A plea from a member - more ambition and less equine pacification please...Those were the days, eh? Way back in 2024, we were a Party on the up with a record number of MPs. The Tories were banished and in disarray. We talked, in all seriousness, about how we would be the Official Opposition after the next General Election. We looked admiringly at the Canadian Liberals who went from third place with a rump of MPs to an overall majority and thought "that could be us". Now? Not so much. We languish, flatlining at 4th in the polls (or occasionally 5th if the Greens are doing well). Our performance in recent parliamentary ... (more) |
Peter Kellner: Zack Polanski should have won at a canterEmbed from Getty ImagesPeter Kellner sets last night's result in the Holborn & St Pancras by-election in its historical context: Only three times in the party's history has a Labour government been able to cheer a by-election night as a boost to its prospects of remaining in office. The first was retaining Kingston-upon-Hull North in January 1966, ahead of its big national victory two months later. The second was four months ago, when Andy Burnham won Makerfield (though some ministers were happier than others). Sagal Abdi-Wali has not just defeated the Greens in a local by-election. She has defied history. ... (more) |
The Independent View: The halfway house nobody wants to live inLast week, a Labour Prime Minister said he would fight the next election on replacing first past the post with a form of proportional representation. He staked his legacy on a National Care Service, with social care free at the point of use and the cost spread across the population. Electoral reform has been owned by the Liberal Democrat party since its inception, and Ed Davey is renowned for his campaign for better social care. In a single speech, Labour committed to both. Not content with eating the Lib Dem's lunch, he sized up their pudding by opening the door ... (more) |
Liverpool near bottom of the league for recyclingA recent report compiled following a Freedom of Information request by 'every can counts', shows just how bad Liverpool is at trying to send waste to be recycled but which is refused because it is heavily contaminated. Coincidentally, it has one of the worst rates in England for all recycling which cost taxpayers millions each year. When the Liberal Democrats controlled the council up to 2010 Labour would complain just how bad we were at recycling. At that point we were below the national average because places like cities always have extra hurdles to overcome when it comes to waste ... (more) |
Labour's recovery in by-elections continues.Four principal authority council by-elections this week along with a Parliamentary one too. In the council contests, we saw Labour's recovery against Reform continuing: Town (Newcastle-under-Lyme) Council By-Election Result: [IMG: 🌹] LAB: 46.2% (+18.0) [IMG: ➡] RFM: 26.7% (-0.4) [IMG: 🌍] GRN: 12.3% (-9.2) [IMG: 🌳] CON: 11.8% (-4.3) [IMG: 🔶] LDM: 2.9% (-4.0)Labour GAIN from Reform UK.Changes w/ 2026. — Election Maps UK (@electionmaps.uk) 2026-10-08T22:43:48.830Z Big thanks to Patrick Stillman for waving the flag for us in this by-election, and to everyone who supported him. If my canvassing was anything to go by, there were a lot of people ... (more) |
Vote Tory, get Reform?Kemi Badenoch may well have ruled out a coalition with Reform, but that doesn't appear to have convinced everybody in her party. The Indepndent reports that the Tory leader denounced the race-based nationalism of some of Reform's members saying: "Suella Braverman, a former Conservative government minister who defected to Reform, has suggested that only white people can be English. Badenoch said that she didn't want to live in a country run by people who "debate whether my mixed-race children are English." "We must not let these people take us backwards. That is not the country we are," she said. "For ... (more) |
Council by-election results scorecard 2026-2027Here's the tally of seats changing hands in principal authority council by-elections held between the May 2026 and the May 2027 local elections: Con Lab Lib Dem Green Reform SNP Plaid Ind/ Other Net Con [15] +1 (+1/0) +1 (+3/-2) -1 (+2/-3) -6 (+3/-9) -1 (0/-1) – +2 (+3/-1) -4 Lab -1 (0/-1) [14] -1 (0/-1) -1 (+3/-4) -1 (+7/-8) +1 (+1/0) – 0 (+1/-1) -3 Lib Dem -1 (+2/-3) +1 (+1/0) [17] +1 (+1/0) +2 (+2/0) -1 (0/-1) – +3 (+3/0) +5 Grn +1 (+3/-2) +1 (+4/-3) -1 (0/-1) [7] – +1 (+1/0) – – +2 Ref +6 (+9/-3) ... (more) |
Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker discuss Gone to Earth and its restorationThe 64th New York Film Festival, which closes on Sunday, saw the world premiere of a new restoration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1950 film Gone to Earth. This is one of their less celebrated films, but as it was shot in the Stiperstones in Technicolor, it is a favourite of mine. Because of my Shropshire obsession, I have made two people watch it with me and both enjoyed it. Here Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker discuss the film and its restoration. One thing I didn't know before watching this is that both Powell's parents came from the Welsh ... (more) |
Matt Brittin and Manon Dave need a traditional BBC arse-bootingMany have spent the day unsure whether to be outraged by BBC senior management or point at it and roar with laugher. Here's director general Matt Brittin, quoted by Deadline: "I love the BBC. It's full of words and discussion and slide decks and framing and reframing and reconstituting, and going around the houses, and actually, I'd like us to celebrate activity less, and outcomes more. And getting faster to outcomes that make a difference to an audience. "Not [just], 'We did this great marketing campaign,' but actually, 'It drove up watch time usage and active accounts,' right? Or, 'We ... (more) |
Looking good!Well done everyone involved with Planting Up Whickham. Flower beds and tubs look fantastic. I will be along on Sunday when the volunteers will be stripping the beds. My job is to take the vegetation to my farm and turn it into compost. (more) |