I had planned to be in London today (Sunday), returning on Tuesday. The intention was to go to the Lib Dem History Group at the National Liberal Club on Monday and visit a few museums as well. Alas, the best laid plans have a tendency to crash and burn. My time is needed on the farm. We are planning to buy some new milking goats in February and we need to build a milking shed. None of our other
The Whinnies Community Garden in Sunniside are building a new meeting room and I was given an exclusive view of it recently. It's not finished yet but it will be ready for the reopening of the garden in April. Community groups wanting to use the room can contact the Whinnies via their Facebook page.
Richard Sharp: Publish Boris Johnson's hidden register of interests Richard Sharp: Publish Boris Johnson's hidden register of interests The Liberal Democrats have called on the government to publish Boris Johnson's internal register of ministerial interests including details of the personal loan he received. It comes as the Sunday Times reports that Boris Johnson was formally told by the Cabinet Office to stop asking Richard Sharp for "advice" about his "personal financial matters. It is reported that details about the loan were included in Johnson's own declaration in the internal register of ministers' interests, parts of which are not made public. ...
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: As regular as clockwork, news from another presentation about polling by Conservative advisor Isaac Levido has been passed to the media. This one has the mystique of 'internal polling' attached to it, claiming that internal polling shows the Conservative Party's ratings on the economy to be better than public polling tells us it is. Find out more by reading this edition of The Week in Polls here, and you can sign up below to receive future editions direct to your email inbox: ...
It's just seven months till London's Ultra Low Emission Zone expands across all boroughs, making millions more of the capital's residents liable for charges. For a small vehicle like a car, the daily charge is £12.50. This week, London's Liberal Democrat Assembly members passed an amendment to the scheme which aims to help residents with the impact, including providing more buses: Our amendment would: double the scrappage scheme with an additional £100 million and to allow Blue Badge holders to apply invest £25 million in bus services in Outer London, including demand-responsive buses such as Go Sutton Bus You can ...
Next Tuesday will be the third birthday of the UK's exit from the EU. I can see nothing to celebrate though we might expect champagne corks to pop in Jacob Rees Mogg Land. With hindsight it was like a pantomime. Campaigns of lies, deceptions and bluster. An Olympic competition for the biggest lie. The referendum on 23 June 2016 saw a high turnout of 72.2%, with 48.1% against and a winning 51.9% in favour, though Scotland voted against. The UK duly left the EU at 11pm Friday 31 January 2020. In the fantasy land occupied by Boris Johnson (now raking ...
The BBC has news from Somerset, home to the largest Liberal Democrat council group in the country: The county of Somerset is to get its first ever net-zero school. Planning permission was granted for a new primary school at the Orchard Grove development in Taunton by Somerset County Council... The building will be constructed using a Passivhaus design – a new construction concept originating from Germany which means "passive house."... Councillor Tessa Munt, Executive Lead for Children and Families at Somerset County Council, said: "I'm thrilled that this school has been approved, and children in the area will have the ...
I'd watched a TV programme, been to an event with asylum seekers, and they told me about a talk by a local historian on the Jews on Teesside. Several things, apart from remembering the atrocities of the genocide of the Jews, struck me hard. The role of "ordinary people" in the genocide. I hadn't realised before how those who had been friends and neighbours were going along to see the spectacle of Jews being shot and falling into the trench to be buried. How harassed some of the children were by fellow countrymen were as they set off on the ...
Arthur Daley was everywhere in the 1980s, and that included politics. It was obligatory to accuse the Conservatives of "Arthur Daley economics" and, if you were a Liberal councillor, to complain that the government was driving us to "Arthur Daley accounting". He even made it to the charts in the shape of this novelty record. Credited to 'The Firm', the song Arthur Daley E's Alright was the work of the musicians John O'Connor and Grahame Lister. Having failed to interest anyone in recording the song, they did so themselves, appeared on Top of the Pops and reached number 14 in ...
At the beginning of last week, I sent a summary of representations on the location of the next round of EV charging points in Ludlow town centre to Richard Marshall the portfolio holder for highways. No one is objecting to extra charging points. They are urgently needed. But the plan clusters too many points together on Broad Street and Corve Street. And they miss out the opportunity of installing charging points on Coronation Avenue. However, the response from Councillor Marshall is disappointing and it could have been written by any council anywhere in England. It pays no attention to local ...
Sat, 15:39: December 2019 books and 2019�roundup https://t.co/HGyDpTSNWs Sat, 22:18: RT @BlairMowat: To celebrate the release of Class: Secret Diary of a Rhodian Prince, you can win a signed physical copy - and I'll personal... Sun, 10:45: RT @FT: Inside the 'Qatargate' graft scandal rocking the EU https://t.co/uwzLrs9L1h Sun, 11:03: Nadhim Zahawi sacked as Tory party chair over tax affairs https://t.co/wq9E5kmVAk </ul
As Nadhim Zahawi finally and inevitably gets the boot, Lib Dem Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper has called for an inquiry into what Rishi Sunak knew and when. She also said Zahawi should quit as an MP. Rishi Sunak has finally acted after spending days defending the indefensible on Nadhim Zahawi. It should never have taken him this long to act. Sunak's first 100 days in office have been tarnished by endless Conservative sleaze and scandals. Serious questions remain about what Sunak knew about Zahawi's tax affairs when he appointed him. We need a proper independent inquiry to establish the facts ...
The Knutsford Guardian reports: Liberal Democrats have selected their candidate for the next General Election. Jonathan Smith, 70, who stood for the party in the 2019 election, hopes to become the constituency's new MP... In 2019, the Liberal Democrats achieved one of the best results across the north west in Tatton. Jonathan increased the party's vote by 74 per cent and the percentage of the total vote almost doubled from nine per cent to almost 16 per cent. Jonathan, who has lived in Bowdon for almost 30 years, said: "... My message to the voters of Tatton is, it doesn't ...
France and Germany The Franco-German alliance is wobbling. As if to emphasise the problem, this past weekend the entire German cabinet decamped to Versailles in an attempt to improve relations. The relationship between Paris and Berlin is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. It has been held since 1960 when Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer ended a century of war and suspicion at Reims Cathedral. Some of the current problems can be attributed to the egos of Macron and Scholz. President Macron makes no secret of his desire to lead Europe. Unfortunately the French economy does not ...
Sometimes it seems that ever since the 2015 General Election we have been in the middle of a form of collective madness. A minority of voters gave the Tories a Parliamentary majority for the first time in 18 years and the party immediately set about trashing the country they were meant to be running. Leading the charge, as it were, was Boris Johnson, a man for whom rules, ethics and the standards of public life are a minor inconvenience, whose main motivator is self-interest and who has spent his entire life winging it and surviving on the good grace of ...
It was a pleasure for us both yesterday to visit the Friends of Balgay's informal meeting at the Blackness Library. It was a great opportunity to find out about the Friends' plans for the coming year and chance to get to chat with the committee. You can find out more about the Friends of Balgay's activities by contacting the committee at friendsofbalgay@hotmail.com
