Alex Cole-Hamilton's recent article on LDV is right about one thing: Palestine should be run by Palestinians. Israelis, likewise, should determine their own future in peace and security. But that aspiration is not advanced by presenting a highly selective reading of history that assigns Britain primary responsibility for a century of conflict while overlooking the choices made by Palestinian leaders and the wider Arab world. The central premise of his article is that Britain deliberately prevented Palestinian self-determination and that today's conflict flows principally from decisions taken during the Mandate. That is a powerful political narrative. It is also an ...
We're used to stories of rural primary schools closing, but yesterday the Guardian had something different: a report on the uncertain fate of Soho Parish C of E primary school: Sandwiched between a strip club, a West End theatre and a pub might not be the most obvious location for a school but Soho Parish C of E primary has thrived for decades among the colourful charms of inner London. But in an area that once had 16 schools, Soho Parish is the last remaining and its time may soon be up, a victim of the post-Covid downturn and falling ...
Jonathan Simons fears that Labour have picked a new leader who communicates well, but whose instincts are wrong: "This easy, reflexive tilt back to the left being about class, and steel mills and coalfields and shipyards and dockyards, and Northern men in Northern towns, is politically weird in 2026." "Two weeks ago, the Sunday Times published a scoop: that Farage had failed to declare donations from George Cottrell, a convicted money launderer. In doing so, it thrust a new character on to the national stage. Only George Cottrell isn't a new character. He has operated at the highest levels of ...
Perhaps my piece of political punditry that has aged best is the set of reasons I gave in early 2017 as to why Theresa May would not call an early election. The reasoning has aged brilliantly in all but one respect. I was wrong. So it may be foolish of me to venture into further early election speculation just ahead of a new Prime Minister taking office. But I am struck both by the historical record on early elections and also by how rarely it is cited in such speculation. Let's take a look at all the early elections (which ...
At full council in Gateshead last week, the ruling Reform group put forward a motion calling for meetings to start at 4.30pm and be limited to a maximum of two hours. The aim of the changes is to make it easier for people to become councillors and attend meetings. So let's look at this in detail.In days gone by, most people would have worked standard 9 to 5 shifts. Daytime council meetings
Less than two months into Southwark's new Liberal Democrat-Green Joint Administration, we've secured an encouraging early win. One of our first decisions was to support the legal challenge against the Mayor of London's proposal to reduce the affordable housing threshold from 35% to 20%. That proposal has now been dropped. It is welcome news for everyone who believes London's housing crisis will not be solved by making fewer homes affordable. For us, this was about more than planning policy. It was about what kind of politics we want to practise. Southwark faces one of the most acute housing crises in ...
This is perhaps typical of the sort of track I hear on BBC Radio 6 Music and like. It's a little bit retro, stronger on melody than rhythm and involves white boys and guitars. Could it be that I'm getting old? Still, Song Bar likes it too: A crisp, catchy, acoustic sound with orchestral strings and their distinctive vocal harmony style sees a welcome return from the London-based art-rock quartet of David Maclean, Vincent Neff, James Dixon and Thomas Grace, heralding their upcoming sixth LP Doveland, out in November via Clouds Hill. Produced by Nick McCarthy (Franz Ferdinand), the title ...
With 34 candidates lined up to fight the Clacton by-election next month and with Nigel Farage the only one representing a party currently topping the opinion polls, it looks like the Reform UK leader will be back in the House of Commons in short order, all ready to face the music with the Standards Commissioner. But is it that straightforward? The Independent reports that Farage has, in the words of one constituent in Clacton, "gone full conspiracy theory" in explaining to voters there why he has called his surprise by-election: A look at the local Facebook pages and other forums ...
A citizenship ceremony was held in Gateshead Civic Centre earlier this month. People from about 40 countries who had come to the UK as legally recognised migrants received their citizenship at the ceremony. Two of the new citizens are constituents of mine.
Sat 18th
22:09
Welsh Lib Dems are short of peers and the Lords is weighted towards London and the South East of Eng...
It's not just Shropshire's curlews who are facing extinction. Professor Russell Deacon, author of history of the Liberal and Liberal Democrat parties in Wales, has told Nation Cymru: "The Liberal Democrats are a federal party with equality meant to be spread between England, Wales and Scotland but this seems to have been forgotten and in the House of Lords it's very much an English Party! "Not long ago there were six Welsh peers from Wales representing the Liberal Democrats; after the next general election because they can no longer attend after the age of 80 they will become extinct. This ...
The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 outlawed "gross indecency" between but made no mention of relations between women. There's a story that Queen Victoria insisted that a provision about women was taken out of the act after parliament had passed it because "women could not do such things". But the story is obvious nonsense. British monarchs have never been able to go through laws passed by parliament and strike out anything they don't like. In theory they have the power to refuse to sign a whole act, but no monarch has done that since Queen Anne. There's another version ...
This is from Muriel Spark's novel The Girls of Slender Means, which was published in 1963 and set in 1945: These upper bedrooms looked down on the opposite pavement on the park side of the street, and on the tiny people who moved along in neat looking singles and couples, pushing little prams loaded with pin-head babies and provisions, or carrying little dots of shopping bags. Everyone carried a shopping bag in case they should be lucky enough to pass a shop that had a sudden stock of something off the rations.
British politics has been reshaped. Andy Burnham has consolidated the centre left, pushed Reform to the margins and made a progressive coalition government the new baseline. The right is fragmented and unable to command a majority. In this new landscape, the Liberal Democrats face a simple but brutal question: will we be the kingmakers who define the next era, or the footnote that history barely records? Current polling points to three possible futures. The difference between them is not fate. It is choice. The first future is collapse. If we enter the next general election without bold, memorable policies, with ...
Professor Russell Deacon Martin Shipton, friend of the Lloyd George Society and our recent after-dinner speaker, has written an article for Nation.Cymru, highlighting the decline in the number of Welsh Liberal Democrat peers. The outgoing Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, nominated five Liberal Democrats in his resignation honours list. However, for the 13th year in a row, no Welsh Liberal Democrats have been elevated to the House of Lords. The article also highlights that with the proposals that an age limit of 80 be phased in, the remaining four Welsh Liberal Democrat peers could be forced to retire. The ages ...
Forty-eight young curlews are being released back into their natural habitat in the Shropshire hills as part of efforts to protect the species. The scheme, which is run by the non-profit organisation Curlew Country, has seen eggs taken from wild nests and incubated, with the hatched chicks then raised in specially-constructed pens. Amanda Perkins discussed this 'headstarting' process with BBC News: "Our monitoring showed that no chick survived to fledging from any of the nests we looked at," she said, adding that the team "needed a desperate measure to try and hold the situation". Perkins described the process, which is ...
A lot of churches fall into disuse or are repurposed, but the many lives of St Paul's Church on St Helen's Road in Swansea must be unique. As Swansea Scoop reports, this church, opposite Joe's Ice Cream Parlour, was originally built in 1880 and remained a place of worship until at least 1972. They say that after the church's closure, a veteran of the cinema scene in South Wales, Lynn Thomas, bought the building and converted it into Studio Cinemas, which opened in 1977: Studio Cinemas originally had two screens, but when a third was added, the cinema changed its ...