Efocus no 174 for the Whickham area has just been published. Issues covered include:Chase Park house-building plans approved;Whinnies Christmas market;Fun dog show at Chase Park;Free food at Kingsway community orchard;Angela Lansbury's connection to Whickham;Help needed to plant up Whickham;Former Dunston Fed brewery could be developed soon;Medieval fort discovered in Washingwell Woods;Can you
If satire were going to bring the Conservatives down, it would have done so a decade ago. Still, it keeps our spirits up and Euan McColm is in good form here: "Plaudits, too, for Jacob Rees-Mogg, who hit the airwaves a day later. The secretary of state for business has created a character for the ages, part Christopher Robin, part 1950s hangman. Beneath a plummy and polite exterior lurks the terrifying stench of menace." Harry Shukman reports from the Ukip conference: "Today, fifty members of Ukip fit into the function room of a country pub outside Skegness, and there are ...
On a fast moving day in Downing Street, Lib Dems have called for Parliament to sit tomorrow so that Jeremy Hunt can deliver a new fiscal statement. This is sorely needed to calm markets before they open on Monday. Sarah Olney is our Treasury spokesperson and she says: This government has overseen a slow-motion car crash as Britain's economy barrels towards disaster. For weeks Ministers have sat on their hands as their mini-budget unfolded. Parliament must sit tomorrow so we can hear from this new Chancellor. Every day this disastrous Conservative Government staggers on, it plunges Britain into more turbulence ...
Imagine you are a principled, small-state Conservative, and suddenly in September 2022 you are given your chance. What would have been the RIGHT way to go about it? Let's list some of the flinty but respectable views you hold. Nothing wrong with that lot! Reasonable minds can differ on the matter of degree. I reallyContinue reading "Captain Obvious strikes: they just should not have been in such a rush"
So Kwasi Kwarteng is out and Jeremy Hunt is in. How long can Liz Truss last after today's extraordinary moves? Prominent Lib Dems have, of course, been giving us their take on the news: Boris Johnson failed our country and now Liz Truss has broken our economy. It's time the British people were given their say on this shower of a Conservative party. We need a General Election now. — Ed Davey (@EdwardJDavey) October 14, 2022 I think we can see a clear message here! * Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor ...
We know now that Kwasi Kwarteng is out as Chancellor just hours after Downing Street told the BBC's Chris Mason that he and Liz Truss were "in lockstep." Whether he jumped or was pushed is for the journalists to work out. I would be very surprised if we see them leaving Government in lockstep together, which seems unfair given that he was basically implementing the policies she put forward during her leadership campaign. In fact, he blinked first when the markets first went wild, putting out a statement after what was described at the time as a heated row between ...
On Monday I was the guest speaker at the Mothers' Union in Whickham. I was first booked to give a talk last year but covid delayed things for a year. I wasn't sure if I had on my history, self-sufficiency or local politics hat on when the invite was made but I offered to speak on a number of issues and they opted for history. I spoke about the Romans in Washingwell where a fort was discovered in
The Liberal Democrats have selected local entrepreneur and environmental campaigner, Victoria Collins, to be the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for South West Hertfordshire.
Alistair Carmichael is in blistering form in a Scotsman article in which he argues that the SNP's push for independence is like treating the Cold with Flu. He compares Nicola Sturgeon's pursuit of independence against all the evidence to Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng's ideological trashing of the economy: The accusation has never been that leaving the UK would be "too good" for our economy. The concern was that those advocating the nationalist cure-all were blithely or intentionally ignoring the harm to businesses and livelihoods. In Brexit and the disruption of recent weeks, we have had an abject lesson in ...
Thu, 12:56: RT @WritesBright: I read Britannia Unchained from cover to cover. It scares me that two of its authors are now in charge of the country.... Thu, 15:34: RT @timfarron: Agent Liz will need to serve another 78 days or else become Britain's shortest 'lived' PM. Obviously we have contingency pla... Thu, 15:43: RT @DaveKeating: As #NATO discusses next steps for #UkraineWar, #Belarus opposition leader Svetlana @Tsihanouskaya tells Brussels reporters... Thu, 16:05: RT @ChrisO_wiki: 1/ With the news today that Russia has arrested eight people as suspects for the bombing of the Crimea Bridge on 8 October... Thu, 16:43: ...
There have been a lot of bizarre, cruel and outrageous decisions by various Home Secretaries over the past twelve years, but, in my opinion, the latest pronouncement by possibly the worst holder of that post in modern times verges on the criminal. The Guardian reports that updated online ministerial profiles show that the Home Office has taken the modern slavery brief away from the minister responsible for safeguarding and classed it as an "illegal immigration and asylum" issue. They say that the move is seen as a clear sign that the department is doubling down on Suella Braverman's suggestion that ...
Four Liberal Democrat candidates for the five principal authority council by-elections this week, which is one up on the last time these seats were up. Tuffley (Gloucester) council by-election result: CON: 34.9% (-13.5) LDEM: 33.8% (+28.3) LAB: 31.3% (-2.7) Votes cast: 1,440 No Independent (-12.1) as prev. Conservative HOLD. — Britain Elects (@BritainElects) October 13, 2022
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention poll from each pollster currently operating in Britain. Below the table, you'll find the option to sign up to email updates about new polls and also a set of answers to frequently asked questions about political polling. Or, if you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them: Check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, andSign up for my weekly analysis of the latest political polling: The Week in Polls. ...
This forthcoming weekend again sees Frances and John Dent in Glamis Drive open their lovely garden to residents as part of Scotland's Gardens Scheme. Not only is a visit to the garden a pleasure - it also helps raise funds for charity. This time, John and Frances are again supporting Dr Graham's Homes in Kalimpong, West Bengal. The homes were founded more than 100 years ago as an orphanage for Anglo-Indian children. Since then it has developed to be a successful boarding school for children from Nursery to Senior ages, with an additional hostel in Kolkata for school leavers progressing ...
