From the YouTube blurb: What accounts for our polarized public life, and how can we begin to heal it? Political philosopher Michael Sandel offers a surprising answer: those who have flourished need to look in the mirror. He explores how "meritocratic hubris" leads many to believe their success is their own doing and to look down on those who haven't made it, provoking resentment and inflaming the divide between "winners" and "losers" in the new economy. Hear why we need to reconsider the meaning of success and recognize the role of luck in order to create a less rancorous, more ...
Sun 7th
19:50
Liz Truss's leadership campaign is being run from a Westminster house owned by a former private secr...
A couple of week's ago the Guardian took us Inside Team Truss. The one interesting thing I learnt from this article - and thanks to the reader who pointed it out to me - is that Truss's campaign is being run from a Westminster townhouse owned by the Conservative peer Greville Howard, who was private secretary to Enoch Powell between 1968 and 1970. Beyond that. it's largely gush. We're told of one team member:"She's as dry as a pancake but got a great policy head," said one Tory source.And before we've finished wondering why this Tory source thinks a pancake ...
Next month's conference in Brighton will include a consultative session on the Libdem manifesto and the Towards a fairer society policy motion. The motion addresses some immediate issues around welfare reform in proposing the restoration of the £20 uplift to Universal Credit, introducing emergency grants (not loans) and stopping deducting debt repayments at unaffordable rates. There are three options put forward with respect to party policy on a basic income. OPTION 1: replacing tax and national insurance allowances with a Universal Basic Income for working age adults, set at a level which would compensate for the loss of allowances (while ...
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is now out. As it says: There was a flurry of excitement a few days ago when a new poll put Liz Truss only five points ahead of Rishi Sunak with Conservative Party members. Is the race really much closer than YouGov polling, conventional wisdom – and nearly all unconventional wisdom – has it? Let's dig into the evidence and find out. You can read The Week in Polls in full here, and you can sign up to receive future editions here:
Up and down the country, councillors and campaigners from all parties will be spending their sunny Sunday out and about delivering leaflets or knocking on doors talking to residents to find out what is on their minds. At this time of year, quite often you'll have a chat with people in their gardens. Most people are lovely and friendly even if they don't vote for you. A few can be a bit grumpy but it is relatively rare that someone is downright abusive. And, thankfully, even less frequent that they actually resort to violence. This morning Edinburgh Lib Dem Councillor ...
The blurb for this on YouTube says: The old Jimmy Reed blues number vamped up by Scotland's Mark Five. At a time when the big London-based record companies ignored talent over the border, the lads protest-marched from Edinburgh to London which resulted in a Fontana signing. This one 45 sold so poorly they called it a day. Singer Manny Charlton eventually joined Scots rockers Nazareth. That's one version of the story. I prefer the one I got from the Scotsman: January 1963 ... The Mark Five, featuring Manny Charlton who later plays in Nazareth, walk from Edinburgh to London, hitching ...
Sat, 15:47: RT @doctor_oxford: A desperate day for Archie Battersbee's parents. Even when the relationship between family & hospital is strong, these s... Sat, 16:05: https://t.co/QFFXWd0hE5 Sat, 17:30: July 2017 books https://t.co/hnfgb4mYI2 Sat, 18:04: Daily #174 1️⃣5️⃣⬛1️⃣0️⃣ 1️⃣6️⃣⬛1️⃣7️⃣ 0️⃣4️⃣⬛1️⃣1️⃣ 1️⃣2️⃣⬛2️⃣0️⃣ 0️⃣6️⃣⬛1️⃣8️⃣ 1️⃣9️⃣⬛0️⃣7️⃣ 0️⃣8️⃣⬛1️⃣3️⃣ 1️⃣4️⃣⬛0️⃣9️⃣ https://t.co/1E46GFXTgD #sedecordle Sat, 20:34: Saturday reading https://t.co/dT08mrk0jJ Sun, 10:45: RT @WarintheFuture: In military operations, we often speak about 'seizing the initiative'. It is a term used in doctrinal publications, and...
Just when it seemed that we might have got to the bottom of scandals which involve the Labour Party in Liverpool along comes another one. This time it involves inappropriate behaviour from Cabinet Member Abdul Qadir. Although he correctly gives ... Continue reading →
The nuclear reactor we should be worried about Forget about Chernobyl. That was small fry worry. Focus instead on the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Zaporizhzhia supplies half of Ukraine's nuclear-generated electricity; is next door to the city of Enerhodar (pre-war population of 53,000) and sits alongside the Dnieper River which supplies the drinking water for millions in southeastern Ukraine and Crimea. The nuclear facility was captured by Russia on 4 March during the Battle of Enerhodar. The power plant is being kept in operation with Ukrainian workers retained by the occupying Russians. But Putin's forces have—according to US ...
As residents will recall from our previous update, there is currently public engagement on a possible replacement of the Magdalen Green footbridge. In addition to the online survey at : https://tinyurl.com/MagdalenGreenFootbridgeSurvey ... there's also a drop-in event at the Magdalen Green bandstand this coming Wednesday - 10th August - from 5pm to 8pm - all welcome!
It is more than six years since I worked in what was then the Welsh Assembly, and if anything, the so-called Cardiff Bay bubble has grown tighter and more exclusive. The chummy culture between MSs and lobbyists, means that a small group of unelected individuals wield unprecedented power to get things done their way, and in return the various interest groups go easy in their scrutiny and criticism of government ministers. It is not healthy, and somehow, I doubt that even a much-enlarged Parliament will not change anything, especially when the proposed new voting system puts the fate of individual ...
