When the council tax bills land on the mat or in your inbox next month, they will show that your overall tax bill has gone up by 10%. The biggest charge is for Shropshire Council, £1,639.01 for a Band D property, an increase of 4.99% on the previous year. Ludlow Town Council's precept goes up by 10.5% to £218.93 for Band D. West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner will charge £264.50, an increase of 9.3%, and Shropshire & Wrekin Fire Authority £111.16, an increase of 4.3%. Councils are suffering inflation like everyone else. But the council tax hike comes at ...
Publicity about the prize-winning film version of "All Quiet on the Wester Front." has prompted me to re-read Erich Remarque's novel. Against the background of yet another modern, (even more) mechanised, war on European soil, it injects a frightening dose of reality which should temper the calls from both sides for a fight until "complete victory" is achieved. This is what the translator, Brian Murdoch, says about it in his "Afterword" published in 1994. "The novel shows us . . . war is not about heroism, but about terror, either waiting for death, or trying desperately to avoid it, even ...
What was Lord Bonkers saying 30 years ago? Or, to be precise, what was Lord Bonkers saying 30 years and one month ago? Because this is a diary entry from Liberator 210, which is dated January 1993. I've long forgotten what the story about John Selwyn Gummer's pond was, but from this Independent profile of 1995 it's clear that there was one: Throughout his two-and-a-half decades in British politics Mr Gummer has had little difficulty making headlines. He is, for example, remembered for the hamburger he fed to his daughter during the mad cow scare, for the row over the ...
On 24th February 2022 an old friend sent me a Facebook direct message. He apologized to me if he had ever spoken the threat of President Vladimir Putin's Russia down. This was after years of debating and getting to know each other on the University Model United Nations (MUN) Conference circuit. I had won awards for representing Russia on the MUN Security Council passionately and accurately. The invasion of Ukraine hadn't begun. It had begun 8 years before. What followed on 24th February 2022 was not necessarily inevitable, but our country and the West need to face up to the ...
Fri, 10:45: RT @LivingAuthors: Tragically, the otherwise completely logical and coherent science of Dalek Invasion of Earth has become outdated. https:... Fri, 12:02: RT @NaomiOhReally: For our coverage of one year of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I interviewed the Irishman named as the EU's international...
Only two principal authority council by-elections this week. Both have a Lib Dem candidate – and that's one up on the last time these seats were up, hooray. Smithfield (Wrexham) council by-election result: PC: 39.3% (-2.1) LAB: 33.1% (-1.3) IND: 15.2% (+15.2) LDEM: 7.5% (+7.5) IND: 4.9% (-10.8) IND: 2.8% (+2.8) No Con (-8.5) as prev. Votes cast: 398 Plaid Cymru HOLD.https://t.co/HPNLXgfU5n — Britain Elects (@BritainElects) February 23, 2023
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
There were some tomatoes in my local supermarket yesterday, but very few florets of broccoli, no tagliatelle and quite a few empty shelves in other departments. The fact is that food supply has suffered in recent months. Not only is it getting more expensive, but some items are becoming more and more difficult to find. The reasons for this are complex. Energy costs, bad weather caused by climate change, increases in transport costs combined with a shortage of drivers, and, of course, the very many problems caused by Brexit ranging from red tape on imports to farmers not being able ...
Head vabariigi iseseisvuspäeva! Happy Estonian Independence Day! It is one year since I stood outside the Estonian Parliament for the traditional raising of the national flag from Tall Hermann tower. Looking at the young fraternities gathered with their flags, I was very sure that Estonia too would soon be facing the aggression of the criminal Russian regime. A tragic and dark day.5 eyes intelligence had been clear: an all out invasion was going to happen, and Putin´s goals included- and still include- "restoration" of Russian imperial power across Europe, even to the Atlantic. Yet there was one Western intelligence failure: ...
Shropshire Council has stepped in to extend its financial support for twelve bus services that were under threat after March, saving them from closure. These include the Ludlow 701 town service, the 435 between Ludlow and Shrewsbury and the 552 between Bishop's Castle and Shrewsbury. The extra support from the council comes after it failed to get government funds for buses under levelling up for a second time. It is expected that the funding will be in place until at least the end of the summer. This is a welcome intervention by the council. If we had lost these routes ...
Book now for Dundee Women's Festival 2023! 🗓️ When? 4th - 19th March. 🏰 Where? Venues across the city - and some areonline too! 🎟️ How? Click link below to access full programme and find event booking details. More information at
I'm not the Wise Woman of Wing - and Chris Grayling has fallen by the wayside - but this post does date from 2017.
