Cameron HMRC scrutiny: Zahawi scandal mark two Autumn Statement a deception after years of Conservative tax hikes Ed Davey slams "Hunt hoax" over £200bn stealth tax grab Welsh Lib Dems urge Welsh Gov to make sure that building remediation costs aren't being forced on residents Conservative giveaway to big banks set to cost taxpayers £22 billion Cameron HMRC scrutiny: Zahawi scandal mark two The Liberal Democrats are calling for an ethics advisor probe after reports that David Cameron is being looked into by HMRC. The party said it is important to know whether this reported scrutiny was disclosed when Rishi ...
Lee Anderson has become notorious for saying what many right wing Conservatives think but don't dare say out loud. "30p Lee" is a total embarrassment to politics and public life. Today, he suggested that asylum seekers should be sent to Orkney rather than Rwanda. This attracted the attention of Orkney's MP, our own Alistair Carmichael, who said: This is not a serious proposition. I would be astonished if Lee Anderson could even find Orkney - or in his words "the Orkneys" - on a map. His remarks show inhumanity towards desperate and vulnerable people - and disdain towards island communities ...
I can remember singing Old Abram Brown at school, but the first time I made a point of listening to one of Benjamin Britten's works I was in my early twenties. I had just read The Turn of the Screw and Radio Three was broadcasting the opera Britten made from it. I found the music difficult, but interesting enough that I wanted to hear again. Britten is now one of my very favourite composers, up there with Bach and Schubert. And the first of his works that I really got to understand was the War Requiem. I loved everything about ...
Philippa Langley was the catalyst of the dig that found Richard III in Leicester. In particular, she played an invaluable role in getting the city council enthused by the project. Without her intervention, it would not have agreed to the excavation of Britain's most famous car park. But she is not "the historian who found Richard III," as you so often see her described. The old boy was found by archaeologists from the University of Leicester. For a fair account of the dig, I recommend a History Extra podcast with the archaeologist and author Mike Pitts. It was recorded just ...
Father Barry Abbott switched on the Whickham Christmas tree lights yesterday. I was inevitably there with my video camera - see video about.Me, Cllr Sonya Hawkins, Cllr Peter Craig and Father Barry Abbott join local police next to the tree on Church Green.One of me next to the tree.
It was Jackie Kennedy who first likened her husband's presidency to Camelot, the mythical court of King Arthur, in an interview with Life magazine in 1963. The musical of the same name was apparently the President's favourite. On the sixtieth anniversary of his death little of the inspirational quality she evoked seems to have been lost. If anything the passing of time has enhanced his image and invested his three short years in the White House with a significance that has prompted generations to search for their own Kennedy. But why is it that those of us who know him ...
So, April election anyone? The Autumn Statement is a deceptively feelgood package of giveaways in which the already rich benefit most whether businesses or people and the really poor suffer more. Want to take a guess which group is more likely to vote Conservative. Jeremy Hunt has produced a cynical Statement that is all about the Conservative Party with no regard to what the country actually needs. Will this attempt to pull the wool over people's eyes and pretend the past 7 years of hell didn't happen work? Surely people's memories are longer than that. Underneath it all, the growth ...
It's 2009, I'm working in London office where the atmosphere is awful, the firm is losing money, staff are being laid off, people are doing a lot of unpaid overtime just to keep their jobs, there is no hope for the future, people are not enjoying life. Just before noon on Tuesday, a senior manager ... Continue reading A message to you, Rishi
Getting council housing built Congratulations to the Liberal Democrat team on Kingston Council who have just celebrated the completion of the first set of council flats for over 30 years in the area. It's another sign of how Liberal Democrat councils can both build high quality homes in the right places, and win elections – by turning our policies into practical actions to improve people's lives. Israel/Palestine I know we have all been moved by the horrific news from the Middle East in the last few weeks. The bedrock of the Liberal Democrat approach is support for international law and ...
Yesterday, the Government doubled election campaign expense limits. Today, they deliver an Autumn Statement which is expected to benefit their rich friends at the expense of the most vulnerable people in our society. Funny, that. Tax cuts for the rich, benefit cuts for the poor. It's what they do, but it gets more and more sickening and causes so much more suffering every time they do it. The so called safety net barely exists any more. Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds has been setting out the priorities of the Party in Wales ahead of today's Autumn Statement: -Invest in ...
If you regularly face danger at sea, the last thing you will want to hear is that the Government plans to quadruple helicopter response times. Alistair Carmichael seeks answers from the Government as he holds a parliamentary debate on the future of coastguard services in Parliament. The debate follows revelations about the Maritime and Coastguard Agency's plans to quadruple the emergency response time for the helicopter service based at Sumburgh in Alistair's Shetland constituency from 15 minutes to 60 minutes. The MCA previously "clarified" that the current "readiness" state of 15 minutes is due to remain in place until at ...
I was once told that a reasonable defence to a slander action was that the words used were commom abuse. I have no idea if that is the case and, of course, it will all depend on context, but it seems that in recent years the ability to effectively abuse people, particularly politicians, has been severely curtailed by the police and the courts. This week's judgement by the High Court, therefore, upholding the acquittal of two protestors who called Iain Duncan Smith "Tory scum" outside the Conservative party conference, seems to be a turning point. The Guardian reports that Lord ...
This year's Dundee West End Christmas Fortnight launches tomorrow - its 23rd year - with a whole host of events taking place, including two Christmas Concerts, a Christmas Market and Lights Switch on in Perth Road, competitions including a West End Primary School Art Competition and a Primary 6 schools football competition - as well as talks, a "Death in the West End" tour and crafts events in West Port and at Blackness Library. During the Fortnight that runs from tomorrow until Wednesday 6th December, we will hold around lots of different events. Big thanks go to all the Christmas ...
