The Federal Conference Committee (FCC) met on Saturday to review motion submissions and begin finalising the agenda for Autumn Conference 2026, which will take place in Brighton from 19 to 22 September 2026. We are very much looking forward to returning to Brighton for what promises to be a busy and engaging Conference. This Conferences comes roughly midway through the Parliament but very early in the premiership of Andy Burnham. He will spend the summer setting out his agenda and trying to maintain a sense of change and momentum. There are already some (small) signs of a Labour bounce and ...
There was a story the other day about dozens of Labour MPs failing to mention the private schools they had attended in their Who's Who entries. I wasn't surprised by this: if I find it difficult to discover which schools a Labour MP attended, I generally assume they were privately educated. But what was striking was the accusation by the Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake that "Their hypocrisy knows no limits. While they plot around the Cabinet table to impose this spiteful tax on education, many Labour MPs have been busy covering up their own private school educations. They have ...
ALDE Congress is the largest gathering of our party members alongside our European sister parties. The Liberal Democrats delegation was at the heart of Europe in Vienna last weekend. First, we got most of the resolutions we had cooperated on in the previous months passed. Moreover, Baroness Smith was elected as the ALDE Vice President. While interacting with our European sister parties as the chairs of both the Liberal International British Group and the Lib Dems Friends of Hong Kong, I brought up interesting discussions on AI and especially how younger generations use such technology to engage in politics. AI ...
"Progressive politicians must see social media as a means to an end. If they're swallowed by social media, they'll lose their moral core. What's more - and much worse - making social media the training school of modern politics risks giving a megaphone to fascists and racists who are able to preach their gospel of hate to millions without interruption."Sam Bright on the curse of influencer-politicians. Jack Dyson reports on the consequences of falling school rolls. One in three councils expect more than a fifth of primary school places will be unfilled next year. "We used to think AI-generated fiction ...
The Guardian reports that a host of transactions involving Reform UK's most senior figures and donations to the party caused bankers to report potential money-laundering concerns to the National Crime Agency. The paper says that, separately to the undisclosed £5m gift provided to the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, by a cryptocurrency billionaire shortly before the 2024 general election being reported to the NCA, banking staff judged that transfers of funds between Richard Tice, the party's deputy leader, a major donor, Fiona Cottrell, and the senior party figure and convicted fraudster George Cottrell, required further investigation: Suspicious activity reports (SARs) raised ...
Lots of sleeze allegations and Farage is in trouble. In an attempt to distract attention away from his troubles, Reform have come up with an amazing plan - have a by-election by resigning, even though Farage claims he has done nothing wrong. Yet the great plan has fallen at the first hurdle. None of the other political parties will play along with Farage's game. So Farage looks set to fight Count
Wed 8th
20:13
Paddington Bear: Slapstick, boosting Jeremy Clarkson's career and becoming our grim reaper
Paddington Bear is a couple of years older than me, so I had one of the books about him when I was a little boy. I quite liked the Paddington stories and certainly liked his friendship with Mr Gruber, who treated what was essentially a furry child as though he were an equal. Children really appreciate characters like that. But you didn't have to grow that old before you started to find all the slapstick a bit babyish. And then there was the weak characterisation. The son of the Brown household was called Jonathan, and he added little to the ...
I have a small number of signed copies of my book available for sale. £20 plus £2 postage. 10% of sales will be donated to the Lloyd George Society. Drop me an email at Nicholas.alderton@hotmail.com if you'd like to buy one. Also, if you've already purchased a copy and want me to sign it, I'm happy to do so. Nick The post Book Offer – Signed copies of Emlyn Hooson and the Welsh Liberal Party 1962-79 appeared first on Cymdeithas Lloyd George / The Lloyd George Society.
Wed 8th
14:39Bankers have raised potential money-laundering concerns over transactions involving senior Reform UK...
The Guardian reports that a host of transactions involving Reform UK's most senior figures, and some donations to the party, have led bankers to report potential money-laundering concerns to the National Crime Agency (NCA). According to the newspaper, finance industry figures have raised at least four suspicious activity reports (SARs) relating to transactions involving senior figures in Reform. It names them as: One relates to a £1m donation made to Britain Means Business, a fundraising organisation for Reform UK, before the last general election. Half of the £1m was then transferred by Tice, as director of the company, to Reform ...
Last week, a comment appeared under my last LDV piece from Dennis Delice, in which he said he would be interested in an internal party group focused on furthering the case for economic democracy by encouraging a more co-operative and mutualistic economy. After reading it, I got in touch with Dennis via LinkedIn, and within a few hours, we had brought the idea to life. The Grimond Society launched on Thursday, 2 July, to put economic democracy at the heart of Liberal Democracy policy. We named it after Jo Grimond because this was the same cause he championed over six ...
The singles chart at the start of the Seventies, before glam rock's sparkly hands got around its throat, was an eclectic place and you sometimes found quite heavy bands like Free having hits. And music moved on so quickly then that it's surprising to learn that Free's singer Paul Rodgers was in a school bond with Bruce Thomas of the Attractions. It feels like they should have come from different generations.
The Guardian reports that Nigel Farage has announced he is to resign as the MP for Clacton to fight a byelection, after revealing he is under a second investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog over undeclared gifts. For some reason the Reform UK leader believes that his resignation is part of "sticking two fingers up at the establishment" which will prove that the public wanted him to stay on as an MP. In fact, it looks more like a blatant attempt to avoid responsibility for his actions, including the failure to declare a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher ...