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 on principal authorities 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 ...
Thu 15th
19:51
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a man falling off a paddleboard - for ever
Embed from Getty ImagesSo what went on in that meeting of Liberal Democrat MPs on Tuesday evening? The fury with critics of Ed Davey we were told about beforehand seems to have evaporated overnight, as everyone has told us how positive it was. Zoe Crowther and Harriet Symonds say on PoliticsHome: Supportive MPs described Davey as having been "in listening mode" at the meeting, with most MPs keen to join in a discussion on how the party can grow ahead of the next general election and build on its record number of MPs. PoliticsHome understands that only three MPs spoke ...
It's high time (it says here) we saw again what Lord Bonkers was up to 30 years ago. So here's an extract from the diary he contributed to Liberator 239, which was dated September 1996 and available from our stall at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton. The late David Chidgey, I should explain, as well as being MP for Eastleigh from 1994 to 2005, was in 1996 the pilot of the Liberal Democrats' own spacecraft Bird of Liberty. He was eventually rescued from a tropical island paradise after being downed in a collision with a Russian (or Commonwealth of ...
As I have long been convinced that I am the only person who remembers Gophers!, a bizarre comedy series screened by Channel 4 in 1990, I'm pleased to see that some of it has reappeared on YouTube recently. You can see the whole of the second episode above. Wikipedia does its best to explain what the series was about: Gophers! is a Channel 4 children's programme about a family of American gophers who move into a new neighbourhood, called Sycamore Heights, living next door to a family of uptight but well-intentioned rabbits, The Burrows. There were many recurring jokes within ...
We couldn't let a few days go by without delivering some more surveys. So this morning I had a couple of patches to deliver across two patches in Whickham. I was slowed up by conversations with residents and then,five minutes before I finished, it started raining. I'm not complaining. We need the rain!
I am a pensioner and a Liberal Democrat. I believe in freedom, fairness and the responsibility we share to ensure that everyone can live with dignity. Those convictions are why I want our party to speak more clearly about pensions and social care. My concern is not with Ed Davey's commitment or compassion. It is with whether our leadership is giving people enough substance to understand the choices ahead. As someone who served as a Southwark councillor for twelve years, including working on health and social care scrutiny, I know how closely these issues are connected. A pension provides an ...
A month ago, members of some Federal Committees were sent an email telling them that Ed Davey and Josh Babarinde were setting up an "Inclusion and Faith Review". The text is below: Dear all, The preamble to our Federal party Constitution makes clear that, as a party, we reject all discrimination and prejudice based on religion or belief and that we respect the right to freedom of conscience. As your Party leader and President we are determined to ensure that our party always lives up to these ideals – and all of those set out in our Constitution. Our rules ...
The Bolton News reports on Samantha Williamson's decision to join the Liberal Democrats: Cllr Samantha Williamson, of Horwich South and Blackrod, who had previously sat as an independent and part of the Communities First alliance, has joined the Liberal Democrats. She says she aims to continue advocating for the concerns of residents and in particular for the wellbeing of children and young people across the borough... Cllr Williamson said: "I am happy to be joining the Liberal Democrats because I can see they are the party that cares about honesty, integrity, and respect, and also they are committed to putting ...
I some history with controversial poems, having once invited the Welsh poet, Patrick Jones to read at the Welsh Assembly following the cancellation of his book launch in the Cardiff Waterstones, while 250 Christians sang and prayed outside. So I was interested in a story in Will Hayward's latest newsletter, one that does not reflect well on the Senedd Commission, who are responsible for running the parliament and arranging the official opening. He tells us that the National Poet of Wales has been barred from reading a poem in front of the King at the opening of the Senedd today ...
Plaid Cymru have finally done a deal with Labour to get their supplementary budget through the Senedd. As Nation Cymru report, all it took was for them to allocate an extra £60 million for additional learning needs. However, Cardiff University academics Ed Gareth Poole and Owain Cynfab believe that the deal is just a stopgap that leaves wider pressures on Welsh public services unresolved. Nobody expected Welsh finances to be sorted by a supplementary budget of course. Its purpose is to just move money around in year, pulling some from reserves, from additional Barnett allocations and reprioritising spending to meet ...
Remember Thomas Cromwell's final words in the wonderful Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light? "There is an abbey, Launde, in the heart of England. The air is always sweet there and it's quiet. A little heaven here on earth. And I think to myself: 'I'll live here one day, when all my work is done.'" Launde Abbey is in Leicestershire - in Harborough District, indeed - and though Cromwell didn't get to live there, his son did and is buried in the chapel. Today it is a Church of England retreat and conference centre. The BBC Radio Leicester's Secret ...
I've long had a fondness for one of Paul Simon's more obscure albums, One Trick Pony. This is a track from it.
"Conservatives have called Burnham's intervention 'dangerous and divisive', which could be interpreted as a denial that interference happened or just as a preference that it not be mentioned to protect delicate pro-Brexit sensibilities. Farage's feelings were certainly hurt. He called the prime minister a liar and described the whole thing as a 'Russia hoax'- the formula Donald Trump applied to well-substantiated allegations that his 2016 presidential campaign got a helping hand from Moscow."Rafael Behr says Brexiters can't cope with the fact that Putin cheered them on. Jack Dyson reveals how academy trusts try to justify the enormous salaries paid to ...
By now, many of us have become accustomed to the seemingly relentless escalations in the occupied West Bank. Almost daily, we hear of violent settler attacks against Palestinian communities, amid record levels of forced displacement, home demolitions, illegal outpost construction and arbitrary arrests. We must never accept this as normal, so consumed by the latest outrage that we lose sight of what these escalating, incremental developments amount to. For behind the daily violence and dispossession, Israel has been entrenching its control over Palestinian land, destroying the territorial basis for a two-state solution, piece by piece, until it is too late ...
The Independent reports that MI5 chief Sir Ken McCallum has confirmed that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 Brexit referendum but judged the impact modest, warning that excessive focus on Russian trolls could amplify their influence. However, McCallum has cautioned against aiding Russian propaganda after Andy Burnham outlined Moscow's attempts to meddle in the 2016 Brexit referendum, warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin's online trolls would be "delighted" should the controversy surrounding the Prime Minister's statements continue: The spymaster verified that Russia targeted the vote, whilst simultaneously pointing out the "comparative unimpressiveness" of such operations. He added that Britain must ...