Mel and Sue and Akbar ShamjiFrom the latest Popbitch email: Patrick Radden Keefe's new book, London Falling, is the buzziest read of the summer so far. (In case you've missed all the column inches, it's the one about the mysterious death of a 19-year-old whose pretence of being the son of an oligarch entangled him in a dangerous underworld.) Akbar Shamji, the baddie on the run who might know what happened to Zac Brettler, has another claim to fame, we're told. He starred in panto at Cambridge Footlights with Mel and Sue, of Great British Bake Off fame. My advice to the police, if they ... (more) |
Sting is right when he talks about employment issues causing male toxicity. We need dirty and dangerous jobs!Thirty five years ago, I spent a lot of time working as a regeneration adviser in Hull, Barnsley, and Doncaster. At the time, all three areas were experiencing elevated levels of male unemployment and particularly young male unemployment. Now Sting has suggested that the lack of manual jobs is one of the causes of disaffected young men becoming toxic for the rest society. I think he has the nail on the head. Of course, there are a lot of causes of toxic young and, to a lesser extent, young girls but the lack of suitable employment, which is hard, physical, ... (more) |
Britain deserves better than a two-party trapEvery election, millions of people in Britain vote knowing their ballot probably will not matter. If you live in a "safe seat", your vote can feel irrelevant before you even enter the polling station. If you support a smaller party, you are constantly told you are "wasting" your vote. And if you back the winning party nationally, there is a good chance they will gain enormous power without anything close to majority public support. This is not healthy democracy. It is managed frustration. Britain's First Past the Post voting system was designed for a different era — an era before ... (more) |
Lib Dems take leadership of NewcastleThe Lib Dems in Newcastle have reached agreement with the Green Party to run the council as a minority administration. Lib Dem Leader Colin Ferguson was sworn in as the new Council Leader yesterday. The Greens will serve as a "co-operative opposition", thereby ensuring all cabinet members are Lib Dems.No single party was close to a majority in Newcastle after the local elections on 7th May. The (more) |
King's Game: leadership plotting, Scandi-styleThe latest edition of the email newsletter for my podcast, Political Fictions, is out and you can also read it in full below. But if you'd like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now: King's Game: the 2004 Danish movie The latest episode of Political Fictions is out: In a scheduling choice completely unconnected to any contemporary political events, Mark and Cory talk about the 2004 Danish film full of leadership plotting, King's Game. This is a proper conspiracy thriller, where even the children are Machiavellian geniuses. They question whether ... (more) |
New policy working groups - are you interested?Three new policy working groups have been set up by the Federal Policy Committee, and they are seeking members. The working groups will take evidence and prepare policy proposals to submit to Autumn Conference 2027. The deadline for applications to join one of the groups is 8th June. Click here for more information about how policy is developed in the Liberal Democrats. The new groups are: Victims of Crime Victims of crime have been let down for too long. Many wait hours for a police response; many never see their crime investigated or the perpetrator charged; many wait years for ... (more) |
Searching for Normal by Sami TimimiThis review appears in the new Liberator - issue 435. You can download it free of charge from the magazine's website. Searching for Normal: A New Approach to Understanding Mental Health, Distress and Neurodiversity Sami Timimi Vintage, 2026, £12.99 Many years ago, through my then day job, I encountered the ideas of professionals who challenged the dominant account of serious mental health problems. It was wrong, they argued, to see these problems as caused by one or more of a collection of discrete mental illnesses. The term "schizophrenia", for instance, now describes a quite different set of symptoms from those ... (more) |
Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Procurator Fiscal at DingwallIt was a very opportune telegram for the old boy. I'll say no more than that. When I was on holiday in Scotland years ago there was a story on the local TV news about a man who had gone for a walk in the hills and dropped dead. It ended with the words "... and the Procurator Fiscal at Dingwall has been informed." I have always remembered what an august personage he sounded. Saturday Two weeks have passed since that Friday's Unfortunate Events. It happened that I received a telegram the next morning that begged me to lend my ... (more) |
Things kick off in the Labour PartyThe Independent reports that Andy Burnham has hit out at Sir Tony Blair suggesting the former Labour prime minister is out of touch and partly to blame for the rise of politicians like Nigel Farage. The paper says that Burnham's rebuke comes after Sir Tony warned that Labour was "playing with fire" on the future of the country, as he urged the party not to move further to the left, saying it should instead occupy the "radical centre": In an interview with the Observer, Mr Burnham, who is fighting to win a parliamentary by-election to return to Westminster, a prerequisite ... (more) |
Magnus Grimond remembers his father's Orkney electionsHere's a video of the Liberal leader Jo Grimond voting in the 1964 general election. It's unused footage shot by British Pathé, so there's no commentary, and the little boy with Grimond is his son Magnus (not Michael, as YouTube says). Magnus Grimond recently wrote an article about his memories of Orkney elections in the Sixties and Seventies for Frontiers: My father would ... go around all the islands to hold meetings, which were mostly in rather draughty parish halls, with the odd Calor Gas heater if you were lucky. A few committed souls would generally show up, but I ... (more) |