As we watch Donald Trump knock down the checks and balances built into the US constitution to constrain the powers of executive Presidents, with the acquiescence of the Republican Party, we need to think hard - and campaign about - the absence of similar checks within our own system of government. Britain's unwritten constitution has rested, as Peter Hennessy famously said, on the 'good chaps' theory of constitutional behaviour: that no political leader who won a majority in the House of Commons would ever behave in an ungentlemanly fashion. Across Europe as well as in the USA we're now learning ...
Welsh Labour really are in a mess. Within a day of the First Minister calling on Keir Starmer to help stop Plaid Cymru and the Greens by devolving more powers to the Senedd, her Welsh colleagues vote down a proposal to do exactly that. Nation Cymru reports that a Welsh Labour MP has argued against a major amendment to the Railways Bill which would devolve powers over the railways to Wales: The amendment, tabled by the Liberal Democrats, would remove rail transport from the list of powers reserved to Westminster and require responsibility for infrastructure, investment and the long-term strategy ...
We are having an envelope stuffing day tomorrow. 25,000 letters will be put into envelopes. I have spent much of the past week printing them. Lots of members will turn up tomorrow to give a helping hand. Should be good fun!
It's Saturday! For Gateshead Lib Dems that means it's another action day. Today we were in Whickham North and Swalwell ward. I squeezed a delivery in after my ward surgery. 3000 Focuses delivered. 1000 more to go, scheduled for the next few days.
Whickham councillors' ward surgery was held this morning. We decided to hold it outside the Library rather than in the cozy room inside. This way, more people see us and talk to us about local issues.
I have to admit that finding candidates for local elections is something of a challenge. Finding candidates who want to win is even more challenging. Here in Gateshead, the Lib Dems started selecting candidates just weeks after the last local elections in May 2024. With 66 to find, we decided to start early. We have 60 chosen so far and the final prospective candidates are currently being
At the time of writing (4pm on Saturday afternoon) there has as yet been no announcement as to whether the Labour Party establishment will permit Andy Burnham, presently Executive Mayor of Greater Manchester, to stand as their candidate in a coming parliamentary by election, or if they do, whether Mr Burnham will accept the opportunity to change roles and, if successful, possibly challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the Party's leadership. Both decisions are possibly crucial for the future of liberal democracy in the UK. In my view the best outcome will be: 1. Labour's NEC will permit Mr Burnham to ...
The former Lawrence Shoe Factory in Desborough is likely to be demolished later this year, reports BBC News. As I can catch a bus to Desborough and it's unusually pleasant Costa Coffee from across the road when I'm feeling too lazy to walk into town, I went there the other day to photograph the buildings again - maybe for the last time. You can read about their history on the Desborough Town Council website. There was the usual talk from North Northamptonshire Council's Reform UK leadership of "eyesores" and preventing antisocial behaviour, but there is no sign of the long-sought ...
I once went to an event in Leicester to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Joe Orton's play Loot. It doesn't feel like it, but it was almost 10 years ago. In the post I wrote about the event, I described meeting Braham Murray and Michael Elwyn there. They had, respectively, directed and appeared in a Manchester production of Loot that established its reputation after its first staging in London had been a failure. I recently found this video of Michael Elwyn, which may well have been recorded that day - we were all given the badge he is wearing. In ...
TACO or "Trump-Always-Chickens-Out" was especially apparent in Davos Switzerland this week when the US president backed down on his threat to use force to acquire Greenland. He also dropped his threat to impose additional tariffs on the eight European countries—including Britain—that backed Denmark's refusal to cede sovereignty. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte appears to have stepped in at the last minute to prevent Trump from dropping the expected Davos bombshell that would have left NATO in tatters. Mind you he probably had some help from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Key Republicans in Congress, the ...
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention polls for the next general election, along with the latest MRP projections and party leadership ratings. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls PollsterConLabLDGrnRefLab leadFieldwork Opinium 17% (-1) 22% (+2) 13% (+1) 11% (-2) 31% (nc) -9% (vs Ref) 21-23/1 GB Find Out Now ...
I was delivering leaflets in Coed Darcy last week, when I remembered one of the area's more unusual eccentricities. Coed Darcy is a new estate built on the old BP works in Llandarcy. St Modwen, the developer behind the project and the owner of the entire 1,000 acre Coed Darcy site, originally announced a 25-year vision for a £1.2bn, 4000-home 'urban village' with 10,000 residents and four schools, however the development stalled and so far only has a few hundred houses, a play area and an empty shop. The estate was meant to be a model of urban renewal, but ...