The opening of Chartwell Dutiro's obituary on Afropop Worldwide: Chartwell Dutiro has joined the ancestors. More than a brilliant Zimbabwean mbira player and a pillar of Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited during their rise to international fame in the late 1980s and early '90s, Chartwell was a musical visionary with a deep and abiding fidelity to the Shona tradition in which he was raised, and a wry, witty cosmopolitanism that made him a singularly effective ambassador to the world. Shorayi Dutiro's journey began in a Kaganda village in the Bindura region of then-Southern Rhodesia. According to his passport, he ...
State of the Union What a politician omits to say is often more important than what he says. There were two significant omissions during President Trump's record-breaking State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The first concerned Ukraine and the second Iran. Tuesday was also the day that Ukraine marked the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of their country. Notables from around the world gathered in Kyiv's Maidan square to mark the occasion. Every Western country was represented – except the United States. There was no American diplomat, politician or Trump-appointed delegate at this important and moving ceremony. ...
Not Left. Not Right. Liberal. The Green victory in the Manchester Gorton and Denton by-election should stiffen every Liberal Democrat spine. Not because we suddenly face a new political opponent. But because it reveals something important about the electorate. Voters are restless. They are frustrated with managerial politics. They are wary of institutions. And when they sense conviction, clarity and purpose – even if they do not agree with every detail – they respond positively. That matters to us, and our future strategy. If we do not define clearly what Liberalism stands for, others will fill that space with their ...
Sun 1st
08:12
Ed Davey: "The UK can't be dragged into an other protacted Middle Eastern war by a US President"
I was relieved that a long drive to the rural Highlands of Scotland prevented me sitting in front of a news channel with my head in my hands for most of yesterday. The sight of Donald Trump in a baseball cap looking the exact opposite of dignity and statesmanlike calm did nothing to quell my anxiety levels. It is absolutely clear that the Regime in Iran was awful – illiberal, disgustingly misogynist with no care at all for the human rights and freedom of its people. It's hard to see how the actions yesterday helped the plight of the Iranian ...
The Guardian reports that Keir Starmer is facing an ultimatum from his own party to change direction or risk a leadership challenge within months after the Greens humiliated Labour with a historic byelection victory in Gorton and Denton. The paper says that the scale of defeat in an area that had returned Labour MPs for nearly a century, and where Starmer's party still believed it could win even on polling day, plunged his ministers and MPs into renewed despair just weeks after he saw off a challenge to his position: While only a handful of backbenchers called openly for Starmer ...
Ben McGuire, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall, has called the planned closure of Sharp's brewery in his constituency "devastating" and urged its American owners to think again. ITV News reports that he has also said it would be "unacceptable for Molson Coors Beverage Company to market its products as Cornish if it moved out of the Duchy". The brewery at Rock, which produces the UK's best-selling cask ale Doom Bar, is due to close by the end of the year with the loss of 50 jobs. Ben told ITV News: "I'm really disappointed to hear this devastating news ...
Today was my ward's turn to host a Gateshead Lib Dem action day. We had letters to deliver. We also had two surgeries. The first was at 10am outside Whickham Library. I didn't get to it as I was in Sunniside Club car park dishing out bundles of letters to the eight members who turned up to help.But at 11.30am, by which time all the bundles had gone, we had our second surgery of the day, on
Derbyshire Live wins our Headline of the Day Award. One of the judges was heard to ask what the point of Reform UK is if their councillors don't insist on calling them "Marathon bars".
On Thursday 26th February 2026, Gateshead Council held their budget meeting to set the budget and council tax. As usual, I took my camera and got a few snaps of the Lib Dem opposition group in the opposition room and in the council chamber.
Gateshead Council's Labour Leader, Martin Gannon, constantly calls for Lib Dems to apologise or resign. Hardly a meeting goes by without his claims that Lib Dems are a "disgrace". Yet another incident took place at the Council Budget meeting on Thursday. The meeting also had an interesting exchange of words about whether or not the Lib Dems will take control of Gateshead Council in May. Cllr
I did not stay up for the result of the Gorton and Denton by-election on Thursday. Instead I woke up on Friday morning to learn of the Green Party's victory in the constituency. The good news is that Reform failed to take the constituency and this time it was not just a handful of votes in it. Labour's performance was an almost perfect match with local council by-elections. Labour are typically
In his "Brexit Blog" last week Chris Grey referred to the "giggling fatuity of the BBC's political editor Chris Mason." There has been plenty of fatuity, by Mason and others, in the media's reporting of Thursday's by-election in part of Manchester and I suppose this post may only add to it. However, here goes.... To me the most striking part of the result is that the Conservatives received only 1.9% of the vote, and the Liberal Democrats even les, 1.8%. Who alive a hundred yeas ago (and there are still some) could have foreseen that these two great parties, led ...
Here's the blurb for one of the short Secret Leicestershire features on BBC Sounds - The secret RAF base which foiled the Nazis: Slightly north of Coalville in the Leicestershire district of Charley are the remains of a secret RAF base which foiled Nazi bombing raids during WW2. The RAF 80 Wing was formed in 1940 and comprised a team of specialist wireless operators who sent radio signal beams to throw German pilots off course, tricking them into releasing their bombs away from their intended targets. Charley was one of those specially chosen sites, being close to the important manufacturing ...
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 Opinium 18% (+2) 18% (-5) 12% (+2) 13% (nc) 30% (-1) -12% (vs Ref) 25-27/2 GB Find Out Now ...
Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers is now believed to be over 1,000-strong. The ships are 20-25 years old. Putin has neither the time nor the money to build all the ships he needs. And he needs a lot because a major slice of Russia's oil exports are seaborne. International oil sales provide 20 percent of the government's revenues and the government is spending 40-60 percent of its revenues on the Ukraine War. The floating rust buckets in the shadow fleet are uninsurable and an environmental disaster waiting to happen. But Putin doesn't care about their seaworthiness. They are cheap ...
Visit Wales has a page from 2025 celebrating 100 years since the birth of one of Port Talbot's most famous sons. Richard Burton. This is particularly pertinent a year later, as I understand that Port Talbot will be bidding to be the 2028 Town of Culture, which will no doubt feature many of the highlighted landmarks. They say that in 2025, to mark the centenary of the great man's birth, the county of Neath Port Talbot curated two walking trails showcasing his old haunts, and two Blue Plaques were unveiled along the routes, one at Richard Burton's birthplace and the ...