Armenia is facing its most precarious moment in three decades. The loss of Karabakh, a region with a centuries-old history of Armenian habitation and heritage, will reverberate for generations, says Thomas de Waal. The two unitary authorities forged out of the wreckage of the bankrupt Northamptonshire County Council are run by many of the Conservative politicians who did the wrecking, Now, reports Sarah Ward, those unitaries are in dispute about where the debts should land. "Anyone working in journalism has received letters from people claiming to have evidence of a vast conspiracy against them, often handwritten in tiny scrawls over ...
The Aotearoa New Zealand Parliament in Wellington Visiting close family, I have recently been privileged to visit Aotearoa New Zealand. Several things I saw impressed on me, once again, as to how forward-looking the country has been and is. We visited the Auckland Women's Suffrage Memorial which commemorates the successful 1893 petition which made Aotearoa New Zealand the first self-governing country in the world to enshrine in law the right for women to vote in parliamentary elections. Similarly, in Wellington there were several prominent streets and memorials named after Kate Sheppard, the leading suffragist. We saw lots about ground-breaking Liberal ...
... some of them made campaign videos on good old VHS tapes and sent them to voters, as this example from then Lib Dem MP Brian Cotter shows.
Watching University Challenge last night I learnt that, as of January 2023, Croatia became the twentieth country to join the Euro, effectively condemning one of the most colourful European currencies to the trash can, and no doubt doubling the price of what used to be very economical holidays in that beautiful country Prior to January 2023, the main currency was the Luna, which is a pine marten in the local language. This is because in medieval times the pelts of these lovely animals were the main curency and they kept the name when they graduated to base metal and paper ...
Bobby Fischer's victory over Boris Spassky in their 1972 match in Reykjavik put chess on the front pages of the world's newspapers. And, though Spassky was always his own man, the contest was seen as a symbol of the Cold War. Fischer never defended his title, and his life was to become a long descent into paranoia. He and Spassky played a second match 20 years after their first - Fischer won this too, but neither player was the force he had been, The match was played in the short-lived Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was under United Nations sporting ...
One day we may discover what befell those nuns to cause the sudden closure of the Bonkers Hall Safari Park. I have, incidentally, never been wholly convinced that all the animals were rounded up that day, as I still hear tales of visiting teams' boundary fielders suddenly disappearing when they take on Lord Bonkers XI here at the Hall. For the time being, I shall merely observe that there is nothing like the Dukes of Rutland suffering misfortune to brighten the old boy's day. Friday To London for the annual general meeting of the National Trust as I am seriously ...
Embed from Getty ImagesOur coveted Headline of the Day Award goes to the Bristol Post for this seasonal story from Frome. Ho ho ho!
The Lib Dems are bumbling along at the lower end of the polls at about 12% of the vote. Reform UK and the Greens are lapping at their heels, and if the Libs Dems are not careful, they will be eclipsed by one or both of them. Both Tories and Labour are in disarray, but in spite of this, the Lib Dems are making no headway. All they are doing is just scooping up the protest vote. Why is this? It is because they have no imaginative policies. I have studied the policy paper, For a Fair Deal. It is ...
The UK's Poverty Pandemic (aka 'Cost of Living Crisis') was already coursing through the lifeblood of society long before COVID-19. Over the past decade, the Poverty Pandemic has been more damaging than COVID-19 and far less easily treated. Indeed, many who promoted this Poverty Pandemic's root causes may dismiss the inequities as collateral damage in the cause of the Conservative's economic treadmill — a heartless Darwinian devotion to the survival of top dogs. To excuse this Poverty Pandemic as 'a crisis' as if it might one day pass away is 'deflective marketing' where 'problems' are progressively reframed as 'challenges', and ...
Fresh from expressing his admiration for Margaret Thatcher, the Labour leader has now abandoned his party's traditional commitment to properly funded public services, with a categorical refusal to rule out reversing planned cuts to government departments if he won power. The Guardian reports that Keir Starmer told journalists that a Labour government must shed the assumption that public spending is "the only lever that can ever be pulled" to improve people's lives, presumably overlooking the fact that the Tories have been trying that one for thirteen years. He believes that significant barriers to growth can be tackled without extra spending, ...
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.
