OECD: Chancellor cannot ignore "steady drumbeat of economic misery" Thames Water appeal: Govt must put company into special administration Scottish Lib Dems: We must end big city bias in creative spend Rennie: Dundee University needs a ministerial taskforce Ferguson missing out on ferries order "hangover" from SNP fiasco OECD: Chancellor cannot ignore "steady drumbeat of economic misery" Responding to the OECD revising down their 2025 growth forecast for the UK by 0.3 percentage points to 1.4%, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said: The Chancellor cannot ignore this steady drumbeat of economic misery any longer. Trump's senseless tariffs and ...
This blog's hero David Hemmings first made his name as a boy singer, being the first boy to play Miles in Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw. One of the boys he beat to the role was Michael Ingram, who is know to us as Michael Crawford. Later, they were to alternate the role of Sammy in an English Opera Group tour of Britten's Let's Make an Opera. In his memoirs Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied with String, Crawford paints a picture of Hemmings in those days: David Hemmings ... was more precocious, and far more adventurous than I ...
To take just a few recent examples: Musk offering $100 million to Reform, a Health Minister supported by substantial funding from private health companies, and - not quite so recent - millions wasted in Covid contracts given to party donors. The influence of big money on our politics is greater than ever. Yet `The majority of the public support stringent measures to crack down on the perception that political influence can be bought, including capping, or even banning political donations. Politicians are out of step with the electorate on this issue.' So says a recent report on Money and Democracy ...
The two biggest issues that concern young voters are housing and climate change. Housing is the more hands-on challenge, as plenty of young adults just can't get on the property ladder, whether buying or renting. The traditional rite of passage of children fleeing the nest when school ends now unravels three or four years later when they return to their parental home as their only financially viable living option - which can remain their home for several frustrating years. So if we want to be taken seriously by the youngest voters, we have to have a credible housing policy. The ...
As a veteran of the Party's candidates process – Returning Officer, candidate assessor, member of Regional and State Candidates Committees – over more than thirty years, you might not be surprised to find that I've been following the debate on this ornate, detailed constitution proposal with some interest. And, whilst the General Election review published in January was, whether inadvertently or by design, somewhat bruising towards those who have been at the heart of running selection and approval processes over past years, what it stated as desirable outcomes had a lot of merit. Getting candidates in place earlier, finding and ...
Susie Courtalt says the rise of toxic masculinity and the war on 'woke' threaten women's rights around the world: "For whatever reason, and there may be many, a new archetype of leader has emerged in the world and is fuelling this trend. Pressure put on the Romanian authorities to free the Tate brothers and allow them to fly to the USA can only be explained by the new incumbents in the White House and Elon Musk's continued support of them." "The most striking aspect of the new guidelines is the missing subject: class. The word 'class' does not appear once ...
I've just got back from attending the annual regional conference of one of the professional bodies of which I'm a member. I had a great time. It's always nice to catch up with people I don't see particularly frequently. And it was a pleasure to see how the regional organising team has grown in strength and numbers over the years since I was involved earlier in my career. And they certainly know how to put together a good conference. There's lots written about how consultants can get the most out of attending conferences. But I'd like to focus here on ...
With a Trump induced rethink of strategic alliances in throw, should Europe (including the UK) turn to Africa for a long-term economic partnership? The RENEW group in the European Parliament have been working on this idea for 2 years now through RENEWPAC, it's engagement project with the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) allied political groups. The third such congress took place in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire last month, the second I have attended on behalf of Liberal International, and the enthusiasm for a deep economic partnership was heightened by the unstable geopolitics of the moment. It was hosted generously by the ...
Regular readers might have noticed that I've been a bit quiet of late. The regular Monday morning columns where I touch upon things that have caught my eye, or that I simply want to get off of my chest, have been absent, and as the Day Editor, I've struggled to do much more than post articles that have come in. This is, perhaps, because politics, and the world generally, have become a bit depressing. With an American administration that sets examples that trouble me philosophically, and an increasingly unpeaceful world, it is often difficult to lift your eyes to the ...
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT REPORT FOR THE WEST END WARD - WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 17 MARCH 2025 Seafield Road, Dundee - closed from its westmost end (in cul-de-sac) extending for a distance of no more than 20 metres in an easterly direction to facilitate a site access for a new housing development until November 2025. Blinshall Street (Douglas Street to 50 metres south) - closed until August 2025 for construction works. Douglas Street (Blinshall Street to Brown Street) - temporary traffic lights until August 2025 for construction works. Brown Street (south of Douglas Street) - closed until ...
The Guardian reports that a Reform UK general election candidate who said Hitler was "brilliant" at inspiring people and described Bashar al-Assad as "gentle by nature" is now in charge of the party's vetting process. The paper says that Jack Aaron's comments about the Nazi leader and Syrian dictator came to light last year when he stood for Reform in the Welwyn Hatfield constituency. He also claimed Vladimir Putin's use of force in Ukraine was "legitimate": Aaron made the comments as part of a pseudoscientific theory of personality types. He is the president of the self-styled World Socionics Society - ...
