When I was quoting from Arthur Quiller-Couch's True Tilda on this blog, I harvested them from the Project Gutenberg plain text version. There you will find this introductory note: This was one of the most enjoyable e-texts that I have prepared but also one of the most difficult. Many of the characters use the working class slang and dialect of 100 years ago and the author sticks to this consistently throughout the book. At times there seems to be as many apostrophes as characters! This attempt to render dialect phonetically was still going strong in the 1950s and is wearing ...
Rail fare rise: Betrayal of commuters and families Lockdown files: Matt Hancock's attempt to fire SAGE scientist 'shocking' Small boat ban will punish victims of human trafficking Rail fare rise: Betrayal of commuters and families Responding to a rail fare increase of 5.9% due on Sunday, Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesperson Wera Hobhouse MP said: Liberal Democrats are fighting for a fair deal for commuters and families who will be left forking out even more for train journeys in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Ministers cannot keep turning a blind eye to these problems, especially given people are ...
Embed from Getty ImagesIf you think child labour was a problem we dealt with long ago, think again. Earlier this week, the New York Times published a shocking exposé detailing the large-scale exploitation and abuse of migrant children across the United States. The report found that hundreds of immigrant children - many of whom are unaccompanied - are working in unsafe and unlawful conditions in at least 20 states across America. Over a dozen major companies, such as General Mills, Fruit of the Loom and Ford, were found to be using child labour. The neglect and abuse described in the ...
Sun 5th
16:29
Less drama, more consistency: the truth behind current polling trends - The Week in Polls
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: In many ways politics in the last few months has been exciting, volatile and unpredictable. The absurdity of Matt Hancock handing over a treasure trove of private messages to an ardent opponent of his signature policy, perhaps. Or the insouciance of a journalist once again failing to protect information given to them confidentially – and that's just all in the one story. But... Find out more by reading this edition of The Week in Polls here, and you can sign up below ...
Sat, 18:05: Representing Europeans: A Pragmatic Approach, by Richard�Rose https://t.co/g2UIWQMh5k Sun, 10:45: As a unionist, I made a dangerous, stupid and strategic mistake by supporting Brexit - Alex Kane https://t.co/2D8OohBfN0 Paywalled, I'm afraid, but eloquent. Sun, 14:26: RT @jessicaelgot: Every meeting ever https://t.co/756fZtN8oE </ul
Give credit where it is due - the deal that Rishi Sunak has agreed with the European Union is, on the face of it, a good one. It allows for most goods to pass from Great Britain to the North of Ireland through a green channel without regular checks, as long as said goods are to remain in NI. Goods that are destined for the Irish Republic and thus entering the EU Single Market have to be declared and go through the red channel, with checks at the port of departure. The exception to this process is agricultural livestock. Ireland ...
Following on from his article calling for action on violence in schools, Willie Rennie asked the First Minister for action this week. In her positive response, she paid tribute not once but twice to the work Willie has done on this issue and on mental health. I raised the issue of violence in schools again today with the First Minister. It has always been there but it is clear that the problem has worsened since the start of the pandemic. The current approach isn't working and teachers and staff need resources, support and training. pic.twitter.com/8mso1mF4Pm — Willie Rennie (@willie_rennie) March ...
The Bodysnatchers were a seven-piece all-female band involved in the British 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s and early 1980s. They disbanded after two years without releasing an album, but this single did get to 22 in the charts and they toured with The Selecter and supported Toots and the Maytals. The lead singer, Rhoda Dakar, went on to sing with The Special AKA, while several other members of the band turned up in The Belle Stars. Let's Do Rock Steady, was written by the Jamaican-British singer and producer Dandy Livingstone. It was released in October 1967 as ...
Anyone who has supported a loved one with an eating disorder will appreciate Wera Hobhouse's tireless efforts to get better support and services for those living with these terrible and distressing conditions. 1.25 million people have an eating disorder in the UK. Eating disorders can impact anybody, and everybody. As chair of the Eating disorders APPG, I am pushing to improve ED services in the UK. That is why I am proudly supporting #ChangetheStory this #EDAW. pic.twitter.com/bu309BLZxq — Wera Hobhouse MP [IMG: 🔶] [IMG: 🇺🇦] (@Wera_Hobhouse) March 3, 2023 The full text of her speech is below: Across the United ...
The Observer reports on the very credible view of some of Britain's biggest unions that the government is "complicit" in attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers. The paper says that the unions are urging members to "mobilise" against far-right groups seemingly emboldened by the rhetoric of senior Tory politicians. The first big intervention by trade unions on the increasingly politicised issue follows comments on Friday by the Conservative party's deputy chairman, Lee Anderson, who said he had sympathy with people protesting outside hotels. His remarks came days after the home secretary, Suella Braverman, said hotels providing refuge to asylum seekers ...
Northern Ireland It may be that the British lion may be learning how to wag its Irish tail instead of the reverse. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has negotiated a settlement of the Northern Ireland Protocol which has bedevilled UK-EU and UK-US relations and Britain's standing in the world since the 2016 Brexit Referendum. The chief stumbling block has been Northern Ireland's ultra-nationalist, ultra-conservative, ultra-protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). For them Brexit was an opportunity to reverse the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which they never liked even though it ended the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The DUP's hopes were seemingly dashed ...
Thursday 9th March sees the next meeting of West End Third Sector Network taking place at Dundee Science Centre at 14 Greenmarket. If you work or volunteer in the third sector and have an interest in the West End, come along and meet colleagues in our area. More details at
Crossposted from https://www.patreon.com/posts/79577671 So welcome to the report from day one of the Beach Boys Cruise. This is being written at 7:30 in the morning, which makes no sense to me as I'm normally only vaguely aware that there *is* ... Continue reading →
Across my 15 different email lists, and the tens of thousands of readers, there's one common theme: gathering, filtering and analysing news about the Liberal Democrats and political polling so that readers get reliable, timely summaries of what's going on and why. The mainstay of it all, Liberal Democrat Newswire, is now probably the longest-running single-authored political email newsletter in Britain. Eeek. It, along with all my other email lists about the Liberal Democrats, remains free for anyone to sign up to and receive all the content in full. That's only possible thanks to the support of wonderful readers who ...
I'm a Liberal Democrat and I read constitutions. That makes me, it seems, slightly geeky, even by the standards of Liberal Democrats However, occasionally, I spot something that makes me think and, having started the process of organising my diary for Spring Conference, I allowed myself to be distracted by the content. That allowed me to spot agenda item F3: Business Motion - FIRC. It is, in the generality, a good thing, in that it tidies up the way in which the Party delegations to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and Liberal International are chosen and ...
