They say you should always look up in town, because the upper floors of shops tend to reveal more about their history, but sometimes it pays to look down. I spotted this milestone on the front of a shop when I was walking up Belgrave Gate in the centre of Leicester on Friday. What is it doing there? Leicester City Council's local heritage asset register explains: A rare example of a milestone within the city, dating to the 19th century the milestone is a replacement for a Roman milestone that was discovered in 1771 near Thurmaston and positioned at the ...
Embed from Getty ImagesAndrew Symonds, who played test and one-day cricket for Australia between 1998 and 2009, died in a car crash in North Queensland last week aged 46. His Guardian obituary reminded me of something I had forgotten: it was once hoped that Symonds would play cricket for England. For he was born in Birmingham and taken to Australia by his adoptive parents when he was three months old. In 1995, at the age of 19, he came back to England to play for Gloucestershire and did enough in his first season to be voted young player of the ...
Welcome to my latest weekly round-up of the political polls. You can sign up at the end to get future weekly updates via email. Five national voting intention polls have come out in the last week, with a little more variation than previously. Even so, the picture is consistent one of a mid-single digits Labour lead, with the Conservatives on 31-35%, Labour 39%-40%, Lib Dems 10-12% and Greens 4-7%. Under the hood, the more formal education a voter has, the more likely they are to support Labour and the less likely to support the Conservatives. These polls are all based ...
I was ecstatic when our Conference voted to back a Universal Basic Income at Autumn Conference 2020 thanks to the brilliant work of many, including our brilliant Welsh Leader Jane Dodds, James Baillie and Dr. Adam Bernard among others. Since then, party processes have been busy whirring away to figure out the details. We first had a specific UBI working group but this was then rolled into the broader Fairer Society working group last autumn. I'm sure we'll soon see what the outcome of that process is and I hope it follows the mandate laid down by our Conference in ...
Time for another number from my favourite Nineties band. In the past I have chosen Time for the Rest of Your Life (Q magazine's single of the year in 1995) and Elin's Photograph. Beautiful Alone was as good as it got for Strangelove in terms of singles chart success: it reached no. 35 in 1996. Patrick Duff, Strangelove's lead singer, did not enjoy the duties his music brought with it. He told the Guardian they year: In Britain, how you come across in the press is ridiculously important to your chances of success, and even though we had received ...
Sat, 12:04: @Belfius Trying to solve a small administrative issue. Your Loi branch told me to go away and not ask technical questions. Your Heverlee branch did not respond to my request for an appointment. Nobody answers your phone line and no human being answers your web chat. Bravo! Sat, 12:56: RT @chrisgreybrexit: More than anyone else, David Davis deserves the award for 'the person who was wrong about everything he ever said abou... Sat, 14:48: RT @bjhbfs: The passing of the electronic music composer Vangelis was announced today. Everyone knows Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, b... Sat, 16:05: ...
Sweden and Finland want to join NATO. Vladimir Putin has reversed himself and reluctantly said that membership of the Alliance by the two Nordic countries posed "no threat". A seamless Swedish-Finnish application seemed certain. Wait, the diplomats forgot about the perennial thorn in NATO's Southern flank- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. An application to join NATO requires the approval of all 30 members and President Erdogan has threatened a Turkish block. His reason? He is angry because Sweden and Norway give asylum to members of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) which he is trying to wipe out. Sweden and Finland ...
In the same week that Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, and his wife, Akshata Murty, made the rich list, as the 222nd wealthiest people in the UK, with a combined £730m fortune, the Independent reports that he is not above using other people's money to fix his standing with the electorate. The paper says that Sunak is spending a further £500,000 of taxpayers' cash on focus groups and polling, sparking a claim that he is trying to "repair his image": Researchers have been hired to carry out two focus groups and one national online poll each week until February ...
We recently received complaints from residents about the poor quality of reinstatement of the setts on the Ford's Lane path, following City Fibre installation. See below : We therefore raised this with the council officer who is kindly dealing with liaison with City Fibre and have since been given the following reassurance : "City Fibre will carry out a thorough inspection of this area and identify any defects. A member from my team inspected and has informed me the section of cobbles has been grouted."
