2023-03-26 19:20
"We live in a global, interconnected community and it is ridiculous to think that if we only act in our own self interest, there will not be consequences to our ability to engage internation… Read More
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Liberal England Blog
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Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year 2014"Well written, funny and wistful" - Paul Linford; "He is indeed the Lib Dem blogfather" - Stephen Tall"Jonathan Calder holds his end up well in the competitive world of the blogosphere" - New Statesman"A prominent Liberal Democrat blogger" - BBC Radio 4 Today programme"Charming and younger than I expected" - Wartime Housewife
2023-03-26 12:43
It's high time we heard more from the wonderful Sister Rosetta Tharpe.We've seen her singing Didn't It Rain? on the platform of Wilbraham Road station in suburban Manchester in 1964. He… Read More
2023-03-25 21:48
Good news from the Shropshire Star. Work to allow the Bridgnorth Cliff Railway to reopen will start on Monday.There had been problems establishing who owned an unstable wall beside the line… Read More
2023-03-25 18:00
This weekend Terence Towles Canote is running a 'blogathon' - what we used to call a blog carnival in the days when blogging was a thing - on his A Shroud of Thoughts blog where people… Read More
2023-03-25 14:10
This post is written for the 9th Annual Favourite TV Show Episode Blogathon on Terence Towles Canote's blog A Shroud of Thoughts.It’s 1968 and downstairs I can hear the theme music for… Read More
2023-03-25 00:03
The writer of Life Must Be Filled Up set herself the task of re-reading all 20 of Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine stories, from Mystery at Witchend (1943) to Home to Witchend (1978). She re… Read More
2023-03-24 16:56
Sorry to have two Market Harborough stories today, but I suppose it proves that the judges are autonomous. Because they have given Harborough FM our coveted Headline of the Day Award.For mys… Read More
2023-03-24 11:31
Not content with recently being voted the second coolest place in Leicestershire, Market Harborough has now been included on the Sunday Times's list of the best places to live in Britain.The… Read More
2023-03-23 20:41
Four Independent councillors on East Devon District Council - the leader of the council and three cabinet members - are to stand for the Liberal Democrats in May.They are cou… Read More
2023-03-23 08:35
This is a cutting from the Leicester Daily Mercury for Monday 6 September 1965, so the concert must have taken place on 4 September.I see newspapers were still giving 'pop' scare quotes, but… Read More
2023-03-22 20:10
"'It's time for the police to stop virtue-signalling and start catching robbers and burglars,'’ the home secretary, Suella Braverman, said at the Conservative Party Conference l… Read More
2023-03-22 18:47
Our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Leicester Mercury. The judges were particularly pleased the paper had found a clickbait story that had local relevance "unlike most of the stuff it… Read More
2023-03-21 22:00
It's time for another trip to the valley of the wonderful Derbyshire Derwent with Trekking Exploration.This time we go in search of the Bamford and Howden Railway, which was used in the… Read More
2023-03-21 19:32
When The Hardy Tree in Old St Pancras churchyard came down last December, I dutifully repeated its accepted history:When the Midland Railway built it's line from Bedford to St Pancras, part… Read More
2023-03-21 12:28
As Lord Bonkers might put it, the dead are Terribly Dead. I've had no sense of my mother's presence since she died, even though I've had a couple of naps in an armchair in the room where it… Read More
2023-03-21 00:36
We now go over live to the Leicester Labour Party.From the Leicester Mercury:Labour members have responded with fury after 19 sitting councillors were told they will not be able to defend th… Read More
2023-03-20 11:03
When the editing of Roald Dahl's books was in the news, I wrote:Successful children's writers generally get a couple of decades in the sun. My own favourite as a child, Malcolm Saville, publ… Read More
2023-03-20 00:32
It will soon be a year since my mother died.One of the things I promised her I would keep when I cleared her house was the family photographs. So I thought I would post one of her as a teena… Read More
2023-03-19 21:50
Rita Patel, one of the four Labour councillors suspended by the party for supporting the abolition of Leicester's mayoral system, is to stand against Sir Peter Soulsby for the post in May.Yo… Read More
2023-03-19 20:51
Last October one of my favourite journalists, Neal Ascherson, turned 90. To mark the occasion, he was interviewed by Tim Adams in the Observer:There are certain writers who seem singled out… Read More
2023-03-19 18:18
So let me shout it, yet again: if you want to boost our economy, you have to repair our broken relationship with Europe.Conference, you don’t need me to tell you what a disaster the Co… Read More
2023-03-19 10:54
The Skinny interviewed Iona Zajac last year when Red Corn Poppies was released as her second single:Your new single Red Corn Poppies is beautiful. What’s it about?Everything is dry and… Read More
2023-03-18 20:41
It's become evident to some of Putin's propagandists that they may face charges in a war crimes tribunal, but their own words are still strengthening the case for the prosecution, reports Ju… Read More
2023-03-17 22:42
The Somerset coalfield is forgotten now, but the last mine there did not close until 1973. And at the start of the 19th century a canal was dug to serve the industry there.Running from the K… Read More
2023-03-17 18:05
One of the four Labour councillors suspended by the party in Leicester has announced that he will be standing for the Green Party in the city council elections in May.In a tweet sent at lunc… Read More
2023-03-16 22:43
It's time to add a few more notes about children and bombsites in post-war British films.******I watched The Blue Lamp from 1950 again the other week, this time with an eye to any bombsites… Read More
2023-03-16 19:40
"We have obtained an excoriating letter sent to the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, by the co-directors of the BBC Singers. The letter mentions aggressive acts and inaccurate statements by seni… Read More
2023-03-15 21:44
Aksel Rykkvin's voice had already changed by the time I discovered him on YouTube. As I wrote when choosing an aria by him as one of my Sunday music videos:Though he could do angelic&nb&hell…Read More
2023-03-15 20:10
Embed from Getty ImagesLong ago, my mother told me that my father had been a schoolfriend of Eric Thompson - the actor, director, narrator of The Magic Roundabout and father of Emma.I wasn't… Read More
2023-03-15 00:48
Here's the "gloriously unexpected survival right in the centre of the city" I promised you when posting another video from Bob's Rail Relics. That showed a short stretch of the long-abandone… Read More
2023-03-13 22:45
Embed from Getty ImagesIt did freeze and hard. The wind being still, the New Sea was soon frozen over except in two places. There was a breathing-hole in Fir-Tree Gulf about fifty or sixty y… Read More
2023-03-13 21:42
Last week Leicester City Council debated a motion to abolish its current elected mayoral and return to a traditional committee system. It was defeated by 32 votes to 20 - an alternative repl… Read More
2023-03-13 14:24
Embed from Getty ImagesLooking for something else in the British Newspaper Archive, I came across a story from the Gloucester Citizen (13 February 1945) that reads like a piece of satire by… Read More
2023-03-12 11:05
On Thursday the Lib Dems gained a seat in Edinburgh's Corstorphine/Murrayfield ward, which naturally put me in mind of this obscure record from 1974. So I did a bit of research.The… Read More
2023-03-11 23:37
Recorded in 2016, this is an enjoyable gallop through the finding of the remains of Richard III in Leicester.Professor Turi King, as she now is, led the genetic analysis and verificatio… Read More
2023-03-11 21:08
Embed from Getty ImagesPart of the allure of Antonioni's 1966 'Swinging London' film Blow-Up is the feeling that, if you watch it just once more, it will give up a deeper secret.I have come… Read More
2023-03-10 18:37
Last night the Liberal Democrats gained an Edinburgh Council seat from the SNP, with our candidate Fiona Bennett taking 56 per cent of first preferences in the Corstorphine/Murrayfield… Read More
2023-03-09 23:59
This is not what you expect to find when you do a little gentle research into the BBC Children’s Hour dramatisations of Malcolm Saville’s early Lone Pine books:Leicester Evening… Read More
2023-03-09 18:29
This is good history and the animation is nicely done Read More
2023-03-09 14:00
"It is the year 2049, and residents of the UK city of Oxford are unable to leave their neighborhoods. If they do, a network of cameras - installed years earlier under the guise of easing tra… Read More
2023-03-08 22:38
Another enjoyable lesson in East London railway history.From Shadwell you can take a London Overground train to Dalston Junction. After Whitechapel, this service uses the viaduct that once t… Read More
2023-03-08 15:07
Here's a selection of guest posts by women writers that I have published over the years to mark International Women's Day.How Blackpool won the Second World War - Ruth BrightThe essays… Read More
2023-03-07 20:22
It's time for a final post on Barbara Cartland the social critic and reformer. We have seen her views on women in wartime and seen her helping Gypsies and travellers, so let's see more or he… Read More
2023-03-07 18:55
The queue to file past Richard III's coffin passes the old song school on its way to the cathedral entranceArchaeologists excavating the site of the old song school at Leicester Cathedral ha… Read More
2023-03-07 14:03
After summoning the nation's top philosophers to examine the question of whether one can have no head but two faces, the judges made Sky News the winners of our Headline of The Day Award.Chi… Read More
2023-03-06 21:39
As I forgot to post Lord Bonkers' observations from January 1993 until February, it's already time to see what he was saying in Liberator in March of that year. And it seems that, though Joh… Read More
2023-03-06 21:18
"The worst instincts of a dictator are on display in Vladimir Putin’s Russia: the overcentralisation of power; the repression of dissent; the futile attempt to fool all of the people a… Read More
2023-03-05 23:23
When I was quoting from Arthur Quiller-Couch's True Tilda on this blog, I harvested them from the Project Gutenberg plain text version.There you will find this introductory note:This was one… Read More
2023-03-05 21:59
Embed from Getty ImagesIf you think child labour was a problem we dealt with long ago, think again.Earlier this week, the New York Times published a shocking exposé detailing the larg… Read More
2023-03-05 13:14
The Bodysnatchers were a seven-piece all-female band involved in the British 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s and early 1980s.They disbanded after two years without releasing an album, b… Read More
2023-03-04 21:56
I blogged about London's Broad Street station years ago:As Disused Stations records, at the start of the 20th century more than one train a minute arrived or left Broad Street during the mor… Read More
2023-03-04 19:48
Embed from Getty ImagesA Twitter follower sent me the link to a Guardian profile of Isabel Oakeshott from June 2018. At the time it was published, her most recent book was Cal… Read More
2023-03-03 22:01
Neil Schofield Hughes thinks Sue Gray's appointment as Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff is a problem: "I have no idea what induced Gray to accept this post - although it’s obvious that sh… Read More
2023-03-03 13:47
Embed from Getty ImagesThe Commons Privileges Committee has published the report of its investigation into whether Boris Johnson misled the House of Commons over his office's compliance… Read More
2023-03-02 22:54
John Rogers takes a scenic walk from Crystal Palace to Streatham Common. This walk, he says, has some of London's best views and the glorious weather he enjoys is one of the reason I wrote y… Read More
2023-03-02 21:59
Ruth Bright looks at Blackpool's vital role in World War II and her own father's wartime training in the town.When we think of the cities that 'won the War', inevitably it’s the places… Read More
2023-03-01 23:16
A.A. Milne, not for the last time walking the narrow path between humour and tweeness, did not trust February:February comes just when we are sick of winter, and therefore she may not be win… Read More
2023-03-01 20:06
The judges grumbled about Gloucestershire Live not being able to make its mind up about what to call the meal in question, but that didn't stop them awarding the site our Headline of the Day… Read More
2023-03-01 18:33
Yesterday Michael Gove suggested that parents whose children are persistently absent from school should have their child benefit stopped.That was the headline that emerged from an event orga… Read More
2023-02-28 16:12
I think this was foretold in the Book of Revelation, and it's certainly won the Leicester Mercury our Headline of the Day Award Read More
2023-02-27 23:01
"By 2015, it was becoming normal for 12-year-old girls to spend hours each day taking selfies, editing selfies, and posting them for friends, enemies, and strangers to comment on, while also… Read More
2023-02-27 18:59
BBC News reports:The leader of Blackpool Council's Conservative group has resigned from the role after falling out with one of the town's Tory MPs.Councillor Tony Williams has led the Tory g… Read More
2023-02-27 18:35
Betty Boothroyd, the former Commons speaker, has died at the age of 93. She was a warm and popular figure - my mother once suggested that, with her faux posh voice, there was a little b… Read More
2023-02-26 12:34
We're used to thinking of pub rock as the John the Baptist of punk, and the Motors did have edgier singles than this.But it's not hard to imagine Forget About You being a hit for someone lik… Read More
2023-02-25 23:03
Embed from Getty ImagesOn 13 October 1928 the night mail from Leeds to Bristol ran through a danger signal at Charfield in Gloucestershire. It collided with a goods train that was being shun… Read More
2023-02-24 14:02
What was Lord Bonkers saying 30 years ago? Or, to be precise, what was Lord Bonkers saying 30 years and one month ago? Because this is a diary entry from Liberator 210, which is dated Januar… Read More
2023-02-24 00:40
I'm not the Wise Woman of Wing - and Chris Grayling has fallen by the wayside - but this post does date from 2017 Read More
2023-02-23 23:36
Embed from Getty ImagesTime for another post about Barbara Cartland, the liberal Conservative and social reformer.Four years ago the BBC screened a documentary by Damian Le Bas about the exp… Read More
2023-02-23 15:34
There has been no news of the actor Julian Sands since he disappeared last month while walking in the San Gabriel Mountains in California. It seems we have to fear the worst.Late last year… Read More
2023-02-23 14:37
Caron Lindsay reports on Lib Dem Voice:Ed Davey heads out on the road today. He’s doing a 25 stop tour of Blue Wall seats ahead of the local elections and starts in the Lib Dem strongh… Read More
2023-02-22 23:45
In London yesterday, I visited the extraordinary All Saints, Margaret Street - a mid-Victorian church in Fitzrovia. Look for it behind John Lewis's Oxford Street store.I have always found it… Read More
2023-02-22 22:26
Tony Heron and Gabriel Siles-Brügge argue that the decision to ditch the UK’s Department for International Trade is a tacit acknowledgement that attempts to seize Brexit 'opportun… Read More
2023-02-22 00:01
Today has been W.H. Auden's birthday. He was born in this house on Bootham in York on 21 February 1907.Edward Mendelson's introduction to W. H. Auden: Selected Poems (1979) captured his impo… Read More
2023-02-20 22:07
The Condition of England, which was published in 1909, is probably Charles Masterman's best-known book.It is best known for its analysis of the different social classes, but also conta… Read More
2023-02-20 21:33
I once blogged about a wonderful film from 1945 of the derelict Glamorganshire Canal, which used to run from Merthyr to the sea at Cardiff Docks.Most of the route has been lost to road schem… Read More
2023-02-19 22:45
If you want to know which parties are up and which are down, look at the changes of allegiance in council chambers, says Augustus Carp. It looks like an important political event took p… Read More
2023-02-19 19:51
The Guardian wins our Headline of the Day Award for this disturbing effort Read More
2023-02-19 11:40
The Walker Brothers were an American act put together to appeal to the British market of the Sixties. Fronted by Scott Walker's glorious baritone, they had two number one hits: Make It Easy… Read More
2023-02-19 00:47
Successful children's writers generally get a couple of decades in the sun. My own favourite as a child, Malcolm Saville, published his first book in 1943 and got a little longer, but in his… Read More
2023-02-18 18:52
Neither Scottish nationalism not unionism is strong enough to vanquish the other, argues Tom McTague.Mark Hooper looks at recent developments on Dartmoor and asks if England’s rig… Read More
2023-02-17 18:15
Between 1915 and 1973, Ladybird Books' printing plant was at Angel Yard in the centre of Loughborough. The small format for which the firm became famous was developed there during the s… Read More
2023-02-17 11:21
Judging by the vacant expressions of my younger readers, I had better explain that the idea of having to get into the fish tank and sing Jerusalem because someone has said a certain word to… Read More
2023-02-17 10:53
It was another good Thursday for the Liberal Democrats, with two of the four local by-elections seeing us making a gain.The first was a Cambridgeshire County Council by-election in a ward pr… Read More
2023-02-16 19:59
This is just the sort of gentle humour at the expense of foreigners that I've always been a little too fond of.It could be worse though. Jerry Sadowitz was once knocked unconscious by a memb… Read More
2023-02-16 19:08
Nick Cohen takes us to Tunbridge Wells in his latest substack Writing from London:Mike Martin is the sort of chap who used to be a natural Tory. He served in Afghanistan, where the arm… Read More
2023-02-15 21:58
"Such framings privilege the killer’s narrative over the victim’s. She’s dead, she can’t speak. But he still has a voice – the voice that says she made me do it… Read More
2023-02-15 21:12
I first met his lordship in the Bonkers' Arms:“I’ll have a pint of Dahrendorf lag…”“Don’t have that,” came a commanding voice from the corner. &ldq&hell…Read More
2023-02-15 12:20
Important words of wisdom from the Lib Dem Podcast people. Indeed, my impression is that you get more respect from voters if you stand up for what you believe.Important rider: don't lec… Read More
2023-02-15 12:09
Embed from Getty ImagesDuangpetch Promthep, one of the 12 boys rescued from a Thai cave in 2018, has died in hospital after being found unconscious at Brooke House College, Market Harborough… Read More
2023-02-14 22:09
This is fun. Chris Green looks at the Service careers of John Laurie and of Private Frazer, whom he played in Dad's Army.Jimmy Perry and David Croft, it seems, gave all their characters a fu… Read More
2023-02-14 20:44
You see? They don't call the Wise Woman of Wing 'wise' for nothing.And I am indebted to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch for the expression 'What-killed-Aunty'. (For some reason I omitted the hyphen… Read More
2023-02-13 20:15
Extraordinary landscape and extraordinary engineering. The Rivelin Tunnel takes water from Ladybower Reservoir in the Derwent Valley and delivers it to the reservoirs on the River Rivelin th… Read More
2023-02-13 18:49
I never cease to be impressed by the old boy's willingness to move with the times. Two months ago it was Monster: now he's into podcasts.No wonder he got into Bakelite and wireless telegraph… Read More
2023-02-13 14:01
Embed from Getty ImagesHere's an encouraging story for a Monday. John Curtice says that, according to a large opinion poll carried out for the Telegraph, the Conservatives may face unprecede… Read More
2023-02-12 22:36
"Yes it’s been applied all across Europe but it’s as British as a stick of Blackpool rock or a carefully constructed Chris Tavaré half-century. If you hate Britain, if you… Read More
2023-02-12 17:09
It always snows at Christmas in Rutland, or at least on the Bonkers Hall Estate, which makes me think that it must be part of 'the old England' described by T.H. White.And BBC Radio 4 used t… Read More
2023-02-12 10:55
Vashti Bunyan appeared on the London music scene in 1965 and was identified at once as 'the next Marianne Faithfull'. But her single flopped and she and her boyfriend Robert Lewis decided to… Read More
2023-02-11 21:01
Tomorrow's Observer reports:The Liberal Democrats are to launch a digital advertising blitz in 'blue wall' seats held by leading cabinet ministers to highlight the new Conservative party dep… Read More
2023-02-11 16:52
The new issue of Liberator (no. 416) is out and you can download it free of charge from the magazine's website.Radical Bulletin considers Ed Davey's deafening silence on Europe and the moves… Read More
2023-02-10 19:28
These days I well up ridiculously easily, so the thought of a film that might end in a place where "a little boy and his Bear will always be playing" rang alarm bells. But I braved Good… Read More
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