The latest The Rest is History podcast deals with the school story. I could have done with a little less about the presenters' own private schools, but they are right to say these stories were immensely important culturally and appealed across the classes. And just as I was thinking they ought to bring the Trinidadian Marxist historian and cricket writer C.L.R. James into the discussion, they did just that. You'll find James's views on the importance of Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby, of Thomas Hughes, the author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, and of W.G. Grace in his Beyond a ...
Wage Figures: Sunak must commit to triple lock now NHS staff cannot be left to suffer in silence Government may have broken law over sewage: "Environmental vandalism on an industrial scale" Liberal Democrats welcome TfL's new road safety charter Wage Figures: Sunak must commit to triple lock now Responding to today's wage figures which would be used to uprate pensions, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson Sarah Olney MP said: Rishi Sunak must commit now to the triple lock to ensure the state pension rises in line with the cost of living. His failure to commit to the triple lock earlier this ...
Floella Benjamin asks why young people are hung out to dry after they leave the care system: "Increasing the number of care leavers in higher education is something we should all get behind: it would save the taxpayer money, increase the number of bright young people being trained for the jobs we'll need to build a stronger future, and increase opportunities for many who deserve them." "Laura Kuenssberg's tenure as the BBC's political editor, beginning in July 2015 and ending in the coming weeks, was a catastrophe. On her watch, lies were not just permitted, they were amplified and given ...
Frank Gray was Liberal MP for Oxford City 1922-24 and a junior whip. But his political career was far more dramatic than that makes it sound.
Complex systems tend towards inertia. We struggle to see things in terms of counter-factuals. When presented with cause-and-effect, we don't compare negative effects against negative effects of inaction or of alternative action, we compare negative effects with what existed prior. The ULEZ charge illustrates this. Paying £12.50 every day to drive your old car through London may be better than living in a polluted city, but it is still worse in an immediate and personal way than not having to pay that £12.50 at all. Sadiq Khan pressed ahead with this regardless, surely in no small part to him being ...
Thanks to a reader for pointing out that the current Mid Bedfordshire by-election is not the first in the constituency. One was held there in 1960. The Conservative Alan Lennox-Boyd, who had sat for Mid Bedfordshire since 1931, held the seat at the 1959 general election. But there was no place for him in the new cabinet and he accepted a hereditary peerage. His Labour opponent at the general election had been this blog's hero Bryan Magee, while the Liberal candidate had been Wilfred Matthews. The result in 1959 (with percentages of the vote in brackets) was: Conservative 21,301 (46.79)Labour ...
"If you smoke, vaping is much safer. If you don't smoke, don't vape". A YouGov survey conducted on behalf of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) in Spring 2023 indicated that the proportion of the population using E-cigarettes in Great ... Continue reading →
Team Low Fell are still hard at it with their latest eFocus. In edition 128, they cover the following issues:Sunday's floodingBus shelter on Durham Road replacedWard boundary changes - have your sayLorton Road treesYou can read eFocus on this link.
Layla Moran MP will be the special guest star on Iain Dale and Jacqui Smith's Lib Dem stop on their tour of Party Conferences. The LBC Presenter and former Labour Home Secretary host a weekly podcast, For the Many, which is for me an unmissable hour of politics and outrageous filth. The live shows are a bit tamer. The presence of an audience is usually enough to remind them that someone else is actually listening. Usually. As many of you will be planning your Conference diaries in the next few days, make sure you include this show. It is bound ...
The BBC reports on the view of the UK's environment watchdog that the government and regulators may well have broken the law over how it regulates sewage releases. They say that the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) announced its preliminary findings into an investigation on Tuesday, leaving the regulators and Defra two months to provide a response before a final decision is made: In June 2022 the OEP announced it was investigating whether England's regulators, Ofwat and the Environment Agency, along with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had failed to meet their legal responsibility to monitor ...
There's an economic crisis underway. Several policy motions at Lib Dem Autumn Conference make reference to economic problems. The government's current industrial strategy ('Plan for Growth') runs to 112 pages and reads more like an argument against reform rather than for it; perhaps fearful of being accused by the tabloids of 'talking down Brexit Britain' . UK economic problems are deep-rooted; some even hundreds of years old. Political parties of course share the blame but that's only a small part of the story. Perceptions of problems and remedies have changed over the many decades, independent of political oscillations. But we ...
Fraser's weekly ward surgeries take place later today and every Tuesday during school term time. They are as follows : Tuesdays at 5pm prompt - Blackness Library Tuesdays at 5.45pm prompt - Ancrum Road Primary School All residents welcome - no appointment necessary.
