When Sir Steve Webb introduced the triple lock as Lib Dem pensions minister in the coalition government, the aim was to close the gap between the state pension and average earnings and reverse years of real-terms decline during which the state pension had not kept up with living costs. In 2010, the basic state pension was just £97.65 per week, or just over £5,000 per year, for a single person - a truly pitiful amount for someone who had worked for at least 39 or 44 years (depending if you were a man or a woman), even when you consider ...
Recorded live in 1979 for BBC2's Rock Goes to College.
One of the things that makes me happy when I see the declining state of our political life is that 'at least we're not as bad as America!' That thought kept going through my mind when I read accounts of the UFC fight which took place at the White House at the weekend. Four things struck me when I read them: Firstly, this is supposed to be the home of the Head of Government of the Country and to that extent it belongs to all the people of the Country. Could you imagine Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle being opened ...
How many people reading this article have been sat at a house party in the north - and when the conversation gets onto politics (which it usually does), no other attendees know a single thing about the Liberal Democrats. Attendees aged eighteen, nineteen, twenty who have not got a clue about what we stand for, a single policy, except, maybe Davey's stunts. I tell them I support the Liberal Democrats, and a true response I once got was, "is that the orange one?". This is where we are standing with the youth, and hey, a lot of the older generations ...
Keir Starmer should set a timetable for his departure from Number 10 and give his successor the opportunity to prepare for becoming prime minister, argue Hannah White and Alex Thomas. "Digital spaces should be safe for people of all ages. But I don't believe bans are the answer. Technology companies need to be held to account and required to block harmful content and build safety into their designs."Lisa M. Given on what Britain can learn from Australia's attempt to ban under-16s from social media. Ben Mayfield has seen a new film on the countryside access debate in England and Wales: ...
On the day of the 10th anniversary of the tragic passing of Labour MP, Jo Cox, who will poignantly be remembered for her maiden speech in which she said "We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us." We contrast that with the juxtaposition of what emerged on Sunday when Nigel Farage had taken to social media and laid claim to Anti-white racism after he said that Britain was now a "two tier state against white people". Tragic events over the last fortnight have triggered memories for me long since ...
The Guardian reports on the view of Kim Leadbeater MP, the sister of Jo Cox, who was brutally murdered ten years ago yesterday, that political hatred and division in the UK is probably worse now than during the Brexit referendum. Speaking to the Guardian's Today in Focus podcast Leadbeater, who was elected to the same Yorkshire seat held by Cox in a 2021 byelection, said everyone in public life had a responsibility to try and ease tensions. Referencing the response of some politicians to the murder of Henry Nowak, which was followed by disorder in Southampton, Leadbeater said people should ...
This is fun. A compilation of 11 short clips of Kenneth Williams in films that aren't Carry Ons. Williams, as he frequently pointed out on Round the Horne when he wasn't being properly serviced, was classically trained. When he was young he was highly regarded as an actor, and Maggie Smith acknowledged him as an influence on her own work.
I went for a walk across the town after lunch today and saw this Three Lions flag. What I didn't see was any St George's flags. Twenty years ago, I was in Shropshire during the 2006 World Cup and I can remember St George's flags in the upstairs windows of houses in some very leafy streets in Shrewbury. I expect the children of the house demanded them for their bedroom windows. This year in Market Harborough, there's nothing. It looks as though the far right has put us off our national flag by making it a symbol their thuggish politics. ...
Embed from Getty ImagesWriting about Blue Labour in Liberator at the start of year, I suggested that: Maurice Glasman's target voter is a white working-class man in a manual job in the North of England in 1957. That makes him a modernist when set against Al Carns, judging by the defence minister's resignation statement in the Commons today. Here's how Carns began: As honourable members know, I came into politics for one reason. That was to enact change. But to be able to work out where you're going, we must realise where we have come from. The Labour party I ...
Could Hitler have won? - that's the title of my next talk to Sunniside History Society. I will be looking at various wartime events and explain how a different outcome to them may or may not have influenced the course of the Second World War. I will be keeping the shocker to the end of the talk when I explain how Hitler could have won control of Europe and then the world.
Well, after much haggling there is actually going to be a social media ban for under 16s, alongside social media curfews for those aged 16 and 17. Luckily for me, it won't be introduced until Spring next year—by which time I will be over 18. But this social media ban still affects all of us, and spells the end of a free internet. A social media ban seems good, and well meaning – protecting vulnerable children from the risks the being online can pose—but a well meaning policy does not necessarily mean good policy. For many, social media can help ...
[IMG: Calendar. CC0 1.0] The Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 deserves a double presence in contemporary knowledge. First, its authors deserve credit for what must be the most successful piece of future proofing legislation. Second, for the myth which illustrates how the powerful can ridicule the powerless. Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 was the legislation that moved Britain, and British dominions, over to the Gregorian calendar, which was several days different from the previously used Julian calendar. It includes a set of rules for which years should be leap years, complete with special provisions which come in every hundredth year ...
My husband and I are not typical empty nesters. True, we have a daughter of 27 and a son of 23, but Archie has a learning disability and autism so he will never live independently. He requires constant attention and all our energy to manage his behaviour. Evenings and weekends are full on for us as he needs his exercise (usually swimming or a hike) meals, medication and bathing- none of which he can manage himself without support. We liken it to having a 23-year-old toddler Tigger bouncing about the house. Now in our late fifties, with a wee bit ...
The term "away day" suggests a meeting well away from home. Gateshead Lib Dems had an away day on Sunday but for me it was not far away. Indeed, it was a three minute walk to get there from my house. Our thanks to Sunniside Club for being the venue. Good and thorough discussions held on the recent local elections and on campaigning over the year ahead.
You might remember that a few weeks ago we told you about the Charles Kennedy Memorial Lecture organised by the European Movement. Nick Clegg talked about the path to closer alignment with the European Movement. You can watch his speech courtesy of the European Movement's You Tube channel. The text is below: We are here in part to remember a much-missed friend and colleague, Charles Kennedy. It has been just over a decade since Charles passed, and we are all the poorer for it. He was one of the lights of liberalism in this country, and his absence in public ...
The latest edition of my email newsletter about work in Parliament, A Lord's Eye View, is out and you can also read it in full below. But if you'd like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now: Usually the starting point for these newsletters is something I have done in Parliament, but this time it's the work of a colleague, William Wallace, that is the trigger – and it's shown us a glimpse of what a different Keir Starmer premiership could have been like. The Cabinet Manual is getting an ...
The Times reports that delays and indecision over plans for the restoration of the Palace of Westminster are costing the taxpayer up to £420 million a year, while the historic estate faces an increasing risk of "catastrophic failure". The paper says that a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that parliament currently spends about £1.5 million a week on maintenance of the palace, including refurbishment projects and that this is forecast to increase to about £2 million a week between 2026 and 2030: The Palace, a Grade I listed building within a Unesco World Heritage site, requires extensive ...
