HMICFRS report shows need for return to community policing Softened windfall tax shows Government doesn't care Government's mental health plans leave children in 3 in 4 primary schools without NHS support Johnson Honours: Sunak's so called integrity has been broken Boris Johnson: "Good riddance" HMICFRS report shows need for return to community policing Responding to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) State of Policing report, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Alistair Carmichael MP: Sadly, this report confirms what we already knew. The Conservatives have trashed our justice system, from decimating frontline policing to ignoring the courts ...
Fri 9th
21:43
The fall of Boris Johnson: It was the Tory right who wanted to make it easier to get rid of MPs
Embed from Getty ImagesIt was Nick Clegg who gave voters the power to recall MPs. And it was the Tory right who complained bitterly that he didn't go far enough. Here's a Guardian report from 2014: Zac Goldsmith, the Tory MP for Richmond, said Clegg was entirely responsible for the bill, which is a "disgrace even by the standards of modern politics". And here, from the same report is Douglas Carswell: "The truth is that on the Conservative backbenches there is strong support. Where there is kickback it's coming from people holding red boxes and people in the Cabinet Office. ...
From Harborough FM, which these days provides the best local news coverage, reports: North Northamptonshire Council is to sell off a site in Desborough which has stood derelict for over 20 years. The authority's Executive has declared the former Lawrence's shoe factory site as 'surplus' and it will now be put up for sale. The council inherited the site off Harborough Road from the former Kettering Borough Council, which bought it in 2005 and says today's decision follows an extensive review of options for it. Various uses for the area, branded 'a jungle' by locals, have been considered over the ...
After the news that Nadine Dorries is standing down as an MP, with immediate effect, we now hear that Boris Johnson is following her example and departing Westminster. We can only speculate on the conversations the two of them have been having, but we do know that, to quote the BBC: Mr Johnson accused the Commons inquiry of attempting to "drive me out". In a statement he said: "They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons." In evidence given to the committee in March, Mr Johnson admitted misleading Parliament, but denied ...
Neal Ascherson reviewed Revolutionary Spring by Christopher Clark, a history of the revolutions that spread across Europe in 1848, for the London Review of Books last month. Ascherson's paragraphs on the experience of women in those revolutions make the 1840s sound very much like the 1960s: Women got absolutely nothing out of 1848. 'It is difficult to decide what is more striking - the tireless advocacy of the women activists or the immovability of the patriarchal structure they were challenging,' Clark writes. 'Women were not enfranchised anywhere in Europe in 1848.' And yet they fought and died, gun in hand, ...
Some years ago Norman Lamb effectively led the Lib Dem campaign to give mental health equal parity with physical health in the NHS. This did lead to some welcome changes in both attitude and provision, including the creation of new Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges in England, which were set up in 2018. Each MHST would cover some 8000 pupils, and the plan envisioned 500 teams in place by the end of 2024, to cover about half of all pupils. The MHSTs were a welcome addition to the existing acute Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, offering ...
Fire up the Riso: I have today informed the chief whip that I am standing down as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, with immediate effect. It has been an honour to serve as the MP for such a wonderful constituency but it is now time for another to take the reins. — Rt Hon Nadine Dorries MP (@NadineDorries) June 9, 2023
While I was walking to the farm yesterday I spotted on the horizon at a great distance a huge fire and smoke cloud. I could see that it was somewhere in Eastern Newcastle. It turned out to be Henderson Old Hall. Sadly another historic building had gone up in flames. I attended an event there many years ago. What will happen to it now, no one knows.
I was elected to Federal Council in April, following the resignation of Alison Eden from the Party, so yesterday's meeting was my first as an official member... Joining any organisational committee part way through its term of office can be challenging, and I suspected that Federal Council would be no different, given that there is a degree of informational vagueness that currently pervades it. For example, it has currently decided that members may, if they wish, give reasons for their call-in requests and are encouraged to do so, but do not have to. It strikes me that, in order to ...
Proportional Representation for Westminster as a red line in coalition negotiations with Labour has the overwhelming support of Lib Dem members. But a Lab-Lib Dem coalition is an extremely unlikely outcome at the General Election. Based on May's opinion polls, Baxter's Electoral Calculus predicts an overall Labour majority of 190. We are on 20 seats. Adding tactical voting assumptions to the calculus raises our total to 25 and gives Labour a "wafer-thin" majority of 268. And even if by a combination of "socialist" scandal and Tory re-invention, Labour do fall short, they may well choose to govern with the support ...
The Guardian reports that Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden have announced a deal for transatlantic cooperation that moves the UK firmly into the US administration's economic orbit, but they also stress that this announcement signals the end of any hope of a full trade deal with the US, a key promise in the 2019 Tory manifesto. But this goes beyond the breaking of a manifesto promise. Seven years ago during the EU referendum campaign, spokesperson after spokesperson, many of them now government ministers, told us that doing a free trade deal with the USA would be easy. They said the ...
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention poll from each pollster currently operating in Britain. 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, or sign up for my weekly email: "*" indicates required fields Email* Enter Email Confirm Email If you submit this form, your data will be used in line with the privacy policy here to update you on the topic(s) selected. This may including using this ...
Some time ago, at our request, the white lining in the middle of Ninewells Avenue, south of the hospital entrance, was repainted. However, the lining in north of the hospital entrance along the street is now very badly faded and we have therefore asked the council's Roads Maintenance Partnership to raise an Order to have this refreshed.
