Degenerate Art on Donald Trump's concentration camps and what can be done to resist their building: "When you consider the number - again, in the tens of millions—that the administration is promising to detain or deport, and when you look at the network of planned facilities that we already know about, what we're witnessing is the express repetition of a project on the scale of the larger concentration camp systems in history - the Soviet Gulag, the Nazi concentration camps, and Chinese labour camps in the People's Republic of China." "Westminster's moral compass went haywire a long time ago, and ...
Trump is panicking. He knows that come November the Republicans are highly likely to lose control of the House of Representatives. They may also lose control of the Senate, but it would take an electoral miracle for the Democrats to win the two-thirds majority necessary to boot Trump out of the White House. But loss of the lower house would be bad enough. It is the lower house that could impeach him for the third time. Democrat-control of the House of Representatives, can, make it very difficult for Trump to continue to implement his far-right agenda. They can investigate all ...
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 Techne 19% (-1) 17% (-2) 14% (-1) 15% (+2) 30% (+2) -13% (3rd, vs Ref) 11-12/2 UK Find Out ...
Local history a bit closer to home this week, with the only blue plaque in my council ward. It is situated in Lynn Street in Cwmbwrla on the side of a corner house, which may once have been an old bakery, and commemorates a gentleman by the name of David Ayres Jones. Interestingly, the plaque is not listed on the council's official site, which suggests that it may have been mounted privately. According to this historical marker database, David Ayres Jones was an engineer and inventor of Bakery Machinery, being responsible for creating the Worlds first bread moulder in 1947. ...
Yesterday I wrote about two Reform defections in the North East. In Sunderland, the entire Reform group (consisting of one person) parted company from Reform. And Durham County Council saw a Reform Councillor go independent. Well, another day and another Reform defection. Councillor Nick Brown has cut his ties with Reform Ltd. and has gone independent.Cllr Brown helpfully sent his views to the
Between 1962, when he first appeared as Charlie Barlow in Z-Cars, and 1976, when he played the character for the last time in Second Verdict, Britain's most famous television policeman was Stratford Johns. That baton was then taken on by John Thaw, who had begun playing Jack Regan in The Sweeney in 1975. He continued in that role until 1978 and then played Inspector Morse between 1987 and 2000. (I don't remember their being any clear holder of the crown during that interregnum.) And here they are together in a Z-Cars episode from 1964. Trivia fans will be pleased that ...
The party is seeking members for a new policy working group, called Empowering Consumers. The group will be aiming to prepare policy proposals for Spring Conference next year. If you would like to know how policy is decided in the Liberal Democrats, and how policy working groups fit in, then there is a useful guide here. In brief, policy groups meet in person and online and take evidence from professional and industry experts before crafting a policy paper. The paper is then distilled down to provide a substantial set of proposals which form a conference motion. They also carry out ...
I'm not in the habit of blogging about race relations, it's a topic that attracts far more heat than light and I expect I will receive many abusive replies to this. What I've learnt from Brexit, however is that right wingers will lie repeatedly about a topic and the mainstream media then fails to correct or clarify those lies. The drip drip drip of propaganda works and positions that should be widely debunked and dismissed when subjected to expert scrutiny – real facts, stats and figures – become accepted and respectable. I no longer stay silent when such a deception ...
There were three principal council by-elections this week, and all three had a Liberal Democrat on the ballot. Tuesday saw the poll for a new councillor in Fishguard North East ward on Pembrokeshire County Council. This had a big increase in candidate numbers, after the straight Labour-Conservative contest last time. Caleb Churchill and the team achieved a good second place here, as Plaid Cymru gained the seat. A great effort, and a solid base from which to win next time. Pembrokeshire County Council, Fishguard North East Plaid Cymru: 253 (33.8%, new) Liberal Democrats (Caleb Churchill): 135 (18.0%, new) Reform UK: ...
I couldn't find room for it in my Lion & Unicorn article about the film No Room at the Inn, but I did blog here about my discovery that the Joan Temple play on which it was based gave John Osborne his first break in the theatre: After No Room at the Inn had cleaned up in the West End, it went on a national tour, though without its star, the awe-inspiring Freda Jackson. As there were so many children in the cast, the company needed a tutor for them to make up for the schooling they were missing. That ...
This week's by-elections started with a Tuesday contest in Wales: Fishguard North East (Pembrokeshire) Council By-Election Result: [IMG: 🌼] PLC: 33.8% (New) [IMG: 🔶] LDM: 18.0% (New) [IMG: âž¡] RFM: 12.7% (New) [IMG: 🌹] LAB: 11.1% (-47.9) [IMG: 🙋] Ind: 10.5% (New) [IMG: 🌳] CON: 9.2% (-31.9) [IMG: 🙋] Ind: 4.7% (New)Plaid Cymru GAIN from Labour.Changes w/ 2022. — Election Maps UK (@electionmaps.uk) 2026-02-10T23:42:03.498Z The thanks here go to Kay Kirkham for being the Lib Dem candidate. For what all this means for the running total of council by-election results since the last May elections, see my council by-elections scorecard ...
The Richard Jefferies Museum, which is housed in the writer's birthplace at Coate Farm, Swindon, is raising money to fund its plans for a new Centre for Arts and Wildlife. You can read all about those plans on the museum website. A spokesperson for the trust that runs the museum told the Swindon Advertiser: "Our little museum has been growing - more events, more activities, more volunteers and more visitors. "But we think it is time to grow some more, by creating something that will help the old farm site accommodate everything that's going on. "So, we have come up ...
Here is a list of the councillors which Reform has shed from the May 2025 local elections and from those elections in by-elections since. The latest update is the departure of Nick Brown, yet another departure in Durham. Donna Edmunds (Shropshire, suspended by Reform UK and then quit the party) Luke Shingler (Warwickshire, now an independent) Desmond Clarke (Nottinghamshire, resigned as councillor) Andrew Kilburn (Durham, resigned as a councillor) Wayne Titley (Staffordshire, resigned as a councillor) Mark Broadhurst (Doncaster, expelled by Reform) Adam Smith (West Northamptonshire, suspended by Reform and then expelled) John Bailey (Durham, resigned as a councillor) Daniel ...
The Independent reports that the Home Office has spent nearly £700,000 on fighting a legal battle against the co-founder of Palestine Action over the group's terror ban. The paper says that Huda Ammori, co-founder of the group, has challenged the government's decision to ban the organisation under anti-terrorism laws in the courts: Since the proscription, thousands of people have been arrested for holding signs declaring support for Palestine Action and the move has been condemned as "an enormous overreach of the UK's terrorism powers" by human rights groups. A decision by the High Court in the case is expected tomorrow. ...