The old adage "Be careful what you wish for" could be reworded as "Be careful how what you wish for actually comes about." No, it doesn't flow easily off the tongue, I grant you, but we do need to be wary of willing the ends without paying some attention to the means. As the 5 May local elections rapidly approach, the media is full of what a bad result for the Conservatives could mean for Boris Johnson's future. Both media people and politicians are full of "Voters have a chance to make their feelings felt in the local elections" about ...
There are stirrings in Dominic Raab's constituency of Esher & Walton. You might imagine this to be solid blue wall territory, but trouble started for him in the 2019 General Election when he scraped in with just 49% of the vote, closely followed by Liberal Democrat Monica Harding on 45%. Raab's constituency lies entirely within the Borough of Elmbridge, which is currently run by a coalition of Liberal Democrats, Residents and Independents. Indeed all but three of the wards in Elmbridge lie in the Esher & Walton constituency, so any changes in Elmbridge on 5th May could be quite significant ...
Following the conviction of a couple in Bridgend for the murder of a child who had been taken off the "at risk" register, there have been calls for an independent review of social work as it affects children. Welsh Liberal Democrats support Prof. Donald Forrester and the British Association of Social Workers Cymru in their identification of a need for such a review, which has never been carried out in Wales, alone among the home countries.
I am glad that the Speaker of the House of Commons is a staunch believer in press freedom. So am I. But it is not his job to protect press freedom; they are quite good at doing that for themselves. It is his job to enable MPs to go about their business as freely as possible - and that includes freedom from misogyny and scurrilous insults. Our press should be free to say anything they want, and indeed they are, as the story about Angela Rayner shows. But they should not be free to say anything they want without consequences. ...
A Liberal Democrat press release brings the news: Former Conservative Councillor and outgoing NFU Deputy President Stuart Roberts becomes member of the Liberal Democrats and will help write the party's new farming policies.Stuart joins Ed Davey on farming visit in Hampshire ahead of the local elections.New analysis reveals farming income in the South dropped by £61 million, the lowest in four years. The outgoing Deputy President of the National Farmers Union (NFU) has announced he has joined the Liberal Democrats. Stuart Roberts recently finished his high profile role at the NFU to become politically active. He will join Lib Dem ...
Cllr Alan Kopitko, who quit the Conservatives in Dominic Raab's patch earlier this year, has backed the Liberal Democrats for the May local elections.
The Liberal Democrats have slammed the Conservatives for being soft on crime, as new official figures show they are failing on their manifesto pledge to recruit 20,000 more police officers. A total of 4,814 extra officers were recruited in the second year of the uplift, well short of the Government's 6,000 target. It means the recruitment rate would have to increase by a third, to 6,424 extra officers in the final year of the policy to meet the target of 20,000 by March 2023. Senior police chiefs are starting to warn that the target won't be met. Acting Met Commissioner ...
Lib Dems call for rescue package for struggling families in rural areasConservatives accused of leaving rural communities "out in the cold" after refusing to cap price of heating oil Top 25 areas most reliant on heating oil revealed The Liberal Democrats have demanded a rural cost of living rescue package, including a cap on heating oil prices to help struggling families off the gas grid. The party warned that the Conservatives are leaving rural communities "out in the cold" by refusing to help with soaring bills. Rural communities are bearing the brunt of the cost of living crisis with soaring ...
Yesterday in the Senedd, Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds requested that the Welsh Government issues a statement on the possibility that 80 or 160 overseas trainee GPs in Wales may be forced to leave the country. The request came as the Lib Dems revealed that across the border in England, 6.2 million people waited over eight days for a GP appointment in February, up 9 per cent on the previous month. A report by the Welsh BMA GPs committee earlier this year highlighted that current Home Office rules implemented by Priti Patel and the Conservatives mean that individuals must ...
The Guardian reports that MPs have criticised the government for its "unacceptable" failure to draw up plans to recover nearly £5bn taken from the coronavirus emergency bounceback loan scheme by fraudsters. The paper says that a public accounts committee report has recommended that the government must give more resources to counter-fraud agencies and account properly for how much of the money will be lost forever: In a package of measures developed under the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, the government focused its support for the economy at the start of the coronavirus pandemic on companies and people in work. The bounceback loan ...
I received concerns from residents recently that the real time information display in the bus shelter in Blackness Avenue near to Logie and St John's (Cross) Church appeared not to be working. I reported this to the City Council and the Senior Transport Officer has helpfully responded as follows : "I have been out to site ... and it appears that the display is on but has a backlighting failure. We will ask an engineer to attend."
