I was playing about with the free AI images that Canva offers and came up with these results for Freddie and Fiona and for the Elves of Rockingham Forest. Both are uncannily accurate - the elves are in Lord Bonkers' woods on the shore of Rutland Water, of course. But I've used up all my free goes there now and can't find another free site that offers images of the same quality.
Analysts of the US election results seem to have come to the preliminary conclusion that whereas the Democrats fought on high-minded policies extolling decency and democracy the Republican message resonated more closely to the real needs of the majority of the people. The Democratscouldalso point to an economy which, theoretically is in good shape, with low unemployment, inflation reduced to a manageable level and relatively fast growth, but "ordinary people", whom right-wing talk-show host Tucker Carlson describes as "the people who can actually change a flat tyre, who pay [their ] taxes and work 40 hours a week" feel that ...
"It's time to find out more about Frieda Harris," I wrote the other day of the woman who was the wife of one Liberal MP (Sir Percy Harris) and great grandmother of another (Matthew Taylor), an who helped fund the notorious Aleister Crowley. A good place to starts is an article by Brianna Di Monda about Frieda and her partnership with Crowley published in Lapham's Quarterly. She writes of Frieda's early life: Growing up in a wealthy, middle-class family, Lady Frieda Harris was taught only the arts—drawing, music, dancing—and conversational French. Though women were benefiting from expanded opportunities in the ...
On Sunday last weekend I was in Bridges ward in Gateshead for the Lib Dem action day. As I hadn't finished the 3 patches I was given to do, I headed back there yesterday. The job was almost but not quite finished - I was 30 leaflets short!
Levels of public support for the House of Commons to be elected by proportional representation can vary with the exact question wording, so it is handy that YouGov has a long-term tracker using the same wording each time. The latest release shows support for introducing PR by 44%-33%. No surprise Lib Dem voters back it 58%-22%, but support is even stronger among Reform voters – 62%-17%. For Labour voters support comes in at 48%-24% despite their own party's leadership getting cold feet on the topic. [IMG: YouGov December 2024 on PR] That 44%-23% margin is slightly larger than the 42%-28% ...
Meet Llewellyn (not his real name). Llewellyn was a farmer I met in my old job and the National Farm Research Unit. The job I used to pay bills when I was representing Woodbridge as an (unpaid) town councillor. I called farmers with surveys and hoped that they would be nice to me (sometimes they were...). Llewellyn's wife picked up. She, like him, was in her 80s, though she could barely speak a word of English. See the people in rural Gwynedd have performed the same job as their ancestors have in the same place since the late stone age. ...
Well, it has been an incredible few days for Liverpool as a whole and me in particular. Since last Sunday we have hosted Captain Blackett and his ship, HMS Prince of Wales as they came to Liverpool to receive their honour of being awarded the Freedom of Liverpool including the ancient rite of being able to march through Liverpool with bayonets fixed. On Tuesday I was shown around the ship and had lunch in the splendid wardroom. It was a real shock to go through this ultra-modern ship and find myself in a room which could have been part of ...
The Middle East is very much like the fairground game whack-a-mole. You think you have solved your problems by knocking a mole on the head and another one of the pesky beasts pops up on the other side of the board. Just as Israel and Washington thought they had Hezbollah and Iran on the back foot, an Islamic fundamentalist group has popped up to threaten Syria's Assad regime. And, of course, the Gazan mole still has its head above the parapets – just. The temptation is to raise a cheer for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leader Abu Muhammad ...
Dundee City Council, along with partners such as Dundee CAB, is continuing to help local people to apply for Pension Credit. The welfare rights team can help pensioners apply for this benefit and run a free benefit check - just telephone Dundee 434473 to arrange this. Make sure you or someone you know isn't missing out. Full details - https://bit.ly/PensionCreditDC
The report that billionaire X/Twitter owner Elon Musk is considering donating nearly £80 million ($100m) to Nigel Farage's Reform UK party has certainly started to concentrate minds on the flaws and loopholes in our dmeocratic process. Byline Times reports on warnings by anti-corruption experts that outdated regulations leave the door open for hugely wealthy foreign donors to interfere in UK elections: They say that the sheer scale of Musk's mooted donation should not be underestimated, given it is close to the total amount donated by all other political donors put together in the UK last year: However, as things stand ...
