Chase Park fair photosA few photos from Saturday's fair at Chase Park, Whickham. I took along Dandelion and one of the baby goats. They raised £58.20 for the park. (more) |
Green and Lib Dem Southwark brings government closer to votersCommunity councils, which last operated in Southwark in 2016, are to be restored by the Green and Liberal Democrat coalition that took control of the borough from Labour at last month's elections. Victor Chamberlain is the Lib Dem deputy leader of the council and holder of the neighbourhoods, strategic planning and wellbeing portfolio. He told Southwark News: "This is something that both parties are very passionate about and making sure that we are supporting and empowering our diverse communities. "That's best done by bringing the council back into their neighbourhoods and making sure the council is visible and responding to ... (more) |
From national averages to local realities: inequality in our communitiesEconomic decline, Conservative austerity and misguided government policy have all been blamed for worsening inequality in the UK, however, this fails to take a rounded view of inequality and leads to debate over economic solutions that neglect local challenges. By defining inequality solely as an economic problem, we enter further debate about inequality as an economic indicator. Critics can readily underplay the impact of inequality in our society by pointing out that relative poverty has remained constant. Inequality must be viewed through the lenses of income, wealth, health and education, all of which are rooted our local communities. Unaffordable housing, ... (more) |
A swamp of lies and disinformationAs we approach the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum, Jonathan Freedland writes in the Guardian about the country we have become as a result. He says that the choices Keir Starmer and his would-be successors face, indeed the entire political and cultural landscape we now inhabit, are informed or were shaped by that event. We are living in Brexit Britain. Freedland writes about Etonians working out their schoolboy rivalries, with nothing less than the destiny of the UK at stake, a recklessness with the future of seventy million people that remains unforgivable, the guilt belonging to Cameron and Osborne ... (more) |
The mysterious mole men of New York caught on videoAdam Gabbatt reports from New York for the Guardian:The first sewer episode happened on 5 May, at 2am. Three people, wearing hip waders and carrying flashlights, walked to a manhole cover in the middle of the road, hauled the circular cover aside, and clambered down into the darkness. That was that, until Thursday 28 May, when a group of people shifted a manhole cover and climbed into the sewer in south Brooklyn. Hours after that, a group of people lowered themselves into a sewer hole in north Brooklyn. "I could tell they were up to no good," Aki Jakupovic, who ... (more) |
Doing better? The goal must be SufficeincyThere seems to be a general expectation, at least in the "developed " world, that each generation can and should "do" better than the one before it. Parents expect that their children will have a "better time of it" than they had. At first sight that seems to imply a higher physical quality of life - more "stuff " - bigger house, kitchen refitted every five years, bigger cars changed more often, more foreign holidays, more gadgets, more bread and circuses. The more leisure that Keynes anticipated doesn't seem to have caught on, (other than more phone time). As I ... (more) |
Michael Meadowcroft (1942-2026) - A Liberal to His CoreMichael Meadowcroft at his final Lloyd George Society appearance in 2025. Last week, the Lloyd George Society was saddened to hear about the death of our friend and colleague, Michael Meadowcroft, after a short illness. I first came across Michael's name whilst undertaking the research for my PhD on the Welsh Liberal Party (WLP). (Although I was aware of him before this, it was here that I paid attention.) The WLP was set up in 1966 as a separate party which maintained federal links to the other Liberal parties in Britain. This new party faced considerable criticism from members of ... (more) |
Damian Collins at Hereford Military History Festival in SeptemberDamian Collins OBE, Friend of the Lloyd George Society and former MP, will be talking about his book, Rivals in the Storm – How Lloyd George Seized Power, Won the War and Lost his Government, at the Hereford Military Festival. From the event website: Rivals in the Storm tells the gripping story of how David Lloyd George — controversial, brilliant and ruthless — outmanoeuvred his rivals to seize the British premiership at the darkest moment of the First World War. From scandalous beginnings and bitter Cabinet feuds to the bold decisions that turned the tide of conflict, Damian Collins reveals ... (more) |
David Green pledges to fight for Caithness maternity careDavid Green has delivered his first speech at Holyrood. All our seven newbies have now done so. Every single one of them made me cry, David more than any of them. Not just because he is the best of people and I've known him for pretty much half his life (which is a tiny proportion of mine), but because he represents where I spent my teenage years and, much further south, where my husband's family comes from. His constituency is massive, stretching from John O'Groats in the north, almost to Skye in the west. I've driven the long, long road ... (more) |
We do have a two tier system, Part 2One of the changes to civil court procedure which was made following Lord Woolf's report in 1996 was to require a party's statement of case to be verified by a statement of truth. To put forward a case which you know to be a pack of lies, in other words, became a contempt of court and punishable by imprisonment. There have been any number of cases in the last few years where people have put forward lying and fraudulent personal injury claims, and the courts have taken a pretty stern line. Thus the Court of Appeal in Liverpool Victoria Insurance ... (more) |