It would be fair to say that I am a fiscally cautious soul. I've loathe to borrow in order to fund expenditure, I believe in balancing the books as far as possible, although I do endorse the notion of investing to save. And as a Parish councillor, I am not bound by legislative restrictions on precept increases, unlike principal authorities. As a result, most town and parish councils are in modestly good financial shape. The same cannot be said for our principal authority counterparts, many of whom are showing increasing signs of financial stress. Here in Suffolk, our County Council ...
GDP stats: Sunak's talk of turning a corner has not survived contact with economic reality Lib Dems demand retrospective vote on government military action in the Red Sea GDP stats: Sunak's talk of turning a corner has not survived contact with economic reality Responding to the latest figures that show GDP is estimated to have fallen by 0.2% in the three months to November 2023, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, Sarah Olney MP said: This Conservative government has brought us nothing but stagnation. Sunak's talk of turning a corner has not survived contact with economic reality. This no growth Prime Minister ...
Denmark Street, Britain's Tin Pan Alley, played a pivotal role in the music industry. Peter Watts takes us from through the street's history including its 1960s heyday; with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elton John and David Bowie frequenting it for guitars, meetings and recording. Despite its decline, it became the rehearsal space for the Sex Pistols and today remains a hub for music. Denmark Street is the subject of the latest edition of The Strange Brew. This podcast, in its course, reveals that the street gained its role thanks to a Leicester man and a pit disaster in Cumberland. ...
Fri 12th
18:46
Zac Goldsmith gets a ban after speeding four times, but at least he keeps his trousers
LBC reports: Former environment minister Zac Goldsmith has been banned from driving after being caught speeding four times in London in less than four months. Lord Goldsmith pleaded guilty the four incidents at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday. The driving offences took place between late April and early August last year. He was banned until mid-March. Zac Goldsmith and cars? That rings a bell. Sure enough, I can bring you this story from 2016: Zac Goldsmith limped into the last hustings of the Richmond Park by-election an hour late after being struck by his own car. The former London mayoral ...
If you thought you'd heard it all about the Post Office Horizon scandal, here's a news story from Harborough FM: A former Harborough sub-postmaster was accused of stealing nearly £2,000 after the Horizon computer system reported a shortfall despite her Post Office being closed for a year. The small branch in North Kilworth shut at the start of the pandemic in 2020, because it could not be adapted for social distancing. Julie Beisner checked her accounts on the computer before closing the doors, which showed they were balanced. After deciding to retire and close the office a year later before ...
The first council by-elections of 2024 were held this week. We began the new year in much the same way that we finished last year - by winning and moving forwards! The first result declared in 2024 was a brilliant hold for the Lib Dems on Salford MBC. This was one of 4 principal by-elections contested and there were some very interesting results across the board. The only place to start though is in Salford MBC where Councillor Paul Heilbron won Quays ward for the Liberal Democrats. We first won the ward in 2022 and just missed out in the ...
The ARTS: Protestors are in the news for objecting to cultural institutions accepting sponsorship from fossil fuel extractors such as BP. Quite right too, in my view. But if government funding is cut, from where else are these institutions to gain the necessary funding? The US juror Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr famously defined taxation as "the price we pay for civilisation." With the Tories promising tax cuts and Labour afraid to offer any alternative, our society is becoming less civilised, and in ways that affect far more than just the poor, the disabled and unloved. It is time for the ...
Professor Kate Dommett is one of the UK's absolute top rank experts on political campaigning, data and the internet. So who better to have back on Never Mind The Bar Charts to talk about how parties use data and what the next general election might bring? Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. Show notes Data-Driven Campaigning and Political Parties: Five Advanced Democracies Compared by Katharine Dommett, Glenn Kefford and Simon Kruschinski: available from Amazon, Waterstones and independent bookshops.* My previous scepticism about the impact of Cambridge Analytica. Using a Personality-Profiling ...
I'm delighted to announce you can find my Kent poems in this new edition: Inside the Quiet Spaces, Again is a selection of my poems written during the years spent living with my family in Kent. They feature everyday events like trips to museums and beaches, family walks, garden observations and more personal poems dealing with dreams, thoughts and meditations. This is the second edition of this set and I have added a couple of extra poems which belong to this period of time. Available now as a Kindle Edition, click on image below for more details:
To be fair, the way that the Mirror describes the forthcoming vote on the government's Rwanda bill, it really does sound like West Side Story. The paper's headline says that the Tories are at war, as rival rebel gangs demand Rishi Sunak's Rwanda plan is shredded to pieces. The upshot is that the Prime Minister's Rwanda crisis has deepened after a group of his own MPs demanded key parts of the plan are ripped out, setting up a brutal showdown next week: Moderates within the Conservative Party have told the Prime Minister his bid to weaken human rights laws has ...
Four principal authority council by-elections this week, and all with Lib Dem candidates. There was a tricky Liberal Democrat defence in Salford Quays. Tricky because last time the ward was up, Labour won. Tricky also because the party had to suspend another Lib Dem councillor. But the team really rose to the challenge, with a 15% swing from that last time Labour win: Quays (Salford) Council By-Election Result: [IMG: 🔶] LDM: 54.8% (+17.4) [IMG: 🌹] LAB: 32.6% (-12.6) [IMG: 🌍] GRN: 12.6% (+3.4) No CON (-8.2) as previous. Liberal Democrat HOLD. Changes w/ 2023. — Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) January ...
We have welcomed news from the City Council that works to tackle the continual flooding issues at the site which has led to numerous closures of the facility. As residents will know the site finally re-opened yesterday following the most recent flooding issues following Storm Gerrit. We have continually raised residents' concerns at the number and length of closures at Riverside Recycling Centre and sought assurances that necessary flood defence works are put in place at the site so that a permanent solution is in place to avoid flooding and closures in the future. We are therefore pleased to have ...
