Speaking at an IPPR event, Ed Davey followed up his 'conference' speech emphasis on the importance of political reform: "For a Liberal Democrat to be asked to talk about political reform is like Christmas has come early" – Ed Davey https://t.co/0BeY2buiS1 — Mark Pack [IMG: 🔶] (@markpack) November 30, 2022
Bristol's Central Library is under threat of being closed down and relocated to a new site. The future of one of Bristol's most distinctive and well used public buildings has been thrown into doubt by the Mayor including it in his mix of options for spending cuts to balance the council's budget. The Central Library [...]
How bad would the midlife crisis have to be for someone to contemplate withdrawing equity from their home to pursue their dreams? A symptom of the midlife crisis is financial stress and worry. A woman who wrote about her husband's midlife crisis on Reddit has captured a national media's attention. So fed up with her ... The post Would You Take Equity Out of Your Home to Help with Your Midlife Crisis? appeared first on A Midlifer in London .
Paul Tyler's recent letter to the Guardian about reforming the House of Lords raises at least two meta questions about British politics. He suggests Keir Starmer revives the 2012 Lib Dem legislation but before we do that should ask why did that initiative fail and why should things be different in 2024. The truth is it, it failed for the same reasons that every previous attempt failed, starting in 1911 but most conspicuously in 1999 when a cohort of counts and their ilk managed to stay on in the second chamber. Britain is very good at self-sabotage, at not learning ...
Lib Dem MP Munira Wilson jokes the govt must have sympathy with the Welsh team as they know "what it's like to have Marcus Rashford run rings around them" while she asks about extending free school meals. #PMQs: https://t.co/ZTbv6x8cal 📺 Sky 501 pic.twitter.com/80wiL4p4kF — Sky News (@SkyNews) November 30, 2022 Called to ask Rishi Sunak a question on free school meals at today's prime minister's questions, Munira Wilson, the Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, was ready with a killer topical reference. I suppose the real problem with parents who struggle to feed their children is that they lack aspiration. Otherwise, ...
Yesterday's report from the ONS showed that less than 50% of the population of England and Wales identified as Christian in the 2021 Census. This had led to calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England. It also gives me the opportunity to use the longest word in the English language. The fact that the word dates back to the 19th century shows that there is a long history to the call to reduce the formal role of the Church of England in public life – and opposition to it. Note that disestablishment only relates to the Church of ...
Peers are asked to give speeches at all sorts of occasions. It's particularly important for LibDem peers to accept invitations to a range of events while we have so few MPs, to maintain our visibility as a serious political party. So last Friday I spoke at the 'Christmas Gala' dinner of a UK bilateral Chamber of Commerce for one of the member states of the EU. An official responsible for trade policy gave an upbeat presentation of the prospects for UK trade with EU countries. I followed with a mildly critical interpretation of the situation, mentioning that I was a ...
The Independent reports the Lib Dems once again leading the way on windfall taxation: Rishi Sunak is facing a Commons push to "name and shame" any oil and gas companies who are avoiding the windfall tax on profits and publish the precise sums collected by the government. Oil giant Shell revealed in October that it had so far avoided paying anything under the energy profits levy because it had claimed tax relief using an investment "loophole". Despite tightening the rules around the "investment allowance" at the autumn Budget, the prime minister has been urged to reveal the exact amounts that ...
The impact of Brexit continues to hit the UK economy with the Independent reporting that new figures reveal that more than 40 per cent of British products previously exported to the EU have disappeared from European shelves since we left the free trade area. The paper says that trade economists trying to assess the effects of Brexit warned in research published on Monday that new bureaucracy was putting off exporters on a grand scale. They also said their research showed the export gap created by the policy has "widened rather than closed" in a year of the new trade system ...
All our third age citizens should be able to have a decent, warm and comfortable retirement but that raises basic questions about how the state and the individual will pay for it. I've been thinking about retirement recently although I ... Continue reading →
At 6.30pm tonight - Christmas in Print - the twentieth century - an online event with Erin Farley of Dundee Libraries. Christmas became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958, though its celebration was growing in popularity long before this official designation. In Dundee, local publishers and writers marked the season through annuals and postcards, and the Christmas advert became a staple for local businesses. Erin Farley from Dundee Libraries shares some seasonal highlights from the Local History Centre's collections. This online event will run at www.facebook.com/WestEndChristmas
On Saturday morning, after our street surgery, I popped into the fair at St Mary's Church, Whickham. It turned out to be a useful opportunity to catch up with Rev Barry Abbott. Sadly, the closure of both banks in Whickham has reduced the number of cash machines in the village. The remaining cash machine in St Mary's Green outside Tesco decided not to work on Saturday. The result was I had no
