IFS comment: People are sick and tired of this unfair, irresponsible government Sunak scrapping winter fuel allowance a "slap in the face" for pensioners IFS comment: People are sick and tired of this unfair, irresponsible government Responding to the IFS's comments that this will be the biggest tax-raising Parliament on record, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, Sarah Olney MP said: This Conservative government crashed the economy and is making the public pay the price. This is the same party which promised not to raise people's taxes and is now taxing families through the nose. Despite this, Ministers have given tax cuts ...
The moving bears* have come and gone, the uncertainty of a number of months has ended, and Ros and I are slowly adjusting to our new urban lifestyle. Time, perhaps, to reflect a little. I loved Creeting St Peter, which wasn't entirely expected, I admit. As a "big city boy", having grown up and spent the first forty-five years of my life in London's zones 1-4, the move to a village of seventy or so houses and no public transport was an unlikely one, and I wouldn't have done it at all if Ros hadn't been in my life. But ...
There were 5 principal council by-elections this Thursday. We stood candidates in all 5 and had some excellent results. Holding two wards in South Norfolk and coming very close in North Yorkshire and the Scottish Highlands. Starting on South Norfolk District Council where two vacancies were being contested in South Wymondham ward and Mulbarton & Holy Cross ward. Both were Liberal Democrat defences and we held both in the face of strong challenges from parties and independent candidates who had not stood previously. Congratulations to Cllr Carmina McConnell (South Wymondham) and Cllr Robert McClenning (Mulbarton & Holy Cross) and the ...
The death of Michael Gambon sent me off searching for clips from The Singing Detective. There aren't many around, but I did find this British Film Institute discussion on the series. As the YouTube blurb explains:The Singing Detective (1986) is Dennis Potter's best-known and most highly regarded work. The show's stars Michael Gambon and Janet Suzman join producer Kenith Trodd, director Jon Amiel and writer Peter Bowker to remember making the series and working with Potter. Panel chaired by broadcaster Samira Ahmed.
The UK needs to spend a lot of money in order to deal with its collapsing public sector. There are daily reports of crumbling schools, poor transport infrastructure, shortages of staff and beds in the NHS and so on. Any new government is going to face the problem of where the money to restore public services will come from. The question of how to pay for better public services is a much more acute one today than it was a generation ago when Tony Blair came to power. Partly because of this, the present Labour Party sounds almost fatalistic in ...
Over the years this blog has followed the fate of The Black Boy in Leicester, a closed pub in Leicester where I was once known to drink. Today a BBC News report suggests that all the campaign to 'save' the striking building from the 1920s has managed is that a bit of facadism will be thrown in when the site is redeveloped to built a five-storey block of flats: Plans to tear down a 1920s pub so flats can be built on the site have been recommended for approval. The Black Boy pub in Albion Street, Leicester, has been closed ...
There continues to be severe pressure on various UK public services, such as health, criminal justice, and social care. Reform of these services is badly needed, to improve outcomes for service users, patients, and victims, as well as providing value to the public purse. However, the UK's poor economic outlook makes reform challenging. The UK's productivity is lower than France and Germany, the number of long-term sick has risen by 500,000 since Covid, and the annual cost of servicing Government debt is £83 billion in interest payments alone. Artificial Intelligence Yet there is a potential solution – Artificial Intelligence (AI) ...
There's been a lot of talk in the papers this week about inheritance tax. There's speculation that the Government might cut the inheritance tax rate or even abolish the tax completely. So I thought it might be fun to look under the hood and to consider what inheritance is, how it works (or doesn't) and how we might do things differently. Inheritance tax is a tax that is levied on people's estates when they die. This means their property, the money they have in the bank, any investments they may have, and their possessions. It also includes any major gifts ...
Following another year's Federal Autumn Conference, it is important to reflect on the position of the party. This is especially the case given that we may be only 12 months away from a general election campaign. We may finally have an opportunity to help to get rid of this dreadful Conservative government, and in the process, get many new Liberal Democrat MPs elected. Britain cannot withstand five more years of the Conservatives. Nowhere is this clearer than with our National Health Service. The NHS is in turmoil. Years of Tory mismanagement and underfunding have led to our precious NHS struggling ...
A classic Lib Dem pointy finger picture from Oliver Patrick in Somerset. He gets extra Lib Dem points for the angry expression! They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery so every Lib Dem councillor in the land ... Continue reading →
At the time that Boris Johnson was talking up post BREXIT Global Britain and assuring the Democratic Unionist Party that there would be no border in the Irish Sea (despite one being included in his "oven ready agreement" which Teresa May had said no British Prime Minister could sign) the Government was requesting that the stickers on cars travelling abroad be changed from GB to UK. The move was only revealed by the United Nations which said it had received "a notification stating that the United Kingdom is changing the distinguishing sign that it had previously selected for display in ...
The Guardian reports on the presss regulator ruling that Suella Braverman and the Mail on Sunday falsely claimed child grooming gangs in the UK were "almost all British-Pakistani". The paper says that the home secretary made the claim in a Mail on Sunday article published in April, where she singled out British-Pakistani men as being involved in child sexual abuse due to "cultural attitudes completely incompatible with British values" that "have been left mostly unchallenged both within their communities and by wider society". However, Ipso has forced the Mail on Sunday to issue an apology and correction to Braverman's piece ...
Five principal authority council by -elections this week, and a full set of Liberal Democrat candidates to go with that. First off, a result from a ward in Rishi Sunak's constituency: Hutton Rudby & Osmotherley (North Yorkshire) Council By-Election Result: [IMG: 🌳] CON: 48.4% (+8.9) [IMG: 🔶] LDM: 37.9% (+14.2) [IMG: 🌍] GRN: 12.3% (New) [IMG: 💮] Yorks: 1.4% (New No IND (-28.5) or LAB (-8.2) as previous. Conservative HOLD. Changes w/ 2022. — Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) September 29, 2023
We recently received complaints from residents about the extent of graffiti on the glass recycling boxes at the east end of Scott Street - see photo. We therefore asked the City Council's rapid response team to remove the graffiti and are pleased that this was very promptly cleaned off.
