Jo Colley was there when teenage girls ripped off the Walker Brothers' shirts - and she still has a thread to prove it. Among my CD collection are three late period Scott Walker albums, including And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And Who Shall Go To The Ball? which came out in 2007 with the excellent 4AD. Tucked into my vinyl stash is a Walker Brothers album that I found in a charity shop recently - all their hits, the soaring over orchestrated ballads that I loved at the time, although these days I am much more of an ...
Lord Hewart - see my review of Neil Hickman's book on him in the current Liberator - had little time for the argument that, because the Civil Service has such high standards, we shouldn't worry about civil servants being ungranted unexamined, quasi-judicial powers. In a paper written for The Constitution Society in 2019, Andrew Blick and Peter Hennessy gave this attitude to government more generally a name: In the UK, we have trusted politicians to behave themselves. We have long assumed that those who rise to high office will be 'good chaps', knowing what the unwritten rules are and wanting ...
Our Headline of the Day is taken from Football London. Whirl those rattles guys! The judges were anxious I should point out that, despite my illustration, the custodian of the net in question is Jens Lehmann, not Bob Wilson. But this does give me time to make another award. Our Trivial Fact of the Day is that Barry Hines, the author of Kes, played in the same Loughborough Colleges side as Dario Gradi and Bob Wilson.
Our 57 new MPs have spent the Summer representing their constituents, writing to ministers and getting used to Westminster traditions and rituals. North Norfolk MP Steffan Aquarone has written for Radix about his first impressions of Westminster and he's identified a whole stack of things that need to change. The Houses of Parliament are sinking into the Thames. Many dozens of offices were condemned upon their vacation by outgoing MPs. There are electrical and water hazards only a few metres underfoot, and the whole thing will cost billions to fix - not least because MPs are insistent they stay in ...
One would be forgiven for thinking that a liberal party should be a bastion of free speech, open to people from all political backgrounds. Sadly, this is not the case; it is plainly obvious that Flat Earther Lib Dems are being silenced. We, the Lib Dem Flat Earth Society, are a group of Liberal Democrat members seeking to promote free speech, evidence-based policy, skepticism and respectful debate surrounding the shape of Planet Earth. We are firm believers in free speech. As all true liberals know, free speech means that Flat Earther members' concerns must be listened to, that our motions ...
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention polls for the next general election, along with party leadership ratings. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls – indicates that party didn't feature in the polling questions separate from 'Others' or that the data is not yet available. Numbers in brackets show change ...
Back in the day, before even blackberries were invented, the more tech savvy MPs were issued with these palm pilot things so they could get their emails on the move. When I worked for him, Willie Rennie would spend Friday afternoons constantly checking his waiting for the ALDC email with all the local government by-elections in it. He used to get so excited, like a child who's been told he can go to the sweetie shop after school and spend all his pocket money. These days, you don't have to wait for the email to come out. The results start ...
From the City Council : Dundee City Council proposes to make an Order under Section 14(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for the purpose of facilitating Scottish Water mains repair works. The Order is expected to be in force for eight days from 30 September 2024. Its maximum duration in terms of the Act is eighteen months. The effect of the Order is to prohibit temporarily all vehicular traffic in Rosebery Street from its junction with Pitfour Street to its junction with Cleghorn Street. An alternative route will be available via Pitfour Street, City Road, Cleghorn Street and ...
The BBC report that the Senedd Commission has asked for a 16% uplift to its budget for 2025-26, taking the total figure to £84.3m, after the cost of preparing the Senedd for more politicians rose by an extra £1.2m. The broadcaster tells us that the Commission wants the extra money to deliver "the biggest change since devolution", as the number of Members of the Senedd (MSs) rises from 60 to 96 in 2026: The commission will publish its draft budget later ahead of a vote on the proposals in November. However, a briefing document provided to MSs and obtained by ...
