An unusual Wednesday by-election kicked off this week's council by-elections, held a day early so that the new councillor can attend the Thursday full council meeting. Last night's Nethermayne (Basildon) council by-election result: IND: 62.7% (-10.4) CON: 16.1% (+8.9) LAB: 11.7% (-0.2) LDEM: 7.0% (+3.8) REF: 2.6% (+2.6) Votes cast: 1,450 Independent HOLD.https://t.co/xJD75pWvIA — Britain Elects (@BritainElects) July 21, 2022
Embed from Getty ImagesThe speakership of the Commons tends to be appointed on the basis of Buggins' Turn. Which is fine until there is a crisis, when a second-rate speaker will be exposed. Michael Martin was not up to dealing with the scandal over MPs expenses: now Lindsay Hoyle has been exposed by his failure to deal with Boris Johnson's contempt for parliament. The best speaker I can recall is Bernard Weatherill, who combined wisdom with old-fashioned courtesy and had no wish to be a "character". He served from 1983 to 1992. There was a story about him that I ...
The media has picked up on the 1994 Liberal Democrat conference where Liz Truss unsuccessfully moved a motion calling for the abolition of the royal family. A glance at Liberator 224, the first issue published after that conference, reveals that Truss's motion was very much a sideshow. What really annoyed the party leadership that September was LDYS (Liberal Democrat Youth and Students - then the party's youth wing) persuading the conference to call for the establishment of a royal commission on drug policy. Though this fell some way short of the call for the decriminalisation of cannabis the LDYS motion ...
David Steel once said of Margaret Thatcher: " I wish I were as certain of just one thing as she is of everything." Liz Truss is from the same mould and doesn't even have to pretend. In her interview on Radio 4 this morning she confined herself to slogans. She will "Hit the ground running," "Get things done," "Get the economy moving." What she's actually "got done." is short on detail. She claims "the Australian trade deal," though on "Farming Today" earlier we were told that farmers are up in arms about it and feel they have been sold down ...
[IMG: Red Arrows 2013] The programme for the 2022 Folkestone Air Display - exactly one month away today - has been revealed. Thousands are expected to gather on Sunday 21 August to watch the incredible Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5, The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, Puma, and Chinook do their thing along our magnificent coastline. The event will then conclude with an eye-catching display from the world-famous RAF Red Arrows. Residents and visitors are asked to consider using public transport on the day, but temporary car parks at Radnor Park and Folkestone School for Girls will be available to those ...
Wed, 12:56: RT @catherine_mayer: It's taken a German journalist @annettedittert to write the most clear-eyed assessment yet of the UK's political an... Wed, 16:05: Had occurred to me too! https://t.co/EQAhuR3ACx Wed, 16:50: What did I think, @thalys_en ? Well, apart from being cooped up with 1000 other people at 40+ degrees in Gare du Nord for a couple of hours with no idea when my train home would leave, nothing much to say. https://t.co/ToR7hEBBsf Wed, 17:03: RT @AdamBienkov: BREAKING: Penny Mordaunt is out of the Conservative leadership contest. Rishi Sunak: 137 Liz Truss: 113 Penny Mordaunt: 1... Wed, 17:08: RT ...
Have we heard the last of Lord Bonkers' gorilla costume? I sincerely hope so, but it's not yet the season for bonfires and the odds must be that it will crop up again sooner or later. Thursday You may think it odd of me, but there are still times when I feel more comfortable as a gorilla. It is refreshing to cast off the world of anger and telegrams, put on the old suit and head for one of my coverts. There I swing from bough to bough without a care in the world. Sad to report, as I slinked ...
The Guardian reports that scientists, vets and naturalists are calling for a moratorium on the badger cull in the light of evidence that they say shows nine years of killing badgers has failed to reduce bovine TB in cattle: The culling of legally protected badgers to reduce cattle TB enters its 10th season this summer, despite the publication of a scientific paper in the journal Veterinary Record earlier this year which concluded that culling had no significant impact on bTB in cattle herds. The paper sparked a row over its methodology, which the government says was flawed, but its supporters ...
"This Party will not duck and weave, unlike Labour, from the issues people are interested in." That could be Liz Truss today but it dates back to 1994, when Truss was president of Oxford University Lib Dems. She was at the Lib Dem conference in Brighton, speaking for a motion on abolishing the monarchy. "I agree with Paddy Ashdown when he said, 'everyone should have the chance to be a somebody'... We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all. We believe in fairness and common sense. We believe in referenda on major constitutional issues... We do not believe that people ...
Fulbright scholar Adrien Segal and the University of Dundee Botanic Garden would like to invite you to an open studio and land art exhibition today - Thursday 21st July - from 4pm until 7pm at the Botanic Garden. Light refreshments and drinks will be provided along with a talk and exhibition walk led by the artist and the garden curator. Cyclogenisis is a new site-specific earthwork in progress at the Dundee Botanical Garden, located in an area where a grouping of eucalyptus trees were felled by two extratropical storms, Arwen and Barra felled forty-five trees, at the garden in an ...
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