Long ago, I wrote the entry on Karl Popper for Duncan Brack and Malcolm Baines's Dictionary of Liberal Biography. The BBC Radio 4 In Our Time programme on Karl Popper from 2007 makes a good introduction to his thought, both in the philosophy of science and in politics. In the former he challenged the idea that science involved the accumulation of observations: rather, it involves making bold conjectures and then devising experiments that test their validity. If I were studying philosophy today I would be interested in the implications of Popper's ideas for our everyday reasoning, rather than for hard ...
Over the past four days I have been out and about along Allerton Road where there have been some appalling scenes from gangs of teenagers since KFC opened earlier this year. Let me put the numbers into context. There seem to be about 50-60 kids causing the problem. Fortunately, the maximum that have been spotted there is about 35 at any one time. Within easy walking or cycling of Allerton Road there are about 25,000 young teenagers. So, the number of kids causing problems is tiny compared to the total relevant population. I know that a few of those nuisance ...
Embed from Getty ImagesAfter making our Headline of the Day Award to the Guardian, the judges added a rider saying the obvious thing to do is to hand Botham's peerage to Mike Brearley.
Who are Le Tigre? Le Tigre (Kathleen Hanna, JD Samson, and Johanna Fateman) formed as an obstinately hopeful, even joyous, post-riot grrrl project in New York City in 1999 - when Rudy Giuliani was mayor and regressive hipster irony (à la VICE Magazine) ruled. Abandoning traditional punk instrumentation, the band paired drum-machine beats and looped 8-bit samples with the simplest, serrated guitar riffs and call-and-response vocals to write the songs on their first, self-titled album. Released late that year, they conceived of it as music "for the party after the protest." Deceptacon was the first track on that album. What's ...
Sun 22nd
06:00
Crypto billionaire's political base hosting 'anti-woke' and rightwing activists in Westminster
The Guardian reports that a British billionaire convicted in the US for failing to implement adequate money-laundering controls on his cryptocurrency business is funding a political base in the heart of Westminster used by "anti-woke" and rightwing activists. The paper says that Ben Delo, 42, who was pardoned by Donald Trump last year, has given support in kind to Rupert Lowe, the anti-migration MP challenging Nigel Farage from the right - while also connecting with mainstream figures including the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and former cabinet minister Michael Gove: Delo, an Oxford graduate who moved to Hong Kong in 2012 ...
"It's a well-worn tactic: Say something obviously offensive and watch as the media debates whether you were right, actually. The result is that the state of general discourse moves further to the right, the ratchet effect in action." Don't fall into the Nick Timothy trap, warns Mic Wright. Helen Maguire exposes planners' failure to consider women's safety: "Simple issues like lighting dictate who feels able to use public space after dark. Many women plan their routes based on lighting, avoiding dark shortcuts or taking longer paths home simply to stay on well-lit streets. Some pay for taxis to avoid walking ...
She has not tasted tea and oranges; no wind has blown around her long brown hair. She may be a prism and a mirror, a humble learning from a smart array shifting an alchemy of inputs, so I share my flaws and flotsam with no shame; a mirage refracted, half-imagined; old Loki manifest through open code; or life outside the growth of hollow men...
From the Archbishop of Canterbury to journalists and broadcasters to civil servants and political advisers to MPs and Peers, Politics Home announced its 100 Women in Westminster for 2026 which you can find here. Three Liberal Democrats made it in: Wendy Chamberlain, Daisy Cooper and Caroline Pidgeon. Here's what was said about them and you can see the entire 100 here. Wendy Chamberlain "Wendy is a considerate and hardworking constituency MP who combines genuine care for the people she represents with tireless dedication at Westminster," one nominator told us. "Her thoughtful leadership as Chief Whip, her commitment to modernising Parliamentary ...
As my glorious leadership of Creeting St Peter Parish Council nears its end, I am beginning to reflect on what I've achieved during the nearly eight years that I've been its Chair. It would be self-indulgent to take too much credit - I've been lucky enough to have had the support of two good Parish Clerks whom I could trust to handle the administrative stuff and keep the show on the road, and fellow councillors who have both placed their trust in me and shared the load in terms of tasks performed. But there are some things that have been ...
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 17% (+1) 21% (nc) 12% (+2) 15% (+1) 27% (-2) -6% (vs Ref) 18-20/3 GB Find Out Now ...
Sat 21st
10:00
President Bola Tinubu 's state visit to the United Kingdom, a Nigerian Liberal Democrat's take on it...
President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria came to the United Kingdom for a State visit from 18th to 19th March. This is a historic event as it is the first state visit by a Nigerian leader since 1989, when then military head of state Ibrahim Babangida was received by late Queen Elizabeth II. President Tinubu is the first Nigerian president to receive a state visit since the return of democracy to Nigerian in 1999. Considering the historic relationship of Nigerian and United Kingdom as Nigeria is a former colony, and Nigeria itself as a key player in the African continent and ...
Liberal Democrats believe in universal human rights. The response to evidence of sexual violence on 7th October should be straightforward. Yet too often, when the victims are Israelis, the instinct to "believe survivors" suddenly becomes contested. If rape is used as a weapon of war, liberals should have no difficulty condemning it. That should be true whether the victims are in Bosnia, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo – or Israel. And yet, in the aftermath of the 7th October attacks, a disturbing double standard has appeared in parts of Western political debate. Evidence that women were sexually assaulted during ...
Swansea is often referred to as Copperopolis because of its 18th and 19th-century role as the world's leading copper smelting center, producing up to 90% of the world's copper at its peak. It was this connection that forged an unlikely link between the city and Santiago in Chile. The Swansea Scoop website takes up the story: On December 8th, 1863, over 3,000 worshippers packed into the church of La Compañía de Jesús in Santiago, Chile, for a religious festival. The church was filled with thousands of candles, oil lamps, and other flammable decorations. When a ceremonial candles accidentally ignited the ...