Cromford Moor Mine and the legend of the Black RocksAssailed by hay fever, flying insects and stinging nettles, Gareth Icke is our guide for a walk in the hills above the Derwent Valley in Derbyshire/ With that setting, disused lead mines, white spoil heaps and unlikely-sounding local folklore, this video ticks a lot of Liberal England boxes. For more like it, subscribe to The Walk on YouTube. (more) |
Gilbert Adair and when Jacques Derrida came to LoughboroughToday I thought of the writer Gilbert Adair, looked up his Guardian obituary from 2011 and found this gem: He once told us on the arts desk of what had happened when he rang one of his publishers. "You aren't by any chance Red Adair," asked a secretary to whom his name clearly meant nothing. "No," he snapped back, "I'm unread Adair." After I'd shared that on Bluesky, I dug out his book Myths & Memories, a collection of essays about and memories of British culture. In one of the essays, 'Derrida Didn't Come', he writes about a conference at ... (more) |
Offside: politics meets football in IranThe latest edition of the email newsletter for my podcast, Political Fictions, 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: Offside: the 2006 Iranian movie [IMG: white and gray Adidas soccerball on lawn grass] Photo by Peter Glaser on Unsplash Continuing our shameless coincidental timetabling, Cory and I have turned to football for our latest podcast episode: To coincide with the men's football World Cup, Mark and Cory talk about the 2006 Iranian film Offside, about ... (more) |
Autumn Conference 2026: Agenda Selection ReportThe Federal Conference Committee (FCC) met on Saturday to review motion submissions and begin finalising the agenda for Autumn Conference 2026, which will take place in Brighton from 19 to 22 September 2026. We are very much looking forward to returning to Brighton for what promises to be a busy and engaging Conference. This Conferences comes roughly midway through the Parliament but very early in the premiership of Andy Burnham. He will spend the summer setting out his agenda and trying to maintain a sense of change and momentum. There are already some (small) signs of a Labour bounce and ... (more) |
Tory fury at VAT on school fees is all about social classThere was a story the other day about dozens of Labour MPs failing to mention the private schools they had attended in their Who's Who entries. I wasn't surprised by this: if I find it difficult to discover which schools a Labour MP attended, I generally assume they were privately educated. But what was striking was the accusation by the Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake that "Their hypocrisy knows no limits. While they plot around the Cabinet table to impose this spiteful tax on education, many Labour MPs have been busy covering up their own private school educations. They have ... (more) |
Championing stronger AI resilience: Take-away from ALDE Congress 2026ALDE Congress is the largest gathering of our party members alongside our European sister parties. The Liberal Democrats delegation was at the heart of Europe in Vienna last weekend. First, we got most of the resolutions we had cooperated on in the previous months passed. Moreover, Baroness Smith was elected as the ALDE Vice President. While interacting with our European sister parties as the chairs of both the Liberal International British Group and the Lib Dems Friends of Hong Kong, I brought up interesting discussions on AI and especially how younger generations use such technology to engage in politics. AI ... (more) |
The Joy of Six 1545"Progressive politicians must see social media as a means to an end. If they're swallowed by social media, they'll lose their moral core. What's more - and much worse - making social media the training school of modern politics risks giving a megaphone to fascists and racists who are able to preach their gospel of hate to millions without interruption."Sam Bright on the curse of influencer-politicians. Jack Dyson reports on the consequences of falling school rolls. One in three councils expect more than a fifth of primary school places will be unfilled next year. "We used to think AI-generated fiction ... (more) |
National Crime Agency asked to look at Reform UK fundingThe Guardian reports that a host of transactions involving Reform UK's most senior figures and donations to the party caused bankers to report potential money-laundering concerns to the National Crime Agency. The paper says that, separately to the undisclosed £5m gift provided to the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, by a cryptocurrency billionaire shortly before the 2024 general election being reported to the NCA, banking staff judged that transfers of funds between Richard Tice, the party's deputy leader, a major donor, Fiona Cottrell, and the senior party figure and convicted fraudster George Cottrell, required further investigation: Suspicious activity reports (SARs) raised ... (more) |
Pantomime or politics?Lots of sleeze allegations and Farage is in trouble. In an attempt to distract attention away from his troubles, Reform have come up with an amazing plan - have a by-election by resigning, even though Farage claims he has done nothing wrong. Yet the great plan has fallen at the first hurdle. None of the other political parties will play along with Farage's game. So Farage looks set to fight Count (more) |
Paddington Bear: Slapstick, boosting Jeremy Clarkson's career and becoming our grim reaperPaddington Bear is a couple of years older than me, so I had one of the books about him when I was a little boy. I quite liked the Paddington stories and certainly liked his friendship with Mr Gruber, who treated what was essentially a furry child as though he were an equal. Children really appreciate characters like that. But you didn't have to grow that old before you started to find all the slapstick a bit babyish. And then there was the weak characterisation. The son of the Brown household was called Jonathan, and he added little to the ... (more) |