Beyond 2026: how the Liberal Democrats can win a post-Labour NeathWith the 2026 Senedd election now around four months away, Welsh politics has entered a new phase. Campaigns are taking shape, narratives are hardening, and for the first time since devolution, both the electoral map and the voting system have fundamentally changed. Old assumptions about "safe seats" no longer apply. In Neath, that shift is particularly stark. Under the new boundaries, Neath now sits within the Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd, combining Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, Neath, and Swansea East into a single six-member constituency elected by closed-list proportional representation. Recent polling for this new constituency points to a fragmented outcome: ... (more) |
The abandoned lead mine in Crystal Palace ParkPhoto by Jacqueline BanerjeeLike W.H. Auden, I have a thing about abandoned lead mines. So I was intrigued to learn that there is one in Crystal Palace Park. Subterranea Briannica explains: It is well known that Crystal Palace Park includes a number of Victorian dinosaur models, arranged in groups around the lower lake. Many of these species were recently discovered although not all the models are nowadays thought to be strictly accurate. Less well known is that alongside these animals there is a replica geological strata. This was built at the same time as an educational feature and was constructed ... (more) |
1989-2026In 1989, the international norms that had held for decades. In the tumultuous autumn of 1989 the various governments of the Warsaw Pact fell in turn. "In Hungary it took six years, in Poland it took six months, In East Germany it took six weeks, in Czechoslovakia six days and in Romania it took six hours". Communism had collapsed under its own contradictions. As we read the headlines in January 2026, it is hard not to feel certain 1989 vibes. The end of Maduro in Venezuela, and now the explosion of unrest in the "Islamic Republic" of Iran. It is ... (more) |
No Green bounce in candidate line up for January by-electionsNo principal authority council by-elections this week, but ten coming up over the rest of this month. Across those ten, there is a welcome full slate of ten Lib Dems, up from the six Lib Dems the last time these wards were up. That matches full slates for both Conservative and Reform, while Labour are contesting nine. But perhaps most interesting is the seven Green candidates, behind all those other parties and no increase for the Greens (unlike the Lib Dems). That continues the pattern from council by-elections in the last quarter, which showed the Greens once again doing little ... (more) |
Where does Farage stand on Russia and UK security?The Guardian reports that Nigel Farage has been accused of "parroting Kremlin lines" after saying that he would vote against any UK government plans to deploy the military in Ukraine. The paper refers to the statement by Britain and France that they would be ready to send troops to Ukraine after a peace deal, and that the Reform UK leader said he would vote against any such move to put boots on the ground: Farage's comments cast doubt on his commitment to the UK's national security, the cabinet minister Pat McFadden said. He accused the politician of taking a pro-Russia ... (more) |
Natalism: the next "interesting" set of policies coming our way?If you follow what Reform UK are campaigning on, and I wish that I didn't, you know that many of their ideas come from thinktanks which slavishly follow a right-wing perspective. Reduce immigration, attack benefit claimants, penalise diversity - that sort of thing. But, taking immigration, if you've succeeded in restricting the number of new immigrants to virtually none, you've then got the problem of how you maintain the size of the workforce in what is likely to be an aging population, given that the rate of births per woman over lifetime has fallen below the replacement rate, something which ... (more) |
8 January 2026 - today's press releasesCorridor care: Govt has to treat this as a national emergency Davey calls on PM to rule out use of UK bases to attack Greenland Met vetting scandal: Lib Dems call on Conservatives to apologise for putting targets over public safety Business rates change "last chance" for "treasured" pubs Cole-Hamilton: £440m delayed discharge cost "utterly astonishing" Woman in Far North stuck in hospital for over 400 days waiting for care Corridor care: Govt has to treat this as a national emergency Responding to reports that corridor care has become so normalised hospitals are fitting plugs in hallways, Liberal Democrat Health ... (more) |
When Bonkers Hall was a fashionable spaNevill Holt Hall has been many things: the family home of the Cunards, a notoriously abusive prep school, the chief model for Bonkers Hall. But in the 18th century it was a fashionable spa. This feature from the Leicester Daily Mercury (Friday 21 September 1934) tells the story When Society Descended on a Leicestershire Spa The Doctor Bottled its Waters and Let His Imagination Go In a wood in one of the highest parts of Leicestershire, where wild pigeons seek the topmost branches of fir trees, rabbits scamper unheeding of alien eyes through an autumn carpet of leaves, and an ... (more) |
CrisesI was born in 1937, when, for the next two years I presume (I could hardly be aware) our politicians and diplomats were desperately working to contain the expansionary foreign ambitions of Hitler in and Mussolini. They failed and on the day before my second birthday war was declared on Germany. This War expanded to involve most of the world, caused between 70 and 85 million deaths, mostly Soviet and Chinese civilians, and was only ended by the dropping of two nuclear bombs by "our side" on two Japanese cities, together causing between 150 000 to 246 000 deaths. I ... (more) |
The Joy of Six 1458"Sounding like a mob boss when speaking at Trump's press conference at the weekend, secretary of state Marco Rubio told the world that the message of the Venezuelan intervention was that when this president says he is serious about wanting something, he gets it. The problem for Europe is that the one thing that this President covets above all is Greenland."Simon Nixon argues that Donald Trump's "Donroe Doctrine" poses an existential threat to NATO and Europe. Cliff Mitchell accuses Northamptonshire's two Reform-run councils of ignoring the reality of climate change across the county: "As predicted by climate scientists, Northamptonshire is ... (more) |