When I lived in Kew (well, North Sheen) in the early 1980s, Piccadilly Line trains would stop at Turnham Green on Sundays, or at least for a part of them. There was a note to this effect on the London Transport Tube map. So if I was coming back from a weekend in Market Harborough, I would change at Turnham Green, which added a little excitement to the journey. Would the train really stop? You can support Jago Hazzard's videos via his Patreon page.
Ed Davey speech: "Make the NHS winterproof" Cole-Hamilton comments as Scotland marks ten years since Independence Referendum Ed Davey speech: "Make the NHS winterproof" In his speech to Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton today, Leader Ed Davey will call on the Government to set up a new "Winterproof NHS Taskforce" to put an end to the annual winter crises in the health service. With NHS chiefs warning that "this winter is likely to see urgent and emergency care services come under significant strain", Ed Davey will urge the Government to "make this year the last winter crisis in our NHS". ...
Conference over, I've taken a rather leisurely route back to Suffolk, having first diverted to a quirky hotel bar to spend a few hours with the Awkward Squad, decompressing after the Leader's Speech. It is for others to comment on the content of Ed Davey's speech, but the warm-up, with seventy-one MPs sweeping onto the stage (and beyond) was a powerful reminder of what the Party achieved on 4 July. And the sense of joy after so many years of pain and disappointment was quite cathartic. You might almost feel inspired to deliver the odd leaflet or two. I might ...
Here is Welsh Lib Dem Leader Jane Dodds' speech to Lib Dem Conference. Enjoy!
Beavers and badgers. Badgers and beavers. It's all getting very confusing. How far this pair are correct in blaming Hegel for the societal organisation of the beavers and the impenetrability of T.H. Green I shall leave the philosophers to debate. In any event, Lord Bonkers is on record as preferring his brother, T.H. White. The King of the Badgers is a character in the Revd J.P. Martin's Uncle books, but the king who appears in the Bonkersverse - debating weighty matters underground - owes most to the badger in White's The Book of Merlyn. Let's hope Labour will reward his ...
A letter* in Yesterday's (16th September 2024) Financial Times from Lord (Gus) O'Donnell, a former cabinet secretary, Oxford Professor (emeritus) Simon Wren Lewis and several other eminent economists called upon the government to revise its "fiscal rules" to permit massive public investment in order to repair our existing broken public realm and create a new and sustainable future energy supply. They claim that: "To follow through on [current] plans would be to repeat the mistakes of the past, where investment cuts made in the name of fiscal prudence have damaged the foundations of the economy and undermined the UK's long-term ...
It's the last day of conference in Brighton and I am back in the main hall for the debate on rivers, sewage and water companies. Yesterday we had a debate on fair votes. This is very definitely a Lib and Dem conference!As I write this, the motion on sewage has been passed and we are now on to reports from the Parliamentary parties, both Commons and Lords. For the first time in a long time,
The BBC's Matt Chorley challenges Lib Dem leader Ed Davey to name all the 72 Liberal Democrat MPs while riding a roller coaster: As Matt Chorley says: You want to be careful going to the BBC, they said. They're very serious, they said. They won't green light your silly ideas, they said. They were wrong... Keep up with news about Lib Dem conference If you'd like to be notified by email when further posts about Liberal Democrat conference appear on this blog, just sign up here. (Note: if you're already signed up for a daily email alert with all my ...
The Guardian wins our Headline of the Day Award. The judges noted that the rodent in question is called cinnamon and has legged it from Telford's Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World. They added that if one of the dinosaurs had escaped then that would really have been a story.
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.
As we prepare to leave Brighton, Liberal Democrats are still buzzing, the number 72 on their lips and looking forward to what the future holds for the party. But is the future as rosy as we think? Andrew Rawnsley in the Guardian is clear that the path ahead of us is littered with difficult choices that could make or break the party. He says that we will have to sober up and do some intelligent thinking about how we use and retain our much enlarged parliamentary presence. That will include fortifying our gains so they don't turn into losses come ...
