Pat McFadden: government's targets will be meaningless unless they reverse disastrous mistakes Scot Lib Dems reveal 27,954 empty homes across Scotland Key mental health targets breached for 168,000 people Pat McFadden: government's targets will be meaningless unless they reverse disastrous mistakes Responding to Pat McFadden on the Laura Kuenssberg show on the government's plan for change, Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokesperson Sarah Olney MP said: The government's targets will be utterly meaningless unless they reverse the disastrous mistakes made so far. Scrapping the Winter Fuel Payment will force vulnerable pensioners to choose between heating and eating and their family farm ...
[IMG: Jo Grimond meeting John F Kennedy - public domain photo] Jo Grimond meeting John F Kennedy. It does not appear that either were singing at the time. Ed Davey may be getting the news about his Christmas single, but he's not the first party leader to have got into the records business. In 1964, the National League of Young Liberals (the party's then youth wing) released The Liberal Song, sung by Brian Lee and accompanied on the B-side by a welcome message from Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond. Enjoy: And if you did enjoy, copies of the record are ...
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: Welcome to the 137th edition of The Week in Polls (TWIP), which is a follow-up to last time's piece on why banning polls would be a bad idea. This time it's about why paying lots of attention to the polls is a good thing. Find out more by reading this edition of The Week in Polls here, and you can sign up below to receive future editions direct to your email inbox:
Former Essex Lib Dem Councillor Derek Hardy died earlier this year. His daughter Janet Hardy-Gould wrote an obituary for the Guardian which appeared online in October but has only recently been published in the paper itself. Of his political work, Janet writes: Having joined Ilford Young Liberals in 1945, Derek retained an interest in politics, and first stood for the London county council as a Liberal candidate in the early 1960s. Moving out of the capital in 1967 to Kelvedon Hatch, near Brentwood, Essex, he stood as a Liberal then a Liberal Democrat candidate in many local elections. He was ...
This is a track from jasmine.4.t's debut album You Are The Morning, which will be out early next year. She says: I wrote "Elephant" very early in my transition about my first t4t love. It's about when it hurts because you're trying to be friends but you both want to be more. My life in Bristol fell apart when I came out, and having no safe place to live I was staying on queers' sofas in Manchester, traumatized and in no place to start a relationship. It was beyond healing recording this track in LA with Phoebe, Lucy, and Julien, ...
"Any pleasure I may take in the distinction of the honour of an FRS is diminished by the fact it is shared with someone who appears to be modeling himself on a Bond villain, a man who has immeasurable wealth and power which he will use to threaten scientists who disagree with him."Dorothy Bishop explains her decision to resign as a Fellow of the Royal Society - she's talking about Elon Musk, of course. Jim Sleeper uncovers the Classical roots of the US Constitution: "The founders anticipated someone like Trump partly because they'd been reading Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall ...
Today, 1st December, is World AIDS Day. Senior Liberal Democrats have been marking the occasion. The party itself posted on social media: Today we remember those who've lost their lives, and commit to ending deaths by AIDS. We must: [IMG: ☑] Ensure everyone has access to HIV prevention and treatment. [IMG: ☑] :End stigma and discrimination around HIV. [IMG: ☑] :Make testing the norm. Today we remember those who've lost their lives, and commit to ending deaths by AIDS. We must: [IMG: ☑] Ensure everyone has access to HIV prevention and treatment. [IMG: ☑] :End stigma and discrimination around HIV. ...
Lord Bonkers laid out the history of New Rutland ('The Pork Pie State') in a diary entry some years ago. I hope the Democrats will study his remarks carefully, because he can be a wise old bird, and the career of John Burns is worthy of study too. Saturday I was not surprised by the evil Trump's victory. Having spent some weeks in New Rutland during the campaign, I was well aware that the cost of living was foremost in voters' minds. "Have you seen the price of hominy grits?" they said to one another, and "I'm not paying that ...
Israel Israel has won the war with Hezbollah. That is if the ceasefire recently announced takes effect as planned. If Hezbollah has lost then so have backers Iran and the Palestinians in Gaza and on the West Bank. Hezbollah was the keystone in Iran's "Axis of Resistance." It effectively turned Lebanon into a buffer state between Israel and Iran. As for the Palestinians, the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah ordered the rocket attacks on northern Israel with the promise that they would continue until there was a ceasefire in Gaza. The ceasefire agreement makes no mention of Gaza. Israeli forces ...
With thanks to Dundee City Archives, a great photo of 242 Perth Road.
The Observer reports on analysis revealing that loopholes in the law are allowing "dark money" to infiltrate UK politics, with almost £1 in every £10 donated to parties and politicians coming from unknown or dubious source. The paper says that cash from companies that have never turned a profit, from unincorporated associations that do not have to declare their funders, and banned donations from overseas donors via intermediaries are all entering the system, according to research by Transparency International (TI): Foreign governments are also donating millions in the form of flights, food and hotel stays. The gifts and hospitality from ...
