Helen Morgan MP (Photo: Shropshire Live) Unsurprisingly, following our party conference, I have a few cheers to offer this week. Cheers to Helen Morgan MP for keeping maternity safety on the agenda. On 21 September, the party published its analysis of rising serious childbirth injuries and called for staffing, training and resources to improve care. Cheers to Tim Farronfor putting water company reform back in the spotlight. The party set out plans aimed at making water companies answer to billpayers and tackling the close relationship between the industry and its regulators. Cheers to Lib Dem members for backing a new ...
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 – including The File, as discussed in this edition of the podcast – via my Bookshop.org page (affiliate link). The Lives of Others ...
"Watching him involved engaging a kind of cognitive dissonance: this desperate, thin man was the same person as a sweet 6-year-old saying he wanted to learn about the moon; a handsome 20-year-old studying Physics in Oxford flirting with the camera; a 48-year-old who had realised that the research he was still passionate about had hit a dead end."Jude Rogers on 70 Up. Ferdinand Mount has no truck with the idea that Britain has always welcomed refugees: "The usual narrative of the Peasants' Revolt describes John Ball and Wat Tyler's march to London, Ball's sermon at Blackheath ('When Adam delved and ...
Donald Trump met Xi Jinping this week. Little of substance was agreed. But the meeting itself was of considerable substance. The symbols of protocol send powerful messages. Where people meet. The colour of the carpet. The body language and the strength of the hand clasp and the sincerity of the smile can set a diplomatic agenda for years to come. The Xi-Trump Summit was all about diplomatic signals. Trump's messages were clear from the red carpet to the flyover to the state banquet, he was telling Xi: We respect you. We need you. Xi, on the other hand, arrived knowing ...
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention polls for the next general election, along with the latest MRP projections and party leadership ratings. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls PollsterConLabLDGrnRefLab leadFieldwork BMG 20% (+2) 28% (+1) 8% (-2) 9% (-2) 23% (nc) 5% (vs Ref) 23-24/9 GB Find Out Now ...
Fans of the BBC's Poldark know all about Cornwall's stories of smugglers and pirates, but Gower has its fair share of stories as well. As the Visit Swansea Bay site says. the peninsula - with its hidden coves and bays, towering cliffs and stormy seas - could well have been designed with rogues, brigands, illicit cargoes and maritime mayhem in mind: During smuggling's 18th- and 19th-century heyday, seemingly sleepy Gower was a smugglers' hotbed. Local kingpins operated with near-impunity, employing hundreds of people and running rings around overstretched customs authorities. Those days may be long gone, but some things haven't ...
Six principal authority by-elections took place across England on Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24th September. The Conservatives were defending two seats (in South Staffordshire and Berkshire), Labour defended two seats (in Milton Keynes and Brighton & Hove), localist party Tunbridge Wells Alliance defended one in Kent, and the Green Party defended one in Gloucestershire. The highlight of the week came from Kent, where the Liberal Democrats staged a sensational victory in Tunbridge Wells - surging from third place in May to win the ward with 37.4% of the vote. In Berkshire, we came within a whisper of another major gain ...
I'm hoping the judges will decide it's time for a holiday soon. But for now, Cambridgeshire Live wins our Headline of the Day Award.
Four conference ago, I walked into Liberal Democrat conference as a delegate. I arrived on my own, not knowing many people and not really knowing what to expect. This year's conference has now come to an end. It was my fourth conference overall and my third time stewarding, so I thought it was a good opportunity to reflect on what conference looks like from the other side of the barrier. When you attend as a delegate, you naturally see the debates, speeches, motions and fringe events. What you don't necessarily see is everything that happens behind the scenes to make ...
Following the Lib Dem gain on Wednesday we then also this week had a further five on a more traditional Thursday. There was very nearly another Lib Dem gain to add to that earlier one: Bray (Windsor & Maidenhead) Council By-Election Result: [IMG: 🌳] CON: 36.1% (+1.3) [IMG: 🔶] LDM: 34.9% (+20.1) [IMG: ➡] RFM: 17.8% (New) [IMG: 🏘] BFI: 9.4% (-32.9) [IMG: 🌹] LAB: 1.8% (-6.3)Conservative HOLD.Changes w/ 2023. — Election Maps UK (@electionmaps.uk) 2026-09-25T12:36:36.163Z Thank you to Martin Clarke for being the Lib Dem here. For what all this means for the running total of council by-election results ...
On Tuesday, 22 September, Tim Farron MP delivered a speech at our 2026 Autumn Conference during the F36 policy motion, "Restoring our waters: Britain's water company crisis", on the need for water mutualisation amid repetitive failures of privately owned water companies. During this speech, he said, "proper Grimond liberalism", referencing former Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond and his support for cooperatives and mutuals to manage public services over nationalisation and laissez-faire economics. For many people, this would have simply been just another niche reference, but for us at the Grimond Society, it meant a great deal. Since July 2026, the ...
Aspects of the recent Party conference in Brighton raise an important question in my mind: what has happened to democratic policy-making in the Liberal Democrats? When Nick Clegg was leader, he repeatedly distinguished us from Labour and the Conservatives by emphasising how we made policy. Conference, he reminded us, was supreme. I remember many conferences where that principle was visible in practice. There were robust debates, speakers for and against, amendments carried and defeated, and motions sometimes lost. Conference was not there simply to endorse a predetermined position. Its purpose was to debate and decide. The contrast with the conference ...
Everyone, please hope for a rain free day tomorrow in Whickham! I will be having my monthly advice surgery with my Lib Dem councillor colleagues at 10am outside Whickham Library. Note the word "outside". The Library is closed for refurbishment so the surgery will be in the great outdoors. The umbrella will possibly accompany me.
Today, Sunniside hosted 2 MacMillan coffee mornings - at the Pharmacy and at the Club. I felt it was very appropriate tht I visit both and buy lots of cakes and scones. That's my lunch sorted!
Caron threw down a gauntlet in her article on Ed's conference speech. Most of the comments seem to have been negative on two main grounds - that the radical proposals on taxation had been bounced on the party and that whatever gains are made from Europe should be spent by the state. While I agree with much of what is said about Ed - the failure to inspire, the lack of ability to clearly define what Liberalism is, the instinctive tendency to see every vote of protest and none of purpose, in this case I suspect that a very cautious ...
I've a habit of digging up forgotten disasters and scandals from old newspapers, but a couple of British caving disasters that I've come across have proved to horrible to write about. The BBC News Surrey page, however, has turned up a potential caving disaster from February 1954 that had a happy ending - the cutting is from the Bradford Observer for the 15th of that month: The Westhumble cave, located in the North Downs near Dorking, was once mined for its chalk. In February 1954, four adventurous youngsters - including Fred Topliffe - from London wanted to explore the site. ...
As far as I know, this foreword appeared in the new Liberator Songbook on sale at Brighton. It's not perhaps his lordship's most seminal work, but I'm posting it here for completeness and so I don't lose it. Besides, he's reminded me that my rent falls due on Lady Day. Talking of Liberator, you can download the latest issue for free from the magazine's website. And, while you're on there, why not sign up to be notified each time a new issue drops? Bonkers HallRutland Tel. Rutland 7 Don't get me wrong, I love the Home Counties. I'm never happier ...
The Guardian reports on the conclusion of the IPPR thinktank that the UK is losing out on annual exports to the EU that could be worth as much as £6.5bn without a deal with Brussels that allows manufacturers to jettison duplicate product testing. The paper says that in the latest attempt to calculate the loss of trade with the EU after Brexit, the thinktank said many companies have given up selling goods to the EU or set up subsidiaries inside the trade bloc after successive governments failed to secure a mutual recognition agreement that would avoid the extra administration costs: ...