Lib Dems are addressing the Cost of Living, providing community level services and decision making and Greener boroughs. Next Wednesday, the Southwark Liberal Democrat group will be presenting our Alternative Budget at full council. Being a Labour-facing Liberal Democrat opposition in Inner London comes with certain challenges, but I'm proud we are demonstrating that it is possible to put forward a credible, Liberal alternative. After a decade of Tory cuts and underfunding of Local Government, all councils are under immense strain. We're no different, but Southwark Labour's proposals make cuts in all the wrong places. They're cutting social care, library ...
The protect duty proposed under Martyn's Law will place a heavy burden on churches and other religious buildings, argues Augustus Carp. With the world being the complicated place that it is, we shouldn't be surprised if good intentions sometimes have bad consequences. Such is the case with an apparently unobjectionable piece of legislation before the House of Lords at the moment, which is causing conniptions and consternation amongst the archdeacons of the Church of England, as well as those responsible for buildings for other religious faiths. One of the consequences of the Manchester bombing in 2017 was that Figen Murray, ...
Thu 15th
17:02
News from the Wellingborough front line: Reform candidate finds lots of support in the wrong constit...
At lunchtime today Ben Habib, the Reform candidate in the Wellingborough by-election, tweeted a short video to tell us how well polling day was going for him. He commented in particular on the number of cars that tooted at his campaign bus as they passed. Perhaps those cars were trying to tell him something? Because Habib was campaigning in Irthlingborough, which is in the Corby constituency. I think you have to be logged into Twitter to see an embedded tweet these days, so I've put Habib's tweet at the bottom of this post rather than the top. I hope at ...
Former Gloucestershire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Martin Surl is standing again, this time as a Lib Dem.
It's said that those who ignore history are destined to repeat it, and whilst it would be difficult to compare the current crisis in Gaza with previous ones, if only because of the scale of the resulting deaths, those who have observed events there over decades will have shuddered at the prospect of an Israeli response of the type we have seen since 7 October. But I am reminded that I wrote the following fifteen years ago... To be blunt, most of those who entirely support the rights of the Israeli people to live in peace and security within recognised ...
Last month I suggested that having a father who played jazz and singing in a church choir were key experiences for the British Invasion generation of musicians. One of the examples of people with this background I gave was, inevitably for this blog, Steve Winwood. Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, was the man who signed the Spencer Davis Group. In his memoirs he gives an account of Winwood's musical background that fills out my theories - and he adds something intriguing: Steve and his brother Muff, older by five years, had grown up with music, playing in their ...
Have you even heard of him? Ask any child in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (there is a clue in the name) and they will tell you that he was the first of the seven Saxon kings who were crowned in Kingston. In fact, one of the primary schools is named after him. We even have a Coronation stone where he is thought to have been ceremonially placed, although it has now been moved to a spot outside the Guildhall. In a recent edition of the BBC History Magazine Ed Davey picked King Athelstan as his historical hero. ...
The Look at Life film really exists and is online - the young Paddy Ashdown appears at about 6.35 and the comment on the Dayaks at 8.20. Gentle humour at the expense of foreigners again? I prefer to think of it as gentle humour at the expense of the 1964 commentary. To be honest, I'm more concerned about my recurring assumption that Liberal and Liberal Democrat victories come as the result of armed violence. Tuesday I was watching a Look at Life short about the Malayan Emergency on Talking Pictures TV when who should pop up as the Lieutenant in ...
It is not a good day for Rishi Sunak. Not only are two by-elections being held today in safe Tory seats, which he is expected to lose, but a new poll is predicting that the Tories will be reduced to just eighty seats at the next election. The Independent reports that a survey of 18,000 voters found that Sunak is on course to lose more than three quarters of the Tories' seats, with seventeen ministers are set to be shown the door, including Jeremy Hunt, Grant Shapps, Penny Mordaunt, Gillian Keegan and Mel Stride. And he can't even fall back ...
Michael's ward surgeries take place today and every Thursday during school term time. They are as follows : Thursdays at 5.45pm prompt - West End Campus (come to reception area of St Joseph's RC and Victoria Park Primary Schools) Thursdays at 6.30pm prompt - Harris Academy reception area All welcome - no appointment necessary!
