West End Local Community Planning Partnership Café Conversation #dundeewestendThe next West End LCPP meeting is on Thursday 20th November from 9.30am until 11am at The Friary in Tullideph Road. Working with What Matters to You this will be the first Café Conversation in the West End. The LCCP Chair said : "These sessions have been held in other parts of Dundee and offer a relaxed space for community members, practitioners, and strategic leaders to come together. The aim is to talk about what's working well, what could be better, and how we can improve things together. We're encouraging people to share real experiences. We'll spend time listening, identifying ... (more) |
Careless Labour ministers undermine government authorityThe Independent reports that Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has admitted to breaching the governance code for public appointments regarding her choice for the new football watchdog's chairman. The paper says that in a letter addressed to Keir Starmer, Nandy apologised for contravening the rules by not disclosing that David Kogan, her appointee, had previously donated to her leadership campaign. They add that a report by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, investigating Mr Kogan's selection as chairman of the Independent Football Regulator, concluded that she had "unknowingly" committed this "error". I know Labour party members who will put this down to ... (more) |
Yet another Lib Dem gain in Mel Stride's seat, this time from the GreensTen principal authority council by-elections this week, split across Tuesday and Thursday. Although not all the vacancies had a Lib Dem candidate, the number of wards contested by the Lib Dems was up two on the previous time these places were up. The contests included a Green Party defence, except that – for the third time since May – this is no Green candidate to defend their own seat. That was in Conservative Shadow Cabinet member Mel Stride's constituency – and resulted in the third Lib Dem gain in his seat in recent months: [IMG: Jan Goffey pointing] Jan Goffey ... (more) |
The last days of the King's Lynn to East Dereham lineThis Terence Carroll documentary on the last days of the line from King's Lynn to East Dereham was first broadcast on BBC2 on 2 June 1969, though Wikipedia tells us the line had been closed for the best part of a year by then: The line was not listed for closure in the original 1963 Beeching Report. But it was nonetheless closed to passenger and freight services by the Eastern Region of British Railways on Saturday 7 September 1968, save for a three-mile section for sand freight from King's Lynn to Middleton. Wendling station continued for a short while as ... (more) |
"I've met men on the road who could tell you the name of every star in the sky"I thought I'd played chess for Northampton Working Men's Club (or Whyte Melville, as we were often called) only in the national club knock-out competition, which was a tournament to which Market Harborough did not aspire. But, sorting out some old files, I found I had also played a season for them in the Northamptonshire league and done rather well too. All of which makes more sense of this memory... I was playing some five-minute games at Whyte Melville after winning my league game, and there was a beat-up old guy watching us. Even non-players are entranced by people playing ... (more) |
The Doom painting at St Peter and St Paul, Great BowdenYesterday I went into the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Great Bowden for the first time, and here's the Doom painting on the north wall of its north chapel. I photographed another one in Wycliffe's church at Lutterworth a few years ago. They were doing coffee in the church, and one of the women in charge was a friend of mine. Not only that. Her husband, who I was at school with back in the day, had written the words for the plaque explaining this fine Edwardian stained glass window. Perhaps we really are the grown ups ... (more) |
Standing up for local government - why I'm backing JoshEditor's Note: This month party members will be voting to elect our next Party President. At Lib Dem Voice we welcome posts from each of the candidates - one to launch their candidature plus a maximum of one per week during the actual campaign. Local government is the bedrock of Liberal Democrat politics. It is the layer of politics that is closest to the everyday lives of people – from the mundane to the momentous. It is local government that controls everything from bin collections and fixing roads to adult social care and SEN provision. In fact, around 800 essential ... (more) |
Nice guys finish first in Dutch election'Het kan wel', a play on Barack Obama's 'Yes, we can' quip, was ringing out in the Netherlands as Rob Jetten and his liberal D66 party surprised the pundits by winning the Dutch General Election last week. It was a close-run thing though, and it was only after all the postal votes had been counted that he was declared victorious against Geert Wilders' nationalist PVV party, by a historically small margin of 28,000 votes. D66 will now be able to look to form a coalition government after increasing their seats from 9 in 2023 to 26 seats. Jetten's style in ... (more) |
Reclaiming radical hope: lessons from New YorkWhat can the Liberal Democrats learn from Zohran Mamdani's clean sweep victory of the NYC Mayoral Race? This week, American Democrat Zohran Mamdani ended a year-long campaign with a decisive victory in the New York mayoral race, winning over 50% of the vote on record turnout. For progressives across the Western world, it was a breath of fresh air: a politics of hope had won. That same evening, at my local party's AGM, we heard from Martin Tod, the Liberal Democrat candidate for the newly created Hampshire and the Solent Combined Authority. One line from his speech has stayed with ... (more) |
Taking the biscuitLast night I chaired the meeting of Sunniside History Society at Sunniside Social Club. The speaker was Dr Paul Stott who used to work as a naval architect in the shipbuilding industry in the North East before moving into the world of academia where he lectured on the industry of which he had lots of practical experience.Paul's presentation looked at the decline of UK shipbuilding from its (more) |