The announcement that Justin Welby is to hand in his mitre was inevitable. I've formed the impression in recent years that his lack of candour and lack of action over the crimes of John Smyth have made it harder for the Church of England to act against abusers more generally. I am left with two questions. The first is to ask if there wasn't something unchristian about the practice of the Iwerne Trust (and of the Titus Trust that succeeded it) of holding camps only for boys from expensive public schools. Their ambition was to change society by changing its ...
I once heard a story about polling day in the Brecon and Radnor by-election of 1985, which saw a gain for the Liberal Alliance candidate Richard Livsey. A hirsute Young Liberal was telling on the day at a remote rural polling station when an old farmer arrived and challenged him. "What are you doing? I always take the numbers for the Liberals." It turned out that he had for years been coming here on polling day for an hour or two, taking voters' numbers and then going home with them. This was a folk memory of political organisation. All that ...
I had started to receive reports of a Liberator Drive on the new Farndon Fields estate here in Market Harborough. Google Street View wasn't much help: the road was on the map, but the houses were too reccent for Google's van to have been there. So I went to look for it. And here it is, though any road that's called 'Drive' and points at open fields is unlikely to remain a dead end for long. Here, while we're at it, is the website for Liberator magazine too. The Farndon Fields estate is the sort of place you don't go ...
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.
Of all the measures announced by Rcahel Reeves in the budget, the decision to increase employers' national insurance contributions is the one that is going to cause her the most problems. This is evidenced again by an article in the Independent in which leaders of Britain's biggest business organisations have accused the Labour government of "betrayal". The paper says that Barclays Bank has warned that the increase will hit workers' living standards, with economists at the bank claiming that the policy will cause real incomes to take a hit, as companies pass on the cost of the levy through lower ...
