9 September 2026 - today's press releaseScottish Lib Dems secure £7.6 million in neurodevelopmental support as government announces funding Transport Secretary was "oblivious" about escape of flammable gas on embattled Arran ferry Scottish Government must respect will of parliament after it backs ferry compensation for coastal areas Murray backs parliamentary inquiries into party funding and Lord Advocate role in wake of Murrell embezzlement Scottish Lib Dems secure £7.6 million in neurodevelopmental support as government announces funding Responding to the Scottish Government announcing £7.6 million in funding to expand neurodevelopmental support, money which was secured by the Scottish Liberal Democrats in their negotiations during the 2026/27 budget, ... (more) |
Pennsylvania's Kids for Cash Scandal shows the danger of the profit motive in the juvenile justice systemIf you want to see the danger of introducing the profit motive into the detention of young offenders, watch this video on Pennsylvania's Kids for Cash Scandal. In the first decade of this century, two judges in Luzerne County, Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella, accepted millions of dollars in bribes to lock up children and teenagers for trivial offences from the owners of for-profit detention centres. At least 2,300 young people were wrongly imprisoned. And get a load of cuddly Uncle Joe Biden at the start of the video. (more) |
Conservative councillor joins Lib Dems in Cannock ChaseThe Express and Star reports the news of Josh Bancroft joining the Liberal Democrats: A councillor has quit the Conservatives to join the Liberal Democrats, voicing concerns that the party is drifting too far to the right. Councillor Josh Bancroft represents Cannock Park and Old Fallow ward on Cannock Chase Council... Chairman of West Midlands Liberal Democrats Lee Dargue said: "I'm very pleased to welcome Josh into a strong team. He brings real experience in community politics, which is an ideal fit for the Liberal Democrats." The Liberal Democrats previously had no councillors on the council. Sign up to get ... (more) |
The AI world and some fallacies about itAI will, we keep being told, take over the world. "Jump on now or be forever left behind and made obsolete", we get told, in every form of knowledge work. The advent of GPT-6 Astra and its solving (which has not yet been confirmed by the mathematical community, and which may have involved them accessing a scholar's unpublished materials) of some of the very complex proofs of fluid dynamic turbulence are prompting, pun depressingly intended, the latest round of yelling that we've reached AGI, a statement which is becoming a little bit like Elon Musk's repeated assertions that we're about ... (more) |
Yet another government makes a mess of local government reformIn 1973 I took part in the first set of local elections which completely changed the way that local government was run. Thousands of small urban and rural district councils were abolished, and some county boroughs became cities whilst the number of counties was reduced. These reforms were indeed needed and came about because of an independent review of local government on the ways and levels in which it worked and which was independent of politicians until, quite rightly, they took the final decision on the recommendations. At that stage I can well remember having to take information into a ... (more) |
The Joy of Six 1574Liz David-Barrett argues that, by making rule-breaking a selling point, Reform UK is signalling it's open for influence trading: "It is no coincidence that some of Reform's biggest donations have come from individuals in cryptocurrency, keen to ward off the threat of regulation." "Our findings lay bare the reality of an industry that operates without regulation. Some companies are run by people with no previous experience in care work: directors are security bosses, or come from the music business or the military. One company in our dataset is owned by an overseas private equity firm."Tom Wall reveals the vast scale ... (more) |
Front Street looking greatVolunteers from Planting Up Sunniside have been hard at work on Sunniside Front Street. The flower beds look great. Well done everyone. (more) |
Bryan Ferry: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna FallBob Dylan glammed up sounds good. This is on Ferry's 1973 debut album These Foolish Things, and it reached no. 10 in the singles chart the same year. (more) |
Lib Dem Women chair Donna Harris writes to Reform over violent ejection of woman protesterThere's not going to be anything to please liberals or progressives at a Reform conference, but what happened to a woman protester should disgust everyone, not matter their politics. From LBC: One woman who stood up to disrupt the speech can be seen in video footage being removed from the room. While several security guards remove her, members of the crowd appear to grab at her face and hair, and hit her with a walking stick. The woman told LBC: "Yesterday I was hit and grabbed by the hair and by my jaw by attendees at the Reform UK conference ... (more) |
Should the Reform UK leadership take responsibility for violence at their conference?One would have thought that a national politician, a member of the Privy Council and a former cabinet minister, would condemn violence in whatever form it might take, however that does not appear to be how the Rt Hon Robert Jenrick works. The Times reports that climate protesters who were attacked while disrupting Nigel Farage's speech at the Reform UK conference have called on Robert Jenrick to apologise for "trivialising" the violence. The paper says that the protesters, who interrupted the party leader's address on Friday to ask him about the £5 million gift he received from the crypto billionaire ... (more) |