No one knows what Police Commissioners do. In fact, I can add that hardly anyone knows that they even exist! In the one election that has been just for the position of Police Commissioner which did not take place alongside other local government elections the turnout was a massive 7% on Merseyside. It is a nonjob which causes confusion when mentioned, costs money for elections that no-one wants and creates a level of bureaucracy which can slow down effective decision making on key issues. So, these ludicrous positions should go but what comes next? The following thoughts are contained in ...
The year 1973 was good to Wizzard. They released a succession of great singles - Ball Park Incident, See My Baby Jive, Angel Fingers (the latter two both topped the UK charts) - and took part in an epic battle to be the Christmas number 1 with Slade. This, their next single, should have been been out just after that battle had been lost, so that I listened to it while doing my homework by candlelight during the three-day week. But their new label, Warner Bros, didn't release it until 19 April 1974. Despite this lack of seasonality, it reached ...
Those of you who know me modestly well will know that I am an aficionado of public transport, or transit as I guess I should call it when across the pond. I am particularly fond of old trams and, having discovered that Boston's MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) still runs a few, I decided to go take a look whilst I still had the chance to do so. The Boston subway system is a bit of a hybrid. The Blue, Orange and Red Lines are familiar in that they look like "proper" underground trains. The Green Line runs underground in ...
In what is likely to be a dramatic set of local elections this May, Birmingham is poised to be one of the most notable, with huge opportunities for the Liberal Democrats. Think of Birmingham City Council and it's likely the words 'bankruptcy' or 'bin strike' will come to mind. While these have done huge damage to the city, they are just a couple of the worst examples of Birmingham Labour's failures. For example, the council has suffered badly from the botched implementation of a new IT system, now 4 years late with cost overruns of more than £100m. These failures ...
I was delivering care early one morning when the radio cut through the routine. The BBC was reporting that Donald Trump had authorised direct military action in Venezuela, framing it as a decisive move to remove the tyrant Nicolás Maduro from power. I won't pretend to shed tears for Maduro. He has spent years hollowing out democracy, crushing opposition, and driving millions of Venezuelans into poverty and exile. But geopolitics isn't a boxing ring where the loudest punch wins. It's more like a line of dominoes: once the first falls, you don't get to choose how the rest collapse. When ...
The Independent reports on new figures that show the poorest households in Britain have become poorer while the rich have seen their disposable income rise under Labour. The paper says that data from Retail Economics shows that the amount the poorest households have left over after bills and essential spending has fallen by 2.1 per cent since Labour came to power in July 2024, but the most affluent households have seen their discretionary incomes rise by 10.3 per cent: The new figures from Retail Economics, an independent economic consultancy, look at discretionary income, which is how much money families have ...
Gateshead Lib Dems' first action day of the year in Gateshead was held this morning in Chowdene ward. On my way to pick up a bundle to deliver, it started snowing. It got heavier and heavier. It did not however put us off delivering the latest Focus leaflet. The whole of the ward was either delivered by lunchtime or people had taken bundles to deliver through the week. The next action day
I'm afraid the judges have some bad news for you. This story from BBC News has won our Headline of the Day Award. They also have a new word for you - "asparamancer" - and a nice second mention: "the sought after vegetable": Jemima Packington, a practising asparamancer, said she is able to make her predictions by grabbing "a handful of asparagus" which she then casts onto a flat surface. Ms Packington grew up in Evesham, Worcestershire, known as a growing hotspot for the sought after vegetable.
I posted a video of the South Bank Show film on the staging of Sweeney Todd a few days ago and have been obsessed with Stephen Sondheim's musical ever since. I didn't see Sweeney in 1980, but I have strong memories of watching that film about that production, with the result that I cannot quite accept anyone but Denis Quilley and Sheila Hancock in the lead roles. Someone has made the video above by pulling out some of the scenes of the finished show from the film, and if you are as obsessed as me you will want to listen ...
Photo: Canal & Rivers Trust Having been guilty of posting a fake AI image of the scene of Bluesky, I thought I'd better see what is really happening at the closed bridge over the Staffs & Worcs Canal at Penkridge. So here is the notice on the Canal & Rivers Trust site: On New Year's Eve, debris was reported in the canal below the bottom gates at Lock 38. An investigation found that the debris came from the bywash culvert next to the lock. The culvert, which also runs under a road bridge and beside a house, appears to have ...
It's not the done thing for the leader of a powerful country to send his people in to arrest the leader of another country, regardless of how awful a human being he is and ship him and his wife back to said powerful country to face trial. I am not an expert in international law, but this does not seem to follow any kind of due process. One of the most depressing things about the first year of the second Trump presidency is that Trump and his officials have got away virtually unchecked with horrific abuses of process carried out ...
Ed Davey's New Year message came out when we were on our break, but, for the sake of completeness, here is his video, a kind of Lib Dem Wrapped. An unusual choice to give Kemi Badenoch a cameo, but then she was telling everyone how we get the church roof fixed, something which will, we suspect, never get old. Enjoy!
Here are the scores on the doors for the latest quarter of principal authority council by-elections.
One of the unexpected side effects of being a grandparent of a five-year-old girl is exposure to the full array of Disney princesses. And yes, I know that Elsa is a queen, not a princess, but you know what I mean, right? Our granddaughter is seldom happier than when she has a flowing dress to wear or, at least, she has been up until now. There is an emerging "threat" to this comfortable state of affairs. For she has discovered KPop Demon Hunters, this summer's unexpected hit. They don't really fit with the "princess vibe" and it offers a challenge ...
"At present the Tories are making the same mistakes as their continental cousins - aping the rhetoric and policies of the further right upstart party that is destroying them from the flank. As long as this happens the Blue Wall of small towns and rural hinterland across the South beyond London will disappear altogether with large swathes of the country turning into a Lib Dem/Reform battle (council by election results show this is already happening)."Matthew Pennell asks if centre-right parties are finished across Europe. AI chatbots are gossiping about us behind our backs. Ashley Fike summarises a paper by the ...
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 Find Out Now 18% (nc) 14% (nc) 12% (+1) 17% (nc) 30% (-3) -16% (4th, vs Ref) 24/12 GB ...
We are travelling further west this week to Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire and Dinefwr Castle, which is situated on the outskirts of the town. Dinefwr Castle is a ruined castle overlooking the River Towy. It lies on a ridge on the northern bank of the Towy, with a steep drop of one hundred feet to the river. Dinefwr was the chief seat of the Dinefwr dynasty of the Kingdom of Deheubarth. The castle is a Grade I listed building. I was there a few days ago and, as you can see, the views are spectacular. As Wikipedia says, tradition relates that ...
