Antwerp yesterday, a Cold War exhibit at the National Archives this evening... anyone would think that there was an issue with Europe at the moment. Three press releases this evening for your delectation and delight... Liberal Democrats "raring to go" with European election manifesto Cross-party statement on People's Vote and revoking Article 50 Swinson condemns anti-LGBT laws in Brunei Liberal Democrats "raring to go" with European election manifesto The Liberal Democrats are "raring to go" for a European election with the party's Brexit spokesperson confirming the drafting of a manifesto has already begun with a "vision for the UK inside ...
Bermondsey's Druid Street runs alongside the railway arches as they approach London Bridge
Graham Chrystie, a Pyrford councillor on Woking Council for eight years, has left the Conservative party and joined the Liberal Democrats.
I suspect most readers of this site will have been absolutely horrified by the introduction of brutal new laws today in the tiny nation of Brunei which make gay sex and adultery punishable by stoning to death and theft punishable by amputation. Situated on the island of Borneo, Brunei is a former British protectorate, and became a member of the Commonwealth in 1984 when it gained independence. Last year there was a UK ministerial visit to Brunei in August and a trade envoy visited in November. Today in the Commons, Jo Swinson asked the Foreign Office Minister to intervene to ...
Nominations for the local elections in Gateshead closed this weekend. I've just spent a few minutes looking at who is standing where. In my ward of Whickham South and Sunniside, I have only Labour and Conservative opponents. No fringe candidates this time (though we had none in my ward last year either). Not too many years ago, we had TUSC, UKIP and the Greens standing here. They have quietly
On January 28, viewers around the world realised that a technological war had indeed begun between the United States of America and China. That day, in Washington, the Ministers of Justice, Home Affairs and Trade, together with the FBI Director-General, held a spectacular press conference. The purpose was to announce and explain the indictment of [...] The post The coming technological partition of the world appeared first on Radix.
Letting my old website lapse is something I should have done for a while, but nostalgia always keeps us holding on.
I've been doing a bit of work in my constituency about the effects of Universal Credit on local people, the rising use of Food Banks, and the inadequate funding given to rural schools in North Devon. With that perspective, I was dismayed but not surprised to read a recent article highlighting the social exclusion experienced by children living in poverty. This is personal for me – I grew up in a military household, having enough to live on but not a lot, and when my father left the forces, we were poor for a couple of years until he retrained ...
For the second year running Liverpool Lib Dems are contesting all of the 30 seats up for election and this is one of the strongest teams we have put before the Liverpool electorate for many years. These seats were last ... Continue reading →
Yesterday saw a Grand Committee debate on historic rights of way, linked to the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. It would be fair to say that the commitments therein to recording all existing rights of way is unpopular with the Minister... Baroness Scott of Needham Market I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Greaves for securing today's debate, for setting out the issues so clearly, and for his tireless advocacy of public access and rights of way. Between 1993 and 2005, I was a county councillor in Suffolk and, for most of that time, I chaired ...
Tue, 15:03: RT @Dublin2019: It's time to announce the 2019/1944 @TheHugoAwards finalists. 🙌 The video announcement can be found here 👉 https://t.co/ysM... Tue, 15:03: RT @Dublin2019: The finalists for the 2019 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book are: The Belles by @brownbookworm Children of Blood a... Tue, 15:03: RT @Dublin2019: The finalists for 2019 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer are: Katherine Arden S.A. Chakraborty R.F. Kuang Jean... Tue, 15:03: RT @Dublin2019: The finalists for 2019 Best Art Book (1/2) are: The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition Daydreamer's Jour... Tue, 15:03: RT @Dublin2019: 2019 Best ...
Wed 3rd
10:36
May "reaches out" to Corybyn: what that means for Brexit and the possibility of a People's Vote
May gave what for her was a reasonably substantial speech yesterday, meaning it wasn't just "red, white and blue Brexit" said in a slightly different way 43 times but rather something that at least had the trappings of substance. She is going to have talks with Jeremy Corbyn to try and see what Labour can agree to as a means of getting her deal through parliament and thus avoiding a long extension and EU elections. You don't need to be an expert in the workings of Westminster to realise pretty quickly that May was mostly doing this as a means ...
I have immense respect for Norman Lamb. While some of the language he has deployed in the last day and a half has been a little strong for my liking, I sympathise completely with his frustrations. On Monday night, four Liberal Democrat MPs joined dozens of pro-referendum MPs from other parties in voting down the Brexit option being pushed by Nick Boles, referred to as 'Common Market 2.0', or sometimes as 'Norway plus'. Only two Liberal Democrats – Lamb and former leader Tim Farron – voted in favour of Common Market 2.0. In so doing, these four Lib Dem MPs ...
Wed 3rd
09:46
Petition against hedge netting passes 200,000 signatures. Ludlow protest planned. RSPB takes tough s...
Last night, the petition against the growing practice of netting hedges and trees to prevent birds nesting passed 200,000 signatures. It is still growing. Campaigners are to meet to protest against the hedge netting at Rocks Green at 11am on Sunday 14 April, SY8 2DS. More than 6,000 people have joined the Facebook group, Nesting not Netting! Ecologists and the RSPB have issued a new statement advising against netting and, should it be deemed necessary, for inspections every three hours. I have written to Ludlow's MP Philip Dunne asking him to act and attend the forthcoming debate in parliament. There ...
As Parliament and the cabinet remain deadlocked on how best to deliver the so-called 'will of the people' and take us out of the EU, it is becoming apparent that the threat of us leaving without a deal, is no longer a negotiating tactic by Theresa May, but a real possibility. Unfortunately for May, nobody took her threat seriously, reckoning that if faced with the possibility of us crashing over the cliff, deal-less and friendless, she would bottle it and seek an extension to the deadline she herself set down in legislation. Events have proved those doubters correct, as May ...
The photograph (credit: Leslye Stanbury) made me catch my breath when I saw it on Facebook. These were obviously young people from Hastings & Rye - where I live; and where I was our parliamentary candidate for the last three General Elections. It is easy to go along with the narrative in the left-leaning press outlets that I read: that our young people are instinctively progressive - anti-racist, environmentalist, socially liberal. And yet, clearly - as the photo proves - this isn't so all across the country. On some level it makes sense that there would be some Hastings young ...
Lib Dems: End short sentences now to fix prisons crisis Responding to the House of Commons Justice Select Committee's 'Prison Population 2022' report, published today [Weds 3rd April], Liberal Democrat Justice spokesperson Wera Hobhouse said: Our prisons are in crisis. They are so overcrowded that they are failing at their central purpose: to prevent crime and keep communities safe by rehabilitating offenders. Even Tory Ministers now accept what the Liberal Democrats and the evidence have been saying for years: short prison sentences actually make people more likely to reoffend. Yet they are still locking up thousands of people for just ...
