Kemi Badenoch (Image: Holyrood) Here's another weekly round-up with unfortunately more jeers than cheers. Cheers for Sagal Abdi-Wali on winning the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, especially for the dignity and resolve with which she rose above the blatant racism directed at her. Refusing to be deterred by online abuse, she used her victory speech to champion belonging, opportunity and the strength of a diverse community. Having arrived in Britain as a child refugee, she now represents the place that gave her family a home. Nobody should have to withstand racist intimidation to serve their community; her response deserves admiration ...
Chaminda Jayanetti on successive governments' failure to grasp the nettle of social care: "As far back as 1997, Tony Blair's New Labour government launched a royal commission into adult care, only to then reject its calls for tax-funded free personal care and more support with residential care costs." "Fascism is a strange ideology with a universe of conflicting and bizarre beliefs and rituals. Among the strongest is the ritualization of death that both mirrors and serves the main political drive of fascism: the creation of in groups and out groups. This is done through legal capture, the erosion and destruction ...
Michael Powell also had some interesting things to say about A Canterbury Tale in the 1981 interview I linked to in my post on Gone to Earth: I believe you once described A Canterbury Tale as a crusade against materialism? One of the themes of the story was that. Emeric said, "Why don't we make a film about the sort of ideals we are fighting for?" Obviously, one of the most interesting characters in a discussion of that kind is the complete materialist played by Dennis Price. At the climax he does get to play in Canterbury Cathedral. Yes, but ...
The author Graham Loveluck writes about the Cross Keys Inn, the oldest pub in Swansea. He writes that the name is a nod to the legend that St Peter held the keys to the gates of heaven. It is a clue to the building's godly past: The building it self was built by Bishop Henry de Gower (Bishop of St Davids) in 1330, not as an inn but an almshouse and early hospital annexed to a monastic cell. The charter of 1332 says that it was established for 'the support of other poor chaplains and laymen deprived of bodily health.' ...
I put together this video about why I oppose proposals to build 210 houses to the south of Sunniside.
We are all ready for tomorrow! Gateshead Lib Dems have another action day, this time in the Whickham area. We will be delivering a survey which I printed yesterday - see photo above where the leaflets are coming off the folding machine at high speed.
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 20% (+3) 29% (-1) 9% (nc) 9% (-2) 23% (-2) 6% (vs Ref) 7-9/10 GB Find Out Now ...
Embed from Getty ImagesIt sometimes seems the judges never sleep, but you have to hand it to them. In making our Headline of the Day Award to the Independent, they have alerted us to a whole new way for Reform to lose a councillor.
Embed from Getty ImagesNow here's a story: Kish Modasia from London, out for a walk at Rutland Water, got more of an adventure than she bargained for when, with very little warning, she got stuck in mud almost up to her waist and needed to call emergency services. You can hear Kish telling BBC Leicester's Andy Dayman all about the drama that unfolded on BBC Sounds. h/t Rutland Ned.
Fri 9th
16:16
Charlie Maynard resigns from Lib Dem front bench and calls for no confidence vote in Ed Davey
So the gossip about disaffection with the party leadership at Westminster was accurate. Earlier this afternoon, the Financial Times broke the story that Charlie Maynard, Liberal Democrat MP for Witney. has resigned as the party's shadow chief secretary to the Treasury and asked other Lib Dem MPs to join him in a vote no confidence in Ed Davey's leadership/ The FT website can be hard to access, but Traders Union now has the story too. While Traders Union concentrates on the party's poll ratings, the FT, I think rightly, sees more significance in our continuing inability to gain press or ...
Those were the days, eh? Way back in 2024, we were a Party on the up with a record number of MPs. The Tories were banished and in disarray. We talked, in all seriousness, about how we would be the Official Opposition after the next General Election. We looked admiringly at the Canadian Liberals who went from third place with a rump of MPs to an overall majority and thought "that could be us". Now? Not so much. We languish, flatlining at 4th in the polls (or occasionally 5th if the Greens are doing well). Our performance in recent parliamentary ...
Embed from Getty ImagesPeter Kellner sets last night's result in the Holborn & St Pancras by-election in its historical context: Only three times in the party's history has a Labour government been able to cheer a by-election night as a boost to its prospects of remaining in office. The first was retaining Kingston-upon-Hull North in January 1966, ahead of its big national victory two months later. The second was four months ago, when Andy Burnham won Makerfield (though some ministers were happier than others). Sagal Abdi-Wali has not just defeated the Greens in a local by-election. She has defied history. ...
Last week, a Labour Prime Minister said he would fight the next election on replacing first past the post with a form of proportional representation. He staked his legacy on a National Care Service, with social care free at the point of use and the cost spread across the population. Electoral reform has been owned by the Liberal Democrat party since its inception, and Ed Davey is renowned for his campaign for better social care. In a single speech, Labour committed to both. Not content with eating the Lib Dem's lunch, he sized up their pudding by opening the door ...
A recent report compiled following a Freedom of Information request by 'every can counts', shows just how bad Liverpool is at trying to send waste to be recycled but which is refused because it is heavily contaminated. Coincidentally, it has one of the worst rates in England for all recycling which cost taxpayers millions each year. When the Liberal Democrats controlled the council up to 2010 Labour would complain just how bad we were at recycling. At that point we were below the national average because places like cities always have extra hurdles to overcome when it comes to waste ...
Four principal authority council by-elections this week along with a Parliamentary one too. In the council contests, we saw Labour's recovery against Reform continuing: Town (Newcastle-under-Lyme) Council By-Election Result: [IMG: 🌹] LAB: 46.2% (+18.0) [IMG: ➡] RFM: 26.7% (-0.4) [IMG: 🌍] GRN: 12.3% (-9.2) [IMG: 🌳] CON: 11.8% (-4.3) [IMG: 🔶] LDM: 2.9% (-4.0)Labour GAIN from Reform UK.Changes w/ 2026. — Election Maps UK (@electionmaps.uk) 2026-10-08T22:43:48.830Z Big thanks to Patrick Stillman for waving the flag for us in this by-election, and to everyone who supported him. If my canvassing was anything to go by, there were a lot of people ...
Kemi Badenoch may well have ruled out a coalition with Reform, but that doesn't appear to have convinced everybody in her party. The Indepndent reports that the Tory leader denounced the race-based nationalism of some of Reform's members saying: "Suella Braverman, a former Conservative government minister who defected to Reform, has suggested that only white people can be English. Badenoch said that she didn't want to live in a country run by people who "debate whether my mixed-race children are English." "We must not let these people take us backwards. That is not the country we are," she said. "For ...