The news that two Lib Dem front benchers, Alison Bennett quietly and Charlie Maynard with a bit more noise have resigned their positions this week should concern the party. It's been clear for some time that all is not well within the party, and the controlling, top-down management style adopted by the party leadership since the General Election in 2024. This sort of rigid discipline didn't work so well in the Labour Party in the first two years of the Starmer administration and it sure as hell is doomed in a liberal party. We are supposed to encourage independence of ...
Ellesmere's canal basin is at the end of a short branch off the Llangollen Canal, which used to be called the Shropshire Union Canal, but was rebranded in the 1980s in the hope that would bring more visitors. At the point where this branch joins the main line stands an attraction I didn't know much about: Ellesmere Yard. The Canal & River Trust describes it:Established in 1806, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, Ellesmere Yard is steeped in history. Originally the headquarters of Ellesmere Canal Company, it played a critical role in the golden era of canal building, helping ...
Peter Black blogged this morning about the reaction to Charlie Maynard call for the Liberal Democrats to elect a new leader: The reaction has been predictable, with the leadership recruiting the usual suspects to go public in support of Ed Davey. Their social media posts are all suspiciously similar., and also slightly ridiculous, but ... what is really interesting is how few of them have gone public in this way. The politics.co.uk website lists just 17 out of 72 prepared to pin their support of Davey to a public mast. The rest appear to be keeping their powder dry. There ...
With the end of another, rather interesting, quarter, another update to PollBase, my database of British voting intention opinion polls since the 1930s is now up. It includes the first PM approval ratings from 1938 and first national voting intention scores from 1939. Download the new version here. As well as another three months of data, changes this time include: Additional Gallup data from the 1951 Parliament from the Bodleian Library's set of Gallup/BIPO reports in the Conservative Central Office archives. Thank you to Marcus Collins for sharing his copies of this data with me. P.S. For the very latest ...
I remember this so clearly from 1977 that it was a shock to find that it hadn't been a hit in the UK. It was a hit in the US and also controversial. How, you are asking, could such a sweet, bubble-gum pop song be controversial? Dean Friedman explains: My first label insisted that I edit and change the second verse to Ariel, in which I refer to her as "a Jewish girl". They were convinced that radio stations in the south would use it as an excuse not to play the record. (In fact, many stations in the south ...
The 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: Get the books As well as covering some books in the podcast, we also mention others in the newsletter's bonus content. You can browse all the books mentioned and get them for yourself via my Bookshop.org page (affiliate link). Cory sees the light over State of Play Photo credit: BBC. This time we're returning to the ...
The decision by the Liberal Democrat MP for Witney, Charlie Maynard, to resign his front bench post as part of a reported bid to oust Ed Davey as leader has really put the cat amongst the pigeons. This politics website reports that Maynard left his role as a Treasury spokesman on Friday afternoon amid wider criticism of Davey among Liberal Democrat MPs. He follows Alison Bennett, the Liberal Democrat MP for Mid Sussex, who left her role as care and carers spokesperson on 5 October without issuing a public explanation. As I posted here, earlier this month, Tom Gordon, the ...
Kemi Badenoch (Image: Holyrood) Here's another weekly round-up with unfortunately more jeers than cheers. Cheers for Sagal Abdi-Wali on winning the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, especially for the dignity and resolve with which she rose above the blatant racism directed at her. Refusing to be deterred by online abuse, she used her victory speech to champion belonging, opportunity and the strength of a diverse community. Having arrived in Britain as a child refugee, she now represents the place that gave her family a home. Nobody should have to withstand racist intimidation to serve their community; her response deserves admiration ...
Chaminda Jayanetti on successive governments' failure to grasp the nettle of social care: "As far back as 1997, Tony Blair's New Labour government launched a royal commission into adult care, only to then reject its calls for tax-funded free personal care and more support with residential care costs." "Fascism is a strange ideology with a universe of conflicting and bizarre beliefs and rituals. Among the strongest is the ritualization of death that both mirrors and serves the main political drive of fascism: the creation of in groups and out groups. This is done through legal capture, the erosion and destruction ...
Michael Powell also had some interesting things to say about A Canterbury Tale in the 1981 interview I linked to in my post on Gone to Earth: I believe you once described A Canterbury Tale as a crusade against materialism? One of the themes of the story was that. Emeric said, "Why don't we make a film about the sort of ideals we are fighting for?" Obviously, one of the most interesting characters in a discussion of that kind is the complete materialist played by Dennis Price. At the climax he does get to play in Canterbury Cathedral. Yes, but ...
The author Graham Loveluck writes about the Cross Keys Inn, the oldest pub in Swansea. He writes that the name is a nod to the legend that St Peter held the keys to the gates of heaven. It is a clue to the building's godly past: The building it self was built by Bishop Henry de Gower (Bishop of St Davids) in 1330, not as an inn but an almshouse and early hospital annexed to a monastic cell. The charter of 1332 says that it was established for 'the support of other poor chaplains and laymen deprived of bodily health.' ...