Anybody who thinks that the USA's Immigration Compliance and Enforcement officers is unique to that country should take note of the UK's equivalent force, though there are no shootings here and they are much better behaved. Earlier this week, the Guardian carried a detailed feature on how the Home Office enforces its policies. They said that officers have searched thousand of businesses in search of illegal workers, reporting on one raid at Mandira's Kitchen in Guildford last year: The raid is one of more than 17,400 on businesses carried out since Labour came to power in July 2024 - a ...
A derelict cottage in Great Tew, 1980. Photo by Kim Traynor The Beckhams' plans to light the pond at their Cotswold home have upset their neighbours, reports BBC News: One neighbour, James Worthington, said in a comment on the Beckhams' planning application the plans were "more akin to Miami or Florida not Great Tew". Great Tew, it seems, is a honeypot for celebrity residents from Princess Beatrice up to Taylor Swift. When I saw Great Tew in 1982 it was very different. So different, in fact, that the village lay largely derelict. I can remember seeing trees growing through the ...
For the past year, the Liberal Democrats in Gateshead have been working on the manifesto for the local elections due to be held on 7th May. We have condensed the full document, called Get Gateshead Going, into a leaflet which has now been delivered to 30,000 houses across the borough. I am pleased to report that a copy of the leaflet was delivered to my house yesterday. On Tuesday we
On Saturday 21st March, Whickham Voluntary Library held their Easter fair. I take goats to each of the library's fairs so they can help raise funds. This time I took Nettle, one of our milking nannies, and one of her as yet unnamed babies. They raised £31, not as much as they raised at Christmas last year. Still, £31 is better than nothing.
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% (+1) 16% (nc) 12% (+1) 20% (+1) 24% (-1) -8% (4th, vs Ref) 26-27/3 GB ...
The list of Reform UK candidates for the Welsh Senedd who have now been dropped in one form or another is: Cory Edwards: quit as candidate after Nazi salute controversy. Patrick Benham-Crosswell: quit as candidate saying Reform UK has "sunk deep into the sewer". Meanwhile, Reform candidates in Scotland have also gone and Reform UK councillors keep on going too. Sign up to get the latest news and analysis
The controversy over Nigel Farage's publicity stunt at Portman Road, the home of the Tractor Boys, and my (very) local football club, has demonstrated the truism of the first Valladares Rule of political crisis, i.e. it's not the wrongdoing itself that is fatal, it's the botched coverup that follows. If it had simply been that Nigel Farage and his PR team had entered Portman Road under false pretences and used the stadium as a backdrop for a publicity stunt, well, it would have asked some serious questions of the club staff but a few slapped wrists later and everyone might ...
As a member of the planning committee in Liverpool, I know that our powers are limited in terms of what we can allow to be built and what we can prevent from being built. We struggle to both meet Government housing targets and at the same time ensure that the housing being built is relevant to Liverpool's housing needs not just now but in the future. A recent enquiry to our officers within the council revealed that over a 5-year period about 9,000 new units of accommodation would be provided but of this approximately 90% would be in tower or ...
I might have known who was behind this policy. At lunchtime on the Saturday I left Lord Bonkers to his own devices and went to look for the blue plaque on Frankie Howerd's childhood home. Saturday I brave the crowd of placard-waving badgers to enter the conference. Who should I meet but Freddie and Fiona? "Ed's going to announce that the Liberal Democrats will be the first party with its own nuclear deterrent." "'I want an atomic bomb with a bloody bird of liberty on it,' he'll say." "We'd like the submarine to live in Rutland Water so we can ...
America's NATO allies are—according to Donald Trump—"cowards" for failing to join his war in Iran. He later added that the US would "never forget" the position of the Europeans at this "critical juncture" in world history. Trump's anti- NATO rants reveal an astonishing ignorance of the legal and political obstacles facing other world leaders who want to wage an ill- conceived and poorly executed war which threatens to escalate and plunge the world into economic depression. It is not entirely clear how, but Trump alone of the world's democracies appears to ride roughshod over international and domestic laws to wage ...
If you want a bite to eat in Swansea, then one of the many alternatives is the food hall in the newly refurbished Albert Hall. It is the latest incarnation of this historic grade II listed building. The website Save Britain's Heritage featured the Albert Hall as their building of the month in January 2021. They point out that the building opened in in 1864 as a music hall which hosted speeches by some of the big names in Victorian society including Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and David Lloyd George. They say that after it ceased use as a music ...