Tormenting the council staffGoogle AI overview of the meaning of "torment": "Torment refers to an extreme physical or mental suffering, agony, or severe harassment. As a verb, it means to inflict such suffering or to cause severe worry/trouble."The reason I have posted the meaning of the word "torment" is because the three Reform candidates for Whickham South and Sunniside have posted on the Reform Facebook page for (more) |
Better late than never for the GreensAt first they did nothing. And then they had to act. What was once the cuddly Green Party has been wilting under the glare of media and political scrutiny. In Newcastle, concerns were swirling about anti-semitic comments made by a couple of Green candidates - Philip Brookes and Mohammed Suleman.The BBC reports:One post on Brookes' Facebook page included an image which branded Israel "a (more) |
Reform split, secrecy and exposureNorthumberland County Council is run by a minority Conservative administration. The official opposition are Reform. I'm not sure what the number of Reform councillors is as the Farage party has a habit of losing members. But I hear on the grapevine that Reform met recently in secret and voted against their own leadership. This is not something that can be kept secret for long. Everything was (more) |
Good luck!So what are you doing reading this? Shouldn't you be out telling or knocking up on the doorsteps? OK, so I do know that not everyone has the opportunity, or the capacity, to do either of those tasks, and, of course, if that applies to you then your support is also precious. During the day the BBC follows some pretty strict guidelines about what they can report – which is why there is always a story about dogs in polling stations. Things only really swing into action at 10pm. So what should we be looking for after polls close? In ... (more) |
The battle over energy billsThe Guardian reports on warnings by green campaigners that the defining issue of today's local elections will be the UK's soaring cost of living, and in particular the links between inflation and the effects of fossil fuels and the climate crisis. The paper quotes Ami McCarthy, the head of politics at Greenpeace UK, who says: "With people's bills and prices soaring from yet another fossil fuel crisis, these local elections have a global context - driven by the Iran war. Getting the UK out of the fossil fuel doom loop and on to renewables would secure a stable and affordable ... (more) |
Ed Davey: Lib Dems are here to empower peopleEd Davey has been giving interviews ahead of tomorrow's local elections: He spoke to Cathy Newman tonight. She asked him whether he got exhausted as a carer and if it all got too much. He said that he and his wife Emily wanted to use their privileged position to fight for carers. He said that Liberal Democrats were all about empowering people. Watch here: Liberal Democrats believe in empowering people: whether it's carers who feel exhausted and unheard, families struggling to get support, or communities failed by water companies. It's why we'll continue to stand up to Nigel Farage as ... (more) |
To Chessington South and beyondGeoff Marshall takes us to the Chessington Branch, visiting each station and then exploring beyond Chessington South to see where the railway would have continued. No one seems to know how much of this further extension, which would have reached Leatherhead, was built. Like and subscribe, my children. Like and subscribe. (more) |
The Joy of Six 1514Simon Nixon reviews Hettie O'Brien's The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself: "This is an industry that takes the private part of its name with deadly seriousness. It usually exercises total control over its operations, deploying financial muscle rather than charm to enforce submission and cloaking almost every aspect of its business - the provenance of its money, the performance of its companies - in secrecy. Yet over recent decades, private equity has quietly captured vast swathes of the economy and accumulated political power for which it is rarely held publicly accountable." "For a long time, peatlands ... (more) |
2026 Local Elections preview: A Liberal perspectiveThis Friday will be like Christmas come early for local government nerds like myself. It's a bumper set of elections this year thanks to a set of delayed County Council polls carried over from last year, mixed in with the usual scheduled English, Welsh and Scottish elections. It would appear these elections present an unprecedented level of choice to the voter - often five parties plus independents/localists, without any extra powers conferred on local government, or a PR system to accommodate multi-party contests. Much like last year there will be several winners voted in on little more than 25% in ... (more) |
Roger Daltrey: Say It Ain't So JoeI heard Say It Ain't So Joe on the radio in the Seventies only once and had to wait until they invented the internet to find out who had sung it and who had written it. The answer in both cases was Murray Head. Later I discovered this version. Daltrey keeps close to Head's interpretation, but he and his band, which includes most of the rest of The Who, add star quality. (more) |