Liberal Democrat Defence Spokesperson Jamie Stone MP has welcomed the Government's announcement that settlement fees will be waived for foreign nationals who have served in the UK Armed Forces for at least six years, but says it will still leave many service personnel facing "excessive fees". The Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for several years for these fees to be waived for members of the Armed Forces and their families. In 2019, Jamie Stone and party leader Ed Davey MP tabled a Private Members' Bill to force the government to do so, as well as a parliamentary motion that secured ...
So, I'm on my flight out of LAX, having spent the weekend at Gallifrey One and then Monday and yesterday exploring Los Angeles. I arrived on Thursday with H, who I actually knew as a Doctor Who fan before we became work colleagues a year ago. The afternoon was a write-off; we struggled over to the convention opening, grabbed dinner and crashed. I tweeted about jetlag and to my surprise got a reply from my cousin B, who lives in Cardiff but happened to be in town putting the final touches to the new TV adaptation of The Time Traveller's ...
The radio station Harborough FM - which these days provides the best local news service - reports that 16 more buildings and locations are to be added to the district's list of "non-designated heritage assets". Those on this list are deemed worthy of protection because of their historic, architectural or archaeological interest. Among the new 16 is a former hotel in St Mary's Road near the railway station, which Harborough FM describes as a: grand two-storey building has likely links to Thomas Cook, who lived in Market Harborough, and the former Temperance movement, a major societal movement in the 19th ...
Embed from Getty ImagesJacob Rees-Mogg's decision to launch a study of the economic benefits of reintroducing imperial units of measurement is, of course, ridiculous. That's the whole point of it. Rees-Mogg is a 21st-century financier who has cultivated a comically old-fashioned image as a way of disguising this fact. (It follows that those on the left who mock that image in the hope of harming his political career are actually boosting it.) The announcement does serve political purposes too - reassuring the core Brexit vote, bringing out the worse in the government's opponents* - but it is best seen as ...
Second paragraph of third story (which as it happens is "Million Dollar Baby", on which the film was based):The voice of Frankie Dunn pierced. In the same sentence it could climb high and harsh or loop sweet as a peach, like Benny Goodman playing "Body and Soul," or go on down deep as a grizzly's grunt. It could move sideways on you and then curl back on itself, but always the voice pierced the mind with images that stuck, because the sound out of the old man painted pictures that became part of you, made you hear his voice when ...
All active Liberal Democrats know that the messages you write on a leaflet have to be clear and short. So why when we come to party conferences do we insist on debating motions which are astonishingly long and complex? I challenge most attendees at party conferences on whether they have read through the full texts of all the motions. I have just ploughed through 1,000 words of a motion for Spring Conference on an issue I care strongly about - having already read the much longer and more detailed policy paper to which it relates. What we want from conference ...
Layla Moran has been campaigning for years against the archaic Vagrancy Act, which criminalises rough sleepers. Yesterday the Government announced that the Act will be repealed. We did it! The Government have just put down the amendment to repeal the Vagrancy Act – the law that criminalises rough sleeping. This took 4yrs. Started with Oxford students. Countless Bills, Qs events and debates. I can't quite believe we've got there. Thanks to all [IMG: 😊] [IMG: 👏] pic.twitter.com/MUjYlssrXM — Layla Moran [IMG: 🔶] (@LaylaMoran) February 22, 2022 She has written about it in the Big Issue under the heading: Scrapping the ...
Unusually and for the first time ever I will be joining two discussions in International Women's Day about the dangers that men cause to women. That has made me think more than I ever have before (I am ashamed to ... Continue reading →
Tue, 12:56: RT @KenyaMissionUN: Kenya makes strong statement opposing the undermining of the sovereignty & territorial integrity of #Ukraine during the... Tue, 18:10: "Bloodchild", by Octavia E. Butler; "Press Enter ◼️", by John Varley; Neuromancer, by William Gibson https://t.co/KEvj4syX5j Tue, 22:01: Me (enters small museum in downtown LA) Guard (spotting my Doctor Who bag): Oh, are you in town for @gallifreyone #gally1 then? Me: Er, yes! Were you there too? Guard: Couldn't go this year but I went in 2020! Me: Me too! Guard: Wasn't Christopher Eccleston fantastic? Me: Yes!
I was born in 1937 so lived through the War, though I don't remember much about it. I suppose I had a deprived childhood in material terms (sweet ration only 2oz a week; second-hand toys, if any; Fair-isle pullover darned at the elbows, short pants patched): but so did everybody else so it didn't really matter. I had a loving family and I was never really hungry. In my post-war formative years my generation was proud of the leading role our country and armed forces had played in defeating fascism, and continued to play as one the "top nations" in ...
As if it were not bad enough that billions of pounds of our money was lost buying unusable PPE during the pandemic, the Guardian draws attention to yet another scandal related to the Government's handling of Covid. The paper says that the public accounts committee has found that fraud and error are likely to have cost the UK government as much as £16bn across the Covid-19 emergency loan schemes. They want the Treasury to come up with estimates of fraud and error losses across the individual schemes and how much it intends to recover by the end of the year: ...
Next Saturday - 26th February at the Botanic Garden (11.45am to 12.15pm) : Teeny Weeney A joyful and heartfelt show for under 5s and their families. Big Bug has one job and one job only - gathering leaves. He gathers leaves all day, every day. That's until Wee Bug comes along. They start exploring Big Bug's terrain and all the fascinating objects hidden there. Uh oh - Big Bug doesn't like change! Can he break out of his old routine and learn to make a new friend? Meanwhile, Wee Bug dreams of flying. They long to soar, float and sail ...
Shropshire Council has declared that a by-election will be held for the vacant Ludlow Town Council seat in Gallows Bank Ward on Thursday 31 March. The ward has three Ludlow councillors. I remain in post along with Viv Parry. Graeme Perks stood down a few weeks back after 20 years' service with the town council. Being a councillor can be very rewarding and the role gives residents a chance to help their local community. I should be honest and say that at times being a councillor can at times be frustrating but that is probably no different from any other ...
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