Liberal Democrats believe in universal human rights. The response to evidence of sexual violence on 7th October should be straightforward. Yet too often, when the victims are Israelis, the instinct to "believe survivors" suddenly becomes contested. If rape is used as a weapon of war, liberals should have no difficulty condemning it. That should be true whether the victims are in Bosnia, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo – or Israel. And yet, in the aftermath of the 7th October attacks, a disturbing double standard has appeared in parts of Western political debate. Evidence that women were sexually assaulted during ...
Swansea is often referred to as Copperopolis because of its 18th and 19th-century role as the world's leading copper smelting center, producing up to 90% of the world's copper at its peak. It was this connection that forged an unlikely link between the city and Santiago in Chile. The Swansea Scoop website takes up the story: On December 8th, 1863, over 3,000 worshippers packed into the church of La Compañía de Jesús in Santiago, Chile, for a religious festival. The church was filled with thousands of candles, oil lamps, and other flammable decorations. When a ceremonial candles accidentally ignited the ...
Yesterday, at the full council meeting, tributes were paid to Jim Turnbull, Gateshead's longest serving councillor who passed away earlier this month. Jim was also the oldest member. He was 85 when he died. I paid tribute to Jim at the meeting on behalf of the Lib Dem group. I was the one who had served the longest with him. He had first been elected in 1982. I was first elected in 1987. It was
Last photos from conference (I promise). In the olden days when we had only 11 MPs, getting a full set of MP mugs was affordable. Now, with 72 MPs, the cost if a bit more challenging if buying the full set!Guaranteed to be seen from a considerable distance (and probably from low earth orbit, Lib Dem must have fashion accessories were on sale at the conference shop. Put on one of those sweat
Tomorrow, Whickham Voluntary Library will be holding their Easter fair and I will be there with Nettle, one of our nanny goats, and one of her babies. They will be there to raise funds for the Library. At the last fair, they raised £119.
In the early 1950s the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Richard Austin Butler (arguably the best conservative prime minister we never had) told us that if the British economy grew at an annual rate of 3% we would double our standard of living in 25 years. In other words, be twice as rich. Butler didn't spell it out, but if we continued that rate for another 25 we would double it again, thus becoming four times as rich as in the early 50s. Well, we never quite made a steady rate of 3%. Other countries did, some by much more, ...
This post is written for the 12th Annual Favourite TV Show Episode Blogathon on Terence Towles Canote's blog A Shroud of Thoughts. Click on the image above to go to a video of The Dangerous Game.Shoestring was different. Both the character and the programme were different. A rare BBC show built around a private detective, it ran for two seasons and was screened in 1979 and 1980. Eddie Shoestring, Radio West's "private ear", was a modern hero - so modern that he had suffered a breakdown after working with computers - and his eccentricities immediately cohered to form a believable ...
Tuesday wasn't just used by Gateshead Lib Dems to deliver leaflets. It was also used to send out our first canvass team. The Pelaw and Heworth Team - Councillors Paul Diston, Amanda Wintcher and Ian Patterson - headed out to canvass in their ward. The results were in line with expectations. In other words, we were happy with the returns.
On Sunday just gone, Gateshead Lib Dems had an action day in Bridges ward. Alas, with some of us at conference in York, there were bundles left over. Therefore, an additional action evening was held on Tuesday.The plan was to deliver the manifesto leaflet.I didn't get to deliver my usual patch. Instead, I was sent out with Cllr Leanne Brand to some of the steepest streets in Gateshead! Most
Today is the end of winter and the start of spring. I snapped this photo this morning on my way to feed my livestock. Everything is starting to grow and Plant Up Sunniside have surpassed themselves with the planters they look after. The one in the photo is on the Kingsway/Sunniside Road junction.
Fri 20th
16:14
Dog solves murder: Labrador cracks 160-year-old case when he digs up bottle of Victorian poison in t...
Photo by Grant Durr from Unsplash The judges bid you unclutch your pearls, because the Mail receives today's Headline of the Day Award. They also say this story reminds them of that time the head of the victim on a notorious 19th-century murder was found in David Attenborough's garden.
There was one principal council by-election this week, on Tuesday. After a previous absense on the ballot here, we were able to stand a canddiate. In Wales, vote splintering meant that Reform UK were able to gain this seat from an independent, albeit with an unconvincing share of the vote. Thank you to Sam Warden and the local team for flying the Liberal Democrat flag. Pembrokeshire County Council, Milford Hakin Reform UK: 179 (27.1%, new) Conservative: 144 (21.8%, +0.5%) Independent (Bridges): 106 (16%, -14%) Green Party: 85 (12.9%, new) Liberal Democrats (Sam Warden): 57 (8.6%, new) Independent (Edwards): 52 (7.9%, ...
The Guardian brings news of trouble for Reform's candidate selections in Scotland, including the suspension of Stuart Niven: Reform UK has suspended one of its Scottish candidates after it emerged he had been struck off as a company director, and the party faces growing attacks for fielding candidates making Islamophobic remarks. Reform confirmed on Friday morning it had suspended Stuart Niven, its candidate for Dundee West, after The Herald revealed he had been struck off after diverting tens of thousands of pounds of Covid grants into his personal account. Nigel Farage used to boast about how good Reform's candidate vetting ...
A dispersal order has been put in place on Allerton Road from 17.00 tonight for 48 hours. According to the order this is because of anti-social incidents in and around the KFC. When the KFC planning application came to the Council 2,500 local residents signed a petition against it, we warned of severe consequences to Allerton Road of anti-social behaviour, littering and poor driving by food couriers in our one-way system. We have been proved right on all three counts. Thanks to the Police for listening to our concerns and acting upon them so swiftly. I will be joining them ...
In my last article, I argued that democratic capitalism should not stop at the ballot box. But the argument should not stop at the workplace either. If Liberal Democrats care about dispersing power, we should care about housing too. For liberals, that means resisting concentrations of power. For liberal social democrats, it also means asking whether ordinary people have sufficient security, voice, and control within the institutions that shape their daily lives. Housing is one of the clearest tests of that question. Housing is not just another market commodity. It shapes security, family life, community belonging, and whether people feel ...
Mariano delli Santi is concerned by the Information Commissioner's Office and its enthusiasm for age-verification: "The ICO are actively encouraging platforms to adopt more invasive verification technologies, at a time when privacy violations and malpractice are starting to emerge within the industry. Further, the ICO characterisation of age assurance technology as 'advanced' and 'readily available' comes as hundreds of computer scientists call for a moratorium on the roll out of this technology and warn about the technical limitations and infeasibility of this approach." "The parental rights movement frames the conflict as parental rights versus government control, completely disregarding children's rights, ...
The Guardian reports that Essex police have paused the use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology after a study found cameras were significantly more likely to target black people than people of other ethnicities. The paper says that the move to suspend use of the AI-enabled systems was revealed by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which regulates the use of the technology deployed so far by at least 13 police forces in London, south and north Wales, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Surrey and Sussex: The ICO said Essex police had paused LFR deployments "after identifying ...