Davey: Chancellor must order economic forecasts on UK-EU customs union ahead of Spring Statement Cooper ruling out youth mobility scheme is "short-sighted and bitter blow to young people" Davey: PM must "drop his red line" on Customs Union as he meets EU leaders Scottish Liberal Democrats table amendment to erase SNP power grab "for good" Davey: Chancellor must order economic forecasts on UK-EU customs union ahead of Spring Statement Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey has called on the Chancellor Rachel Reeves to order an official analysis on the economic benefits of a UK-EU customs union, ahead of March's Spring Statement. ...
So said Jack Kerouac in his Lonesome Traveler. We join John Rogers as he retraces a walk the Beat Generation novelist once took through London. As the blurb on YouTube says: American Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac, visited London in April 1957 while on a big trip just before the publication of his most celebrated book, On the Road. He recorded his trip in his book, Lonesome Traveler. This video follows the walk he took when he arrived by train at Victoria Station and walked past Buckingham Palace, up the Strand to Fleet Street to St Paul's Cathedral. He then ...
Of all Her Majesty's Highland servants and ghillies, and there are some forty or more all told, Sandy Campbell and Donald Stewart are the favourites. Donald, who is Sandy's senior and superior, carries more responsibility and is more often in personal contact with the Court when at Balmoral, and has his quarters, accordingly, near at hand. He is, in short, the Balmoral keeper, and dubbed the Queen's Head Stalker. Sandy Campbell, on the other hand, has his quarters at Glassalt Shiel on Loch Muick (pronounced Mick) and on the eastern boundary of the Balmoral estate, and although taking his orders ...
Sun 2nd
19:26
Gen Z, democracy and a problem with the speech from Channel 4's Chief Exec - The Week in Polls
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: Another week, another headline from The Times to dig into. This time around it is "Gen Z doubts about democracy laid bare in 'worrying' survey" followed by "More than half believe the UK should be a dictatorship". So far, so respectable sounding. Especially as you can add "multi award winning" before "Channel 4" and as the data was going to be launched at an event co-hosted by the prestigious Royal Television Society. But... yes, of course there are some buts. Find out ...
Sun 2nd
15:10
Ed Davey on Kuenssberg: EU/UK customs union would do more for economy than anything Government is do...
Ed Davey had his first Sunday morning outing on the media of 2025 with an interview on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. As we've hit half a decade since the awful reality of Brexit, the conversation was mostly about our desire to see a UK/EU Customs Union to get our economy growing again. He said: What I am arguing is if we can have a UK EU Customs Union we can tear down the trade barriers that the Conservatives put up for our exporters and get that growth far more quickly than anything Rachel Reeves and Labour are saying ...
[IMG: The House of Commons and Big Ben at night] Image by Tasos Lekkas from Pixabay. Welcome to the latest in my occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – Rob Ford and Chris Butler have new research out about Parliamentary candidate selections. As they write: We found that in 2019, ethnic minority candidates were less likely to be selected for winnable contests by the Conservatives, Lib Dems and SNP, as were female candidates for the Conservatives. Further, we found that once shortlisted, women and ethnic minorities were much less likely to be selected by local party members. ...
However, our party is committed to poverty reduction by our Constitution and our policies. So it was good to hear that Deputy Leader and Treasury Spokesperson Daisy Cooper has spoken out not only about the depth of poverty left by the Conservative Government but also the inadequacy so far of our Labour Government's approach to it. She has stated: This deep poverty is a scar on the nation made by the Conservative party, but the Labour government has so far just sat on its hands. She highlighted the Government's refusal to scrap the two-child benefit cap as well as the ...
This week's music video reminds us of a better world: an American President and First Lady honouring a Mexican immigrant. Each year Kennedy Center Honors are awarded to prominent figures in the performing arts for their lifetime of contributions to American culture. And in 2013 the recipients were the opera singer Martina Arroyo, Herbie Hancock, Billy Joel, Shirley MacLaine, and Carlos Santana. Here is part of the segment of the awards ceremony that honoured Santana, with Barack and Michelle Obama in the audience. Because this is Liberal England, yes, that is Steve Winwood in the Cotswold landowner sideburns that he ...
United States Lost in the blizzard of President Trump's presidential decrees was the throwaway line that he plans to build an Israeli-style "iron dome" over the United States. There are problems with such an ambition. For a start, the United States is 50 times bigger than Israel. Next problem is that Israel's iron dome protects against drones, artillery attacks and short to intermediate-range missiles. Any American system would have to add long-range hypersonic intercontinental ballistic missiles to that list. Next is the cost. Israel's iron dome is estimated to cost $4-5 billion a year. Using the same technology, an American ...
Sun 2nd
08:30Flick Rea MBE - a 50 year case study in sociable campaigning and creating a sustainable local party.
On Thursday night the Liberal Democrats in the London Borough of Camden gathered to celebrate 50 years of Party Membership of Flick Rea, former councillor, Alderwoman of Camden, London Region staffer and much more besides. My own small role in the Flick Rea story is now a piece of history, reaching back to the halcyon days of 2006 when we were able to take on the Leadership of Camden Council and the two General Election of 2005 and 2010. Those three elections worked well for us and for the first time we were able to mobilise our members, our resources, ...
Rachel Reeves obsession with growth is starting to sound like a Liz Truss tribute act, and much like the rather ridiculous former Prime Minister, she is finding it harder to deliver than perhaps she realised. Evidence that things are going awry is set out in black and white in this article in the Independent. They report that Reeves has suffered a humiliating blow to her hopes win back business confidence after AstraZeneca has cancelled a planned £450 million investment in a vaccine manufacturing plant in Merseyside. They say that the announcement provides a harsh reality check at the end of ...
With thanks to SJ Bogue and Dundee Memories, a great photo of Perth Road from April 1974.
