On Sunday a friend and former colleague in Gaza called Mamdouh wrote to me, "By the grace of God, we've just prepared a delicious meal of falafel using all the traditional fresh ingredients – chickpeas, garlic, parsley and green pepper. It was a truly delightful experience, especially since it's been a year a half since we last enjoyed falafel made from authentic ingredients rather than canned ones." His photos and a video show Mamdouh using a hand-mincer to prepare the falafel mix. Mamdouh was a librarian in one of Gaza's universities. In the past two years he's lost his livelihood, ...
[IMG: Cover of Liberator 432 showing two horses in middle of road signed Lib Dem strategy, both saying they are not frightened.] Liberator 432 is out. You can download Liberator 432 for free here. and remember you can sign up here to be emailed when each issue comes out: In this issue we have what we think is the first full account in English of how social liberal party D66 won in the Netherlands, and how Roz Savage MP's solo ocean rowing experiences informed her views on the environment. Also, find out in Radical Bulletin what went wrong with party ...
I don't know if you feel the same, but it seems to me that this is the longest run-up to a Budget that I can remember. We've been talking about it forever. At times the Government's communications around Rachel Reeves' second budget have made the Omnishambles Budget of 2012 look competent. First we were raising income tax rates then we weren't, the Black Hole in the country's finances has been of varying sizes and suddenly there now seems to be billions down the back of the sofa to stave off a break in the manifesto promise. I don't mind paying ...
I was 16 when The Who re-released Substitute in 1976. I went out and bought it because it was so much better than anything else in the charts at the time.
The Guardian reports on a devastating review, which found that repeated failures by Tory ministers and top welfare officials pushed hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers into debt and distress, and led to hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money being wasted. They say that the independent review of carer's allowance benefit overpayments identified "systemic issues" at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and said carers could not be blamed for falling foul of unclear and confusing benefit rules: The review was triggered after a Guardian investigation revealed how carers had been hit with draconian penalties of as ...
The phone box on Magdalen Green was unfortunately vandalised with blue paint recently. We raised this with BT and received the following helpful response : "Thank you for taking the time to report this BT payphone. I have now arranged for the kiosk to be cleaned."
Gateshead Lib Dems had another action day, this time on Sunday. The ward we were working was Saltwell. The aim was to deliver about half the ward with the Central Gateshead Focus. While I was out delivering, I kept bumping into other Lib Dems with their bundles of leaflets. Sadly, something went wrong with my patches: I was 100 leaflets short. It will mean squeezing in a return visit to Saltwell
Councillors Marilynn Ord and Jonathan Mohammed and I met up with Planting Up Sunniside on Monday evening to sort out the final details of the Sunniside Christmas tree lights switch on event. It is the first community Christmas tree in Sunniside for 7 years so we are all getting rather excited about the event tomorrow. The biggest outstanding job was putting the lights onto the tree. This is no
Since the founding of the Liberal Party, we have held that taxation must do more than fund the state: it must correct the injustice of extreme wealth. As John Stuart Mill wrote in his Principles of Political Economy, "The State should use taxation as a means to mitigate the inequalities of wealth." Across the UK today, campaigners, economists, and MPs from several parties are calling for a modern Wealth Tax. The current proposal is a 2% annual tax on all wealth above £10 million, affecting only a tiny fraction of the population but raising billions to support public services, reduce inequality, ...
Those who knew and worked with Simone know she defies an easy tribute. She was the third Lib Dem I ever came into contact with after John Robinson and Dave McCobb and she gave me many acts of kindness. She was kind, funny and passionate about our area. She gave me my first political job on the Council ( libraries, youth services and adult education) for which I am forever grateful and I didn't last long in that as she promoted me to the then poisoned chalice of education. This set me onto the path of Leadership myself a few ...
Tue 25th
11:37
Downing Street Downfalls: The Misadventures of Britain's Prime Minister Since Thatcher by Mark Garne...
Downing Street Downfalls: The Misadventures of Britain's Prime Minister Since Thatcher Mark Garnett Agenda, 2025, £20 hbk It's not a novelty for British prime ministers to leave No. 10 without having lost an election: Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and Wilson all did so. What is new, says Mark Garnett, is for them to be bundled out of power when they are still in good health. He dates this trend to the fall of Thatcher in 1990, and it's tempting to put its acceleration in the years since then down to Brexit. As Garnett says: The 2016 referendum, and its consequences, accounted ...
The new Liberator has dropped. You can download issue 432 free of charge from the magazine's website. And that, of course, means it's time to brave another week at Bonkers Hall. When I first read this entry, I assumed his lordship meant that some Well-Behaved Orphans grew up to become locksmiths. I now fear that is not what he is saying. Monday Word has reached me that some of the backroom boys and girls at Buckingham Gate - no doubt Freddie and Fiona are to the fore - have taken to awarding our elected MPs chocolate bars if they judge ...
Tue 25th
11:00
Mutual Benefit for learning from each other: My thoughts on the success of our sister parties, and t...
You know, the Dutch, they are so liberal, they've got two liberal parties... And one of them, the one that's most like us, D66, were the smaller party in a coalition, and then in 2006 they got stuffed. 2%, 3 MPs, they came ninth.... But you know what, just scroll forward to last year at the European elections. Ninth? No. First. First. ... There's a model we can copy. Survival and revival is in our grasp. Have hope. Have belief. - Speech by Tim Farron, our former leader, on 2015. Fast forward to 29th October 2025, D66 became the largest ...
As the Chancellor prepares to deliver the Budget tomorrow, those with the most to lose are the poorest in our society. Many of you reading this can hardly imagine living on £20,000 a year before housing costs, yet that is the reality for millions. It is roughly 60% of the median income, the level officially defined as "poor." While the cost-of-living crisis hurts everyone, it hits low-income households hardest. Food, rent and fuel now swallow almost all their disposable income. Far from helping, the government has made life harder. About 14 million people - one in five - live in ...
Our joint weekly ward surgery takes place tonight. This week it is as follows : Blackness Library (Tuesdays 5pm - every week during school term time) All welcome - no appointment necessary!
The row over whether Nigel Farage exhibited anti-semitic and racist behaviour at school has been rumbling on for more than a week now, with the Reform leader refusing to answer questions about his allegedly abusive behaviour. The Guardian says that they have spoken to 20 of Farage's contemporaries while at Dulwich College in south London who tell them that these accusations are true, more than half of them on the record, and they outline the testimony of all twenty in some detail here. Now, Farage is facing calls to explain why he repeatedly aired tropes and conspiracy theories associated with ...