Every Christmas some rabble rousers leap to attack people, left wing of course, who are, apparently trying to abolish Christmas. Apparently, people want to call it a Winter Festival and ban carols! When asked to give details of who might ... Continue reading →
it's a relief that Prime Minster Johnson's impenetrable carapace is at last beginning to crack. I had expected that the Tories would have ditched him by this autumn, but the electorate has been absurdly generous in giving him and his fellow incompetents "slack." Now the odds are that he will be dumped sometime next year, in ample time for the new leader to be bedded in and lauded before he or she calls an election at what is deemed to be the most advantageous time. Whereas the Labour Party is still mulling over the awfulness of their invasion of Iraq ...
My first comment on the current Boundary Commission proposals for Northern Ireland (click to embiggen): My more detailed input to the Boundary Commission:Dear Commissioners, 1. I am a long-term observer of your work, a Visiting Professor at the Facuty of Social Science in Ulster University, and have been part of the BBC's telecast commentary team for every Northern Ireland election since 2010. 2. Nonetheless, I am writing to you purely in a personal and private capacity, not on behalf of either Ulster University or the BBC, or of any other body. I have absolutely no objection to my name being ...
It's been a great few weeks in North Shropshire, albeit a bit on the chilly side with some bad storms. Hundreds of supporters have turned out to support Helen Morgan in her campaign to storm a "true blue" bastion. This huge effort has turned the tide and the bookies are giving the Lib Dems better odds than the Tories. There are just three days campaigning to go, plus polling day. We'll be publishing the result on LDV just as soon as it is announced in the early hours of Friday morning. And through the day and weekend, we will be ...
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia. My conversations with my current employer continued in April 2014, but then petered out for a few months. I did have ...
These .jpeg pictures are designed for printing out and colouring in. They are free to copy and use but must not be used for commercial purposes or for profit without my express permission. Christmas Wishes Robin Christmas Tree Merry Christmas Snowman Christmas Tree Fairy
The constant drip feed of stories of Government Covid rule breaking continues, most recently with the picture of Boris Johnson taking part in a quiz as the Daily Mirror reports: EXCLUSIVE: Boris Johnson accused of personally breaking Covid laws by hosting a Christmas quiz in No10 last year – and we've got pictures [IMG: 👀] https://t.co/lzcEnXeHck — Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) December 11, 2021 After this latest revelation, Lib Dem Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper said that the Prime Minister was undermining the ongoing fight against Covid and needs to go. She said: This slew of rule-breaking revelations leaves Boris Johnson with ...
Sat, 14:48: The Treaty of Westphalia https://t.co/IQfqSQ3Gzs What shall we do about Luxembourg? Sat, 15:50: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers https://t.co/pI6bzBMxiL Sat, 17:01: The stucco ceilings of Jan-Christian Hansch, part 3: the ones I'll never see https://t.co/lNbPSH9qBs Sat, 18:05: RT @EdMcMillanScott: @MatthewParris3 "Someone decent needs to stand up and rid us of @BorisJohnson but Tories are championing an empty vess... Sun, 00:02: Am puzzled by commentary that North Shropshire has been Tory since the Great Reform Act. Mostly, sure; entirely, no. When the seat was first created in 1832, Rowland Hill (he of the stamps) had to ...
As if it wasn't bad enough that Boris the clown and his staff were ahppily flouting lockdown rules while the rest of us locked ourselves away with our immediate family (and not even that in many cases) to prevent the virus from spreading, it turns out that the more serious Treasury was also indulging in some rule-breaking. The Guardian reports that officials held an "impromptu" drinks party to celebrate Rishi Sunak's autumn spending review during lockdown. They say that a spokesperson insisted it was a "small number" of staff who celebrated around their desks, but reports put the number closer ...
The Police Bill is not just about curtailing the right to protest. The new legislation allows the Home Secretary to force local authorities and other public bodies to hand over sensitive, personal information to the police, even against the informed judgement of professionals on the ground. Liberal Democrats in the Lords will vote against this further extension of centralised power over local decision-making. Part of the truly illiberal Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that is not getting much publicity is a new duty on public bodies to give information to the police, so the cops can try to arrest ...
Its here. Omicron is in Shropshire and in Telford & Wrekin, with nearly 2,000 identified across the UK. There is a lot to be learnt about Omicron. We know it is spreading fast. Faster than the dominant variant Delta. We don't yet know its health impacts or the risks of those with one, two or three doses of vaccine getting Covid-19, though initial indications are that three doses are needed to achieve 70% to 75% protection against symptomatic infection. We don't yet know the health impacts of Omicron, the extent it will increase hospitalisation or lead to long term health ...
It is called the Begin Doctrine. The main tenets are that Israel is the only country in the Middle East region allowed to have nuclear weapons and that it reserves the right to prevent by any means the possession of nuclear weapons by any other country in the region. The Begin Doctrine (named after Menahem Begin who introduced it) was used to justify its attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981. It is now being pulled out of the diplomatic cupboard and dusted off in preparation for a possible assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. At the same time ...
A bit of a tale here ... Some years ago, in two tranches, the long stretch of unadopted and very poor conditioned pavements in Menzieshill Road were upgraded and adopted by the City Council. I had asked for the street to be added to the unadopted footpaths list, so was pleased at the much better pavements that resulted from this. However, a section of the footpath on the south side, just west of the junction with Whitefauld Road, was left untouched (and in a poor state). I queried this on behalf of residents and was advised that it could not ...
