David Campanale (Photo: Mark Pack) I ask this question because I honestly don't know. The first I heard of him was about 20 minutes ago, when a Lib Dem friend sent a message asking why the party has selected a homophobe as a PPC. My friend shared a link to twitter, where I discovered that a Labour activist has uncovered some history on Mr Campanale, who has today been confirmed as the new Liberal Democrat PPC for the target seat of Sutton and Cheam. The official press release from the Sutton and Cheam Liberal Democrats and Mark Pack's blog are ...
Current Twice a Stranger: How Mass Expulsion Forged Modern Greece and Turkey, by Bruce Clark The Gift of Rain, by Tan Twan Eng Last books finished A Radical Romance, by Alison Light Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver Where Was the Room Where It Happened?: The Unofficial Hamilton - An American Musical Location Guide by BdotBarr [Bryan Barreras] Calvin, by F. Bruce Gordon Of the City of the Saved..., by Philip Purser-Hallard (did not finish) Carbone & Silicium, by Mathieu Bablet Peter Davison's Book of Alien Monsters Peter Davison's Book of Alien Planets The Daughters of Earth, by Sarah Groenewegen Next ...
Blair, if you put Iraq to one side, was the most progressive PM in generations; go on give me the name of a recent PM who was more progressive? And the reason I'm blogging about Blair now? I'm told 1 million people have signed a petition asking for his Knighthood to be rescinded. Yes he was too right-wing for me as a Social Liberal of the left, yes in my view (in European terms) he was akin to a Christian Democrat, yes he was a policy ditherer too, taking far too long to get on with things. But despite all ...
When I joined the world of work in the 1980s as an adult it was a domain dominated by sacrificial attitudes. You were required to be an unquestioning employee of the organisation you worked for. Your unquestioning nature translated into being a loyal and productive worker. Your productivity was measured by long hours and endless ... The post I almost saw unicorns during my festive break appeared first on A Midlifer in London .
Warning: this review contains massive spoilers for a film that came out in 2004 I mean it. If you have not seen Million Dollar Baby, and think you might watch it some day (and I really recommend it, one of the best Best Picture winners), stop reading now. Anyway. Million Dollar Baby won the Oscar for Best Picture of 2004, and three others: Clint Eastwood for Best Director, Hilary Swank for Best Actress and Morgan Freeman for Best Supporting Actor. The Aviator actually won five Oscars on the night, and I might make that my next viewing. The Oscar for ...
With the end of another quarter, another update to PollBase, my database of British voting intention opinion polls since 1943 is now up. Jack Bailey and Luke Mansillo have taken this data and turned it into PollBase Pro, daily estimates of aggregate voting intention in Great Britain from 1955. Details here. Enjoy! P.S. For the very latest polls, see my polling scorecard and you can also read my explanation of why polls only talk to a 1,000 or so people to get the national mood. Get polling news and analysis by email Sign up here if you would like to ...
What it is to be all-knowing. For someone my age the release of the 1921 census means the possibility of nosing through the lives of people you actually knew and creepily of course, you know what happened next and they did not. Here is my Dad aged 9 months. He is briefly in rural Sussex while his First World War veteran father finds (another) temporary job at a gas works. Here is my maternal Grandma aged 5. Her Dad is a wallpaper hanger. All eight of them crammed into a little terraced house in Kent. But the story is not ...
Award-winning international television journalist with the BBC World Service, David Campanale, has been selected by the Liberal Democrats in the parliamentary marginal of Sutton & Cheam.
Fri, 12:56: Worth reading (if you can) judgement in Hoeybrechts case. Clearly incitement to hatred of & violence against women. His defence? That he is the victim of "a well-oiled, communist-led international machine whose ultimate goal is to undermine Western states". Rightly convicted. https://t.co/vadbdl9NUo Fri, 14:09: Adventures in Moominland https://t.co/EM4Aziu6k5 Five years ago today, when the world was a very different place. Fri, 16:05: TIL that Elizabeth Enright, author of lovely books Thimble Summer, Gone-Away Lake, & the Melendies (The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, Then There Were Five, Spiderweb for Two) was the niece of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Her ...
Tourism is the lifeblood of many of our most spectacular rural communities. Nut there is a downside for the people who live there all year round. Second homes and holiday lets mean that it can be difficult for local people to find somewhere to live. Tim Farron raised this in a debate in Parliament this week. Here is is opening speech. It is a huge privilege to serve our communities in Cumbria—our towns, villages lakes and dales, among the rugged beauty of England's finest landscapes—yet the people who live in our communities are even more precious than the places themselves. ...
As if it wasn't bad enough that companies and individuals were getting on the preferred supplier list for lucrative covid contracts through personal contacts with Tory MPs and Ministers, we now have the ludicrous situation where, according to the Guardian, it has emerged that the Conservative peer Michelle Mone referred a business to the Cabinet Office for potential multimillion pound PPE contracts before it had even been incorporated as a company: The business, PPE Medpro, was fast-tracked by the government through its "VIP lane" for politically connected firms following the referral by Mone. Within weeks of the company's incorporation on ...
We are entering Ukraine Week. A series of meetings across Europe and at the highest level will probably determine whether 100,000 Russian troops will cross the border into Eastern Ukraine and ignite Europe's greatest crisis since the end of the Cold War. It started Friday with a Zoom meeting of NATO foreign ministers. On Monday Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin go head to head in Geneva. Next Wednesday NATO heads of government hold a summit in Brussels, and the following day, in Vienna, the 57 members of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meet in Vienna. The ...
Sat 8th
07:23
Covid Watch 172: If you are not vaccinated or seeking another dose, this weekend is your chance
Have you been vaccinated yet? Have you had all three doses? If not, there are opportunities in Ludlow and South Shropshire over this weekend to walk into a clinic and get your first jab, second jab or your third. Sessions are 8am to 11am at Ludlow Hospital today (Saturday) and 9am to 12pm tomorrow at Ludlow Mascall Centre. People do not need to be registered with a GP, have proof of address, immigration status, ID or an NHS number. A few personal details will be taken to record who has been vaccinated. More than one in ten people aged 12 ...
