Ed Davey unveils new Lib Dem frontbench team to champion "the people's priorities" Cole-Hamilton: For ten years the SNP have picked at the scab of their defeat Ed Davey unveils new Lib Dem frontbench team to champion "the people's priorities" Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey has announced his new frontbench, as he calls on his party to champion the "people's priorities" and "clean up the mess left by the Conservative government." The new frontbench announcement follows Ed Davey's conference speech, where he set out the Liberal Democrat plan to be a "constructive opposition" holding the new government to account. Davey ...
The Map Men explain, and also show how weird electoral borders can be used to deliver weird results.
[IMG: Ed Davey speech extract about carers] Here is the full text of Ed Davey's speech to Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton: Hello friends! Thank you everyone for such a great Conference. It's been really joyful, hasn't it? Getting together to celebrate, and to start planning the future. Having fun, but with a serious focus. It reminds me of our election campaign. Do you know they wanted me to wear a wetsuit today? But I said it was abseiling or nothing... So here we are! Having a party, after winning our largest number of MPs for over 100 years! The ...
We knew that there would be a reshuffle of Lib Dem MPs after Conference, but maybe not this quickly. This afternoon, Ed Davey announced his new top team. Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper takes over as Treasury Spokesperson and will face Rachel Reeves. Helen Morgan takes health and social care from Daisy and, given the precedence we are giving to this issue, she has a whole team – Danny Chambers on mental health, Alison Bennett on carers, Jess Brown-Fuller on hospitals and primary care. There are big jobs for new MPs too. Lisa Smart takes Home Affairs and Calum Miller, a ...
You've got to feel sorry for poor Max Wilkinson, our MP for Cheltenham. He confessed at the rally to having no love for Abba, and he had to sit through Dancing Queen as Ed came on. We'll put the subtitled version up when it's available but in the meantime, here is the text. Hello friends! Thank you everyone for such a great Conference. It's been really joyful, hasn't it? Getting together to celebrate, and to start planning the future. Having fun, but with a serious focus. It reminds me of our election campaign. Do you know they wanted me to ...
"Labour's recent creative industries plan, published in March, avoids any talk about new horizons or radical change, either in the country or the wider world. Rather, it presents arts and culture as an existing 'part of 'our national story' and 'our sense of national pride.' References to technology are always balanced with something more traditional."Wessie Du Toit reminds us that Labour has lost Tony Blair's faith in creativity and the future. Anno Girolami looks at the Flixborough disaster and its place in the battle for workplace safety: "Fifty years ago, at tea time on a Saturday in June, the Nypro ...
Cloud obscures the moon partly shadowed by the earth. Fate remains concealed
One of the natural reactions to learning that Labour has a mission to grow the economy is to sneer. Every government wants to grow the economy! Most Budgets announce themselves as being a Budget for Growth/Investment/Enterprise/Productivity. If this is meant to be a valuable communication device for the officials within Whitehall, then what on earth does that tell us about the priorities of the bureaucracy? That sort of sneer. I would like to be a bit more generous. There are political trade-offs in pursuing growth. Postwar memoirs and economic histories (Samuel Brittan, I also recommend Cairncross, the memoirs of Healey ...
Following the highly successful Lib Dem conference, the party's new team of spokespeople in the House of Commons has been announced: I'm delighted to announce my new frontbench. This team will champion the people's priorities, ensuring we hold the new government to account as a responsible opposition. — Ed Davey (@EdwardJDavey) September 18, 2024
We come to the end of a beaver-stuffed (and latterly badger-stuffed) week at Bonkers Hall. As far as I'm concerned, the new political season can't begin soon enough. And don't forget to download the Conference issue of Liberator. Sunday On my way home from Divine Service at St Asquith's, I called at the beavers' lodge. I casually broached the subject of my family's long feud with the Dukes of Rutland, emphasising what rotters they have been over the centuries. "Sounds like we'd all be better off without 'em," remarked the elected spokesbeaver. At this point I dropped the King of ...
ITVx wins our Headline of the Day Award with this bushy tale of life on the Reading to Gatwick line. Thanks to the reader who alerted me to this story The story below our winning headline informs us that:The Great Western Railway service was cancelled at Redhill after the animals got on the train at Gomshall. Staff attempted to remove the animals but the squirrels "refused to leave" and the service later returned to Reading. A spokesperson for GWR said: "We can confirm that the 0854 Reading to Gatwick was terminated at Redhill after a couple of squirrels boarded the ...
Now that Conference is over, we can start catching up with the maiden speeches our MPs made last week. Here is Wokingham MP Clive Jones speaking in the Budget Responsibility debate. The text is below Thank you very much for calling me, Madam Chair. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards) on his very interesting speech—I learnt an awful lot about his constituency. I have also learnt a lot today about Southend East and Rochford, Portsmouth North and Swindon North, and especially about my colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Woking (Mr Forster) and for Chelmsford ...
The Financial Times reports on research by economists at Aston University which has found that Brexit is having a "profound and ongoing" impact on Britain's trade with the EU, with goods exports and imports still being hit by the bureaucratic barriers erected by leaving the single market. The paper says that modelling by the economists has estimated that annual exports to the EU are 17 per cent lower and imports 23 per cent behind where they would have been if Brexit had not occurred, with negative impacts increasing during 2023: "The findings reveal a sharp decline in both UK exports ...
The Scottish Liberal Democrats have been running a Future Leaders programme for the past few years. 10-12 Scottish party activists are given an intensive programme over the course of 9 months or so. By the end of this, your skills in so any areas will have improved. One of this year's graduates, Andy Williamson, talks about it here. Scottish Liberal Democrat Chief ExecutiveRachel Palma Randle describes the course and the commitment you will need to make. This is not just another training course. You will need to commit to a year-long programme of self-development, to increase your campaigning/ volunteering capacity ...
From tomorrow, there is a new phase in the life of the Sinderins Community Hub. It is going on tour! It will be meeting in the Lime Street Sheltered Housing Complex. The Hub is open for all not just those in sheltered housing - all are welcome! Come along and meet familiar and new faces - Thursday 19th September from 1pm.
