The coronation of King AndyThe announcement today that Andy Burnham has been elected as Labour leader comes as no surprise. He was, after all, in a one horse race. So he therefore undergoes a coronation rather than a contest. I remain to be convinced that this is the right approach. We barely know anything about what he plans for the country. A contest would have brought our his policies and put them in the (more) |
Congratulations DaveThe news story that caught my eye today was the appointment of 5 new Lib Dem peers. Among them is Dave McCobb. I have to confess I don't know the other 4. Dave is a former colleague of mine from the days I worked for Lib Dem HQ. He went on to be head of campaigns and oversaw the 2024 general election campaign which saw the Lib Dems grow from 11 to 72 MPs. So congratulations Dave, well done. The (more) |
East Midlands Railway cancels 20 fast services a day because of problems with its new trainsEast Midlands Railways has admitted that its problems with its new trains have not all been caused by the recent hot weather. BBC News reports: A number of Intercity services, which run to and from London St Pancras, will be cancelled from Monday, while other services will have fewer carriages. Will Rogers, managing director of EMR, said the performance of the Class 810 fleet had "fallen below the levels we and our customers expect" and that the timetable change was "necessary". The Intercity services run between London and destinations including Leicester, Nottingham, Lincoln, Derby and Sheffield. EMR did not say ... (more) |
Latest voting intention and leadership ratings opinion pollsWelcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention polls for the next general election, along with the latest MRP projections and party leadership ratings. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls PollsterConLabLDGrnRefLab leadFieldwork Find Out Now 20% (nc) 19% (+1) 11% (-2) 15% (-1) 24% (+1) -5% (3rd, vs Ref) 15/7 GB ... (more) |
Andy Burnham - new messiah or naughty boy?I worked with Andy Burnham as a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority for three years, so am perhaps uniquely placed to offer a personal perspective on what his super-charged run for No.10 means for us Liberal Democrats. As leader of Stockport Council 2022-2025, I was one of ten council leaders (nine Labour and me!) who formed Burnham's cabinet and met regularly under his chairmanship, arguably putting me in a good position to judge what makes him tick. The first thing to understand is that he is a skilled and collegiate operator with an easy, friendly manner on a ... (more) |
Big cat found in plant pot after two-month searchBBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award for this story from Norfolk. A Savannah cat, like the one in the picture here, is a cross between a domestic cat and a small wild cat from Africa called a serval. So this one was probably rather on the small side for a big cat. But, as one of the judges remarked, this does prove that they're out there. (more) |
"Palestine should be run by Palestinians" so why won't Britain reckon with what it did?In the past year Britain has recognised Palestinian statehood, sanctioned violent settlers and extremist ministers, and committed £10 million to support Palestinian Authority frontline services. However, one line in Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper's recent statement caught my attention. Discussing Palestinian governance, she said simply: 'Palestine should be run by Palestinians.' She is right but the problem is that Britain spent three decades ensuring that this did not happen. When Britain controlled Palestine between 1917 to 1948, the rights of Palestinians were not accidentally overlooked but rather deliberately set aside. Britain has never acknowledged that suffering nor how the methods of ... (more) |
Lib Dems continue to win in key areas for for next general electionThere were eight principal authority council by-elections plus a Police and Crime Commissioner by-election this week. Let's start the results round-up with another Lib Dem by-election win in a constituency gained by the party at the 2024 general election. [IMG: Calum Miller and Rob Packard] Kidlington West (Cherwell) Council By-Election Result: [IMG: 🔶] LDM: 58.8% (+13.7) [IMG: ➡] RFM: 18.9% (-4.3) [IMG: 🌳] CON: 13.3% (-4.0) [IMG: 🌍] GRN: 9.0% (-5.4)Liberal Democrat HOLD.Changes w/ 2026. — Election Maps UK (@electionmaps.uk) 2026-07-17T08:59:21.529Z Thank you to Christopher Brown for being the Liberal Democrat candidate here. For what all this means for the ... (more) |
A Liberal answer to artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence promises unprecedented prosperity. But that prosperity is becoming concentrated in remarkably few hands. A new generation of robber barons has emerged, prompting warnings of techno-feudalism: an economy in which a handful of firms own the digital infrastructure on which everyone else depends. A defining political question of the AI age is, therefore, not whether wealth will be created, but who will own it. The history of liberalism is, in many ways, the history of widening ownership. Nineteenth-century liberals challenged the concentration of land ownership because they understood that whoever owned the dominant asset of the age exercised disproportionate ... (more) |
The Joy of Six 1549Aveek Bhattacharya argues that Andy Burnham is Labour's Boris Johnson: "The two men share a tendency to be led by instinct over doctrine, a talent for building coalitions, and a rare capacity to resonate emotionally with an audience. They also share a common vulnerability: a reluctance to bring their own side bad news. Both are men for the big picture rather than nitty-gritty details, happiest channeling grievance and hope into a broad political story." A disproportionate number of children and young people growing up in care in Scotland are dying prematurely, Yet, despite Scottish government policy, almost two-thirds of such ... (more) |