The government has today announced plans for a "patriotic renewal" of Britain's communities. Ministers say the policy is about strengthening social cohesion and promoting the "shared values" that unite us as a nation. Fine words, for sure. But what exactly does it mean in practice? Because when politicians start talking about patriotism in this context, it can sometimes feel worryingly close to the language of the populist Right. Too often "patriotic renewal" becomes shorthand for cultural suspicion – a politics that encourages people to look sideways at their neighbours and ask whether they quite belong. That isn't renewal. It's division. ...
The Secret Barrister argues that Keir Starmer and David Lammy are taking an extraordinarily dangerous gamble with our individual liberty: "Restricting trial by jury has been paraded by the government as the only way to tackle the record backlogs and delays in the Crown Courts - caused by years of chronic underfunding and political mismanagement - yet the government has produced not a shred of credible evidence to support this claim, nor is it interested in discovering any, forcing the legislation through Parliament at breakneck speed in the apparent hope of avoiding inconvenient scrutiny." "The electorate is fragmented, multi-issue, and ...
One by-election win does not a government make. As a queer millennial living in East London, I am surrounded by Green Party Members. To paraphrase Derry Girls, 'It's wall to wall Green Party Members, sure you cannot move for Green Party Members round here'. Never has this been more obvious than in the last few days; conversations with friends and my social media have been filled with, quite frankly, sickenly gleeful Green Party activists & supporters, saying things like, 'a left wing government is just around the corner!' and 'this is the chance we have to change our country! Now ...
The most obvious manifestation of the government austerity which has been imposed on us in the past quarter century is the potholes in the roads. However, an article in last Friday's (6th March) Guardian by Aditya Chakrabortty claims that a much more serious consequence, largely ignored by the media, is a fall in our life expectancy. and especially our expectations of a health life. He writes: Our healthy life expectancy has been dropping for years; it is now the lowest since 2011, when records began. For most of the past 100 years, the UK and other rich countries have made ...
And I'm one of them: sitting in a Band E 4-bed house worth £600k. Yet all we get at York this week is another "hand wringing" motion on local government finance (F19), same as we got two years ago. It's pathetic. It's not "making policy", which is what I always thought Conference was for. Sure enough what was then called a crisis in local government funding is now an emergency. We seem no closer to publicly declaring we have a solution. Yet the Party has a solution waiting in the wings. In 2013, our policy paper "Fairer Taxes" included a ...
Britain cannot rely solely on others for its defence. Recent events in the Middle East have shown how quickly the world can spiral into conflict. When powers such as the United States, Israel and Iran exchange military strikes and deploy significant force, it reminds us that global stability can never be taken for granted. If Britain wants security, resilience and prosperity, we must rebuild our industrial strength particularly in the North of England and Scotland while maintaining close cooperation with our European partners. Watching the escalation in the Middle East has been deeply unsettling. The region has seen missile strikes, ...
Thanks to Illuminations Media for pointing me to this Jonathan Meades video from 1989.
The Independent reports on comments by Tony Blair, criticising Keir Starmer's slow support for Donald Trump's war on Iran, reportedly telling an event: "We should have backed America from the very beginning". The paper says that the former prime minister told a private Jewish News event on Friday that Sir Keir should have let the Trump administration use British airbases to strike Iran: He reportedly added: "If they are your ally and they are an indispensable cornerstone for your security ... you had better show up". Sir Tony's comments were made in private on the understanding that he would not ...
It's International Women's Day today and this year's theme is Give to Gain. From the IWD website: Give To Gain emphasizes the power of reciprocity and support. When people, organizations, and communities give generously, opportunities and support for women increase. Giving is not a subtraction, it's intentional multiplication. When women thrive, we all rise. Whether through donations, knowledge, resources, infrastructure, visibility, advocacy, education, training, mentoring, or time, contributing to women's advancement helps create a more supportive and interconnected world. What will you Give to Gain gender equality? What does Give to Gain mean to you? Lib Dem Women, the official ...
"Surrey. It would be Surrey," remarked one of the judges as they made our Headline of the Day Award to BBC News. He also suggested you seek professional legal advice before attempting to claim your neighbour's land.
A Bridgnorth church designed by Thomas Telford has serious structural problems, reports the Shropshire Star: In a statement the church said that the issues are not cosmetic and "go to the heart of whether St Mary's can continue to serve the town". The statement also says: St Mary's Church is one of Bridgnorth's most cherished buildings used both as a place of worship and a key community venue - but beneath its beautiful exterior, serious structural problems are putting its future at risk. A recent study led by Oliver Architecture has revealed that without significant investment, the church could face ...
Imagine you're 20 years old. You left school at 16 with a handful of GCSEs, a mother with a disability, and no money for college. You've worked a few zero-hours shifts at a warehouse, but the anxiety that's been sitting on your chest since you were 14 has made regular employment feel like an impossible ask on most days. You want to do something. You've looked at courses. But Universal Credit requires 35 hours a week of job searching, and if you stop, the money stops. So the course stays a thought, and the job search goes nowhere, because there ...
Sun 8th
12:30
The UK must not become complicit in another illegal war — Nor distracted from Israel's continu...
As Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine, we unequivocally condemn the latest unilateral and unlawful US-Israeli military action in Iran and urges the UK Government not to be complicit by allowing the US to use British military bases to attack Iran. The Iranian people have a right to live free from a brutal regime; however, regime change from the skies can only unleash more bloodshed and regional mayhem - particularly when one of the instigators is an indicted war criminal like Benjamin Netanyahu. The devastating human cost is already evident, including in the killing of 165 Iranian schoolgirls and staff in ...
[IMG: Parents holding baby with words Tell us your views on childcare at Conference] I was listening to Marie Agnes Strack-Zimmerman, a German MEP answer a question on the delivery of Taurus missiles to Ukraine at a forum in Copenhagen. She was momentarily interrupted by the gurgles of a 4 month old sat on the knee of a friend from the Danish Radikale party. As Zimmerman remarked that it was good to get her interested in defence policy so young, it struck me that I had rarely, if ever, seen children so comfortably integrated into British political spaces. We have ...
John Bromley was a nearly man of Sixties pop. His Manchester-based band played hard-to-get with Mickie Most, with the result that the producer signed Herman's Hermits instead. In 1969 he brought out an album of his McCartneyesque songs, Sing, on which he was backed by the band Les Fleurs de Lys. The Riff, quotes a now-vanished Facebook post of his about his success as a songwriter for other artists: English songwriter John Bromley has written over 200 works with over 60 recorded and performed worldwide by major artists such as Shirley Bassey, Sacha Distel, Petula Clark, Richard Harris, Paul Anka ...
Texas is a bright red, far-right Republican, conservative state. It has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate for 37 years. That may be about to change. And if it does the repercussions will rock the White House. Primary elections for one of the Lone Star state's two Senate seats were held by both the Democrat and Republican parties this week. One of the recognised barometers of political success is the size of the voter turnout. The turnout for the Democrat primary was highest in the state's history. The winner was Texas State Representative James Talerico. A middle-of-the-road Democrat ...
Sometimes television throws up the unexpected, such as when Ianto, a major character on the Dr Who spin-off Torchwood was killed off and the entire nation apparently went into mourning. Within days a makeshift shrine had appeared in Cardiff Bay, roughly near the fictional entrance to Torchwood's secret underground base. I first blogged on this phenomenon on 20 August 2009 just before I went on holiday. Over the next eight days my blog received 5,422 hits, most of them looking for that post. I revisited the issue a couple of times over the next two years and then moved on. ...