News of an unusual political defection today: Robert Jones, who fought North Shropshire constituency for the Shropshire Party at the last general election, has joined the Liberal Democrats. He will fight Shropshire Council's Ruyton and Baschurch ward in next May's local election. The North Shropshire Lib Dems site quotes him: "I want to stand up for, and represent my local community, to help hold the Tory council to account, and to work towards improving the lives of residents and communities across Shropshire. "I feel particularly strongly about devolving power, empowering local communities and getting their voice heard. Standing for the ...
Current Ash: A Secret History, by Mary Gentle Mahatma Gandhi: His Life and Times, by Louis Fischer Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake SS-GB, by Len Deighton The Inside of the Cup, by the other Winston S. Churchill The Daleks' Master Plan, adapted by Rick Lundeen Last books finished The Nth Doctor, by Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier The Official Doctor Who Annual 2021, by Paul Lang Borderline, by Mishell Baker Selected Prose, by Charles Lamb (did not finish) Next books Painless, by Rich Larson After Me Comes the Flood, by Sarah Perry
Tommy Krångh is on it. This is Eurovision made wonderful. Never have key changes been so good.
Thu 12th
17:24
Economic recovery requires comprehensive strategy not last minute Johnson ripping wheeze
Responding to the latest figures showing that UK GDP grew by 15.5% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2020, but that GDP is still 9.7% below where it was at the end of 2019, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson Christine Jardine said: "The growth in the last quarter is testament to the hard work of people in all sectors after the first lockdown. But our economy still has a mountain to climb and hasn't been helped by the Government's mistakes in the first wave of coronavirus. "With a new lockdown in place in England and strict restrictions in other parts of ...
As previously noted, I'm journalling every ten days while the current situation persists. We're slowly turning the corner: today, for the first time since mid-September, both the numbers in hospital and the numbers in intensive care decreased from the previous day. It is taking longer to flatten the curve than in the spring, except in one respect - deaths seem to have peaked on 6 November. So I'm definitely not expecting any return to the office before December, but hopeful that it may not be too far into the month before we can go back. I gave myself a day ...
Last week the killing of the Russian sausage tycoon Vladimir Marugov dominated this blog. At least, headline about it won our award on consecutive days. There was Russia's 'Sausage King' Murdered With Crossbow In Sauna. And then Russian 'Sausage King' investigators find man handcuffed to bed. The latest news comes from the Russian Legal Information Agency: Investigators have charged Alexander Mavridi, a defendant in a case over murdering Myasnaya Imperia and Ozeretskiye Kolbasy companies owner Vladimir Marugov, with extortion and illegal deprivation of freedom, the Investigative Committee's press service reports. Charges have been also brought against Mavridi's alleged accomplice Konstantin ...
One benefit of the prolonged and in-depth coverage if the US election and its aftermath is that we've learned a great deal more about voter suppression. I think most of us have known for years about the difficulties faced by black people in exercising their right to vote: outright prohibition, education tests, complex documentation required for registration and so on. However now we know about other measures. The closing of polling centres in predominantly black areas, so that potential voters have to make longer journeys and queue for longer in order to vote - some say five times as long ...
I was joined again on Never Mind The Bar Charts by Rob Blackie to talk about the early lessons from the 2020 US Presidential elections for the Liberal Democrats.
Forgive me if I seem the pre-Christmas Scrooge, but I can't get as excited as everyone else at the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that has sent share prices rocketing (or falling) and a member of Sage saying we'll be back to normal by the spring. I feel we are in danger of taking our eye off the ball. The tendency when any of us are faced with a big problem is to see if we can solve it with minimum effort. It's understandable; our lives are fairly full, so problems are irritants. But sometimes a problem requires a structural rethink, demanding root ...
When an attractive, affluent Lebanese Shia woman Zeina (Nada Abu Farhat) flies into Beirut from her home in Dubai at the tail end of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict she cannot at first find any taxi willing to drive her down south to look for her young son, whom she had earlier sent to stay with [...]
Robert Jones, who was the Shropshire Party Candidate in North Shropshire at the last General Election, has joined the Liberal Democrats.
Wed, 12:56: Life during wartime: how west Belfast became the frontline of the Troubles https://t.co/XhnKjUxVgT Grim stuff - with several perspectives. Wed, 13:00: RT @bbcdoctorwho: "Love abides in the face of everything" 💙💙 Two years since 'Demons of the Punjab'. https://t.co/XBAJNuW9cb Wed, 13:04: RT @OlyaOliker: Active fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh appears to be over, with Russian peacekeepers deploying and Armenian forces... Wed, 13:18: RT @robert_mcmillen: The fine line between the normal and the abnormal in West Belfast. Wed, 15:03: The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton Fly at once. The truth about your trouser-stretchers is known. -- A ...
We are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic with some of the highest death rates in the world, the economy is tanking and we are about to jump off a cliff on 1 January when we leave the European Union without a deal, and yet the only news coming out of Number Ten Downing Street is a major domestic bust-up with Boris Johnson's Communications chief storming off in a huff, and others poised to follow him. The Guardian reports that Lee Cain announced he would step down as director of communications on Wednesday night after ministers and advisers including ...
The Guardian has covered the launch of the Activate Fund which supports women into politics – and the first two women to feature in the photo accompanying the article are both Lib Dems. So congratulations to April Preston and Nukey Proctor who have been endorsed by the fund, which is run by the Activate Collective. Activate is funding 11 women running for five different parties in the spring local and mayoral elections across five parts of England - London, the Midlands, North East, North West, and Yorkshire and Humber. The list includes eight women of colour, one disabled woman and ...
The hopes that are being pinned on a new vaccine getting us out of the big pandemic hole that we are in are very high, probably far too high. The dangers are that some folks will let their guard down thinking that all is now OK and they don't need to take precautions much, if at all. The second danger is that some will think they'll get a vaccination by the turn of the year when many will be waiting much longer. Of course there's also the issue of conspiracy theorists who are still taking to social media trying to ...
broadcast and publication anniversaries 12 November 1964: publication of Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker, the first and still the best novelisation of any of the televised stories. Hunt it down if you can - any self-respecting fan should have a copy. 12 November 1966: broadcast of second episode of The Power of the Daleks. Despite the Doctor's best efforts, Lesterson revives one of the metal monsters, which harshly declares itself to be the humans' "ser-vant". 12 November 1977: broadcast of third episode of Image of the Fendahl. Much chasing around the priory, culminating ...
Claudia Webbe, the Labour MP for Leicester East, pleaded not guilty to one charge of harassment.at Westminster magistrates court yesterday. She will face trial in March. The Guardian reports: The court heard it related to numerous unwanted telephone calls and threats on at least two occasions. The Metropolitan police said the accusation was made on 25 April this year and relates to an alleged offence in London. It goes on to say that Webbe has accused police in Islington, where she remains a councillor, of conducting a flawed inquiry that has resulted in this case. The report also says the ...
Residents will recall that I had recently reported a bollard that requires to be re-sited back in place on the foot/cycle path near the Roseangle playpark. The City Council has now responded as follows : "The aforementioned bollard has been sheared at the base and is not re-installable. The hole has been made safe and I have ordered a new one to replace it when it arrives it will be installed."
This is a nice find. In a film made in 1959 for the Scottish Educational Film Association, two children follow the River Dee upstream from Aberdeen Harbour to somewhere close to its source in the Cairngorms. Click on the still above to view it on the British Film Institute site. The blurb there says: Visit Aberdeen harbour, crammed with fishing boats, then row up the river Dee to see the fishermen, with crates of salmon and wriggling eels. After Cults station, stop at Peterculter for the Culter paper mill, then at Banchory for A & G Paterson's saw mill. Steam ...
