic society. Every person has the right to express their views ...
Sunniside is fortunate to have the Tanfield Railway, the world's longest running steam rail system, right on our doorstep. Recently I spotted an advert for an event at the Tanfield: fish and chip aboard the train. I couldn't resist. We had a great time!
The Government's intention to have the biggest Council House building programme since the 1940s and 50s will give immediate hope to the 134,210 homeless households, including 176,130 children, living in temporary accommodation and the 4,793 people sleeping rough. And as the "right to buy scheme" still, at the time of writing, applied in England (but not in Scotland or Wales) could get them on the housing ladder. ...Although former Council Houses have been notoriously difficult to sell. The programme will create work for some of the 1.01 million young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are not ...
Tue 28th
10:25
Book Review: Young Aleister Crowley and the Magicians' Revolt by Lon Milo DuQuette and Jim Bratkowsk...
This review appears in the new issue of Liberator, which you can download free of charge from the magazine's website. Young Aleister Crowley and the Magicians' Revolt Lon Milo DuQuette and Jim Bratkowsky Weiser Books, 2026, £14.99 The year is 1900 and a young Aleister Crowley - poet, mountaineer and Cambridge chess Blue - is keen to learn the mysteries of London's leading occultists, but he arrives in this fashionable circle to find it riven by a power struggle. The old guard of MacGregor Mathers and his wife Moina, who were real historical figures, are being challenged by a new ...
I never know how much of Lord Bonkers' reminiscences to believe. In this case, I suspect he should have gone back for his Panama. Thursday The orphans and Cook have taken to the cool of the caves for which Trescothick Bay is noted, but I am happy here on the beach even though I have left my sun hat back at the boarding house. Today I have been thinking of Emlyn Hooson, an inspirational leader of our party in Wales and a source of wise counsel on any matter touching upon the Principality. His phone would ring at all hours ...
Jodrell Bank is a national institution. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astronomer at the university, to investigate cosmic rays after his work on radar in the Second World War. It hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. It has since played an important role in the research of meteoroids, quasars, pulsars, masers, and gravitational lenses, and was heavily involved with the tracking of Soviet and US spacecraft of the Space Race. However, it is now under threat. The Guardian reports that ...