2023-08-13 21:26
Embed from Getty ImagesThe German occupation of the Channel Islands during the second world war is likely to receive new prominence because of an official inquiry into what happened in those… Read More
Blog Directory > Politics Blogs > Government Blogs > Liberal England government Blog >
Liberal England Blog
liberalengland.blogspot.com
Tags:
interview
kibworth harcourt
square
amis
helen morgan
silver trumpet
dinner party
softly
princes
detective series
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
The Brides In The Bath Murderer Had A Baker's Shop In Russell Square, Leicester, And It Still Stands
2023-08-13 17:04
On 13 August 1915 - a hundred and eight years ago today - George Joseph Smith, the 'Brides in the Bath killer, was hanged at Maidstone Prison for the murder of three women.Wh… Read More
2023-08-13 08:31
Sinner is the second single from The Last Dinner Party, who are the 'UK’s most exciting new band', according to Hannah Zwick on uDiscoverMusic:Riding high after their debut Glastonbury… Read More
2023-08-12 19:34
Click on Millais's painting of the princes to listen to Matt Lewis's Gone Medieval podcast on their fate.If you want a clue to the line he takes, he is the author of The Survival of the Prin… Read More
2023-08-12 19:14
Tim Farron isn't the only Liberal Democrat MP supporting a local railway reopening. Helen Morgan is backing the return of trains to the Gobowen to Oswestry Line.in her North Shropshire… Read More
2023-08-11 21:09
In July 2012 I went to a recital in St Laurence's. Church Stretton, that was part of the town's arts festival.One of the pieces I heard played was Fauré's Sicilienne, and I bloggedthe… Read More
2023-08-11 20:06
Joe Norris looks at the invaluable work of the Young Liberals in May's local elections and their success in getting their members elected to councils."I ask whether a Starmer-fronted superma… Read More
2023-08-10 21:16
The Cumberland & Westmorland Herald reports:A new head of steam appears to be gathering behind plans to bring back the Penrith to Keswick railway line.This summer a campaign group has ha… Read More
2023-08-10 20:46
This year's Heritage Open Days events are taking place between 8 and 15 September. Two venues near Market Harborough have caught my eye: Kibworth Harcourt Windmill and St Peter's, Church Lan… Read More
2023-08-09 22:13
Well here's something I didn't know, even though I've seen the episode on YouTube before and even remember watching it when it was broadcast in 1974. Kingsley Amis wrote for Softly Soft… Read More
2023-08-09 21:46
Brownlow Square was a little forgotten corner of London. It wasn't really a square because two of the sides were longer than the other two. Three narrow streets ran up hill into it and peopl… Read More
2023-08-08 22:55
Jago Hazzard explains the history and many names of Barbican station.This is the John Betjeman poem he mentions.Monody on the Death of Aldersgate Street StationSnow falls in the buffet of Al… Read More
2023-08-07 21:12
Embed from Getty ImagesAs all my readers will know:The Partridge Family is an American musical sitcom starring Shirley Jones and featuring David Cassidy. Jones plays a widowed mother, and Ca… Read More
2023-08-07 06:55
A sad news story over the weekend was the fire that has gutted 'Britain's wonkiest pub', The Crooked House at Himley, near Dudley.As ITV News points out, the fire took place only days after… Read More
2023-08-06 18:37
Peter Oborne reminds us that British Muslims were the first to suffer from bank account closures, but nobody protested.The Pipeline looks at the decision by Shropshire Council to grant… Read More
2023-08-06 11:32
When did the buddleia invade England? I'm complicit in the invasion myself: I planted one because I like butterflies, but there are depressingly few of those to be seen now.Buddleias, howeve… Read More
2023-08-06 08:40
There's an irony to Kathe Green's musical career. Everyone knows her voice, but her first album - Run the Length of Your Wildness - is notoriously hard to find.You know her voice because her… Read More
2023-08-05 20:27
There are rumours tonight that bookies are already paying out on Headline of the Year, but this effort has at least won BBC News our Headline of the Day Award.Now read about the death of Har… Read More
2023-08-05 17:46
Arts Fresco, the biggest free arts festival in the Midlands, returns to Market Harborough on Sunday 10 September.You can read about some of the acts who'll be appearing over on the Arts Fres… Read More
2023-08-05 13:21
Writing in the Herald, Kathleen Nutt says the Liberal Democrats is seeking to take back Charles Kennedy's old seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber.Kennedy lost the seat to the SNP's Ian Blac… Read More
2023-08-05 12:31
I visited Uppingham - Rutland's second city - on Thursday. When I came to file away the photos I had taken, I was surprised to find I was last in the town in December 2016.Because Uppingham… Read More
2023-08-04 19:44
Embed from Getty ImagesRichmond, Twickenham and Kingston aren't just a cradle of Liberal Democrat ambitions.They also played an important part in the British popular music of the 1960s.You c… Read More
2023-08-03 22:16
Writing in the new Fortean Times, Francis Young notes that the Devil of English folkloreis a considerably less threatening figure than the Devil of theology and often becomes the dupe of sai… Read More
2023-08-03 19:59
Anna Gross writes in the Financial Times:The Liberal Democrat party is stepping up campaigning in more than a dozen seats predominantly in the south of England following recent by-election w… Read More
2023-08-02 19:27
"One of the leaders of the German branch of the QAnon movement - a conspiracy founded on the belief that Donald Trump was doing battle with a cabal of Satanic paedophiles led by Hillary Clin… Read More
2023-08-02 10:49
Ellen Milligan reports on Bloomberg:The British premier this month plans to announce proposals to build interest in the game by expanding instruction in schools and installing 100 chess tabl… Read More
2023-08-01 23:32
Our obsolete political system and a lack of knowledge and experience in the civil service have made Britain an also-ran in infrastructure investment, argues James Oates.On the face of it, we… Read More
2023-08-01 22:19
Last month we saw John Rogers walking the coast from Folkestone to Dover. This time he's in Kent again:This walk takes us along the River Medway in Kent following the Saxon Shore Way with Pr… Read More
2023-07-31 20:31
Good news from the Guardian:Wild camping is once again allowed on Dartmoor after the national park won a successful appeal against a ruling in a case brought by a wealthy landowner.Camping h… Read More
2023-07-31 19:51
The composer Jim Parker has died - you can read his obituary in the Guardian.He was a hugely successful composer of music for television, but I remember him for two of quirkier projects. The… Read More
2023-07-31 12:56
Bridgnorth's rare inland funicular railway, which has been closed since just before Christmas when problems were found with a wall beside the line, seems no nearer reopening. A report i… Read More
2023-07-30 21:18
"As a liberal I believe that we should all have equal access to decent facilities which we can use if we choose to. You should be able to walk to the pub or the school of the mosque within e… Read More
2023-07-30 10:21
I tweeted this week:The 1975 is an odd name to choose for your band. The charts were rubbish that year - full of novelty records. Glam was dead and punk was still slouching towards Soho to b… Read More
2023-07-29 19:00
At close of play at The Oval today, Stuart Broad announced his retirement from test cricket. He's not out overnight and has one more innings to bowl in, but his test figures currently stand… Read More
2023-07-29 11:39
The Soho Bites podcast bills itself as 'a show about movies set in Soho, the beating heart of bohemian, cosmopolitan London". But its latest episode is about a film that isn't set in So… Read More
2023-07-28 20:12
Embed from Getty ImagesFrom BBC News:Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller was told a bank account for her political party would close without explanation.Monzo initially refused to tell Ms Mil… Read More
2023-07-27 22:17
The Sixties were the decade when commercial traffic more or less died out on England's canals. And this precious footage of the Birmingham Canal Navigations in 1965 reveals that the boats an… Read More
2023-07-27 20:05
Amy Taylor reminds us that banks have been denying people accounts for years: "For my client, there was no accusation of fraud, no prosecution, and no knowledge of any fraud, just a reg… Read More
2023-07-26 18:51
One of my favourite Twitter threads is one from The Chisit on gigs at unlikely venues in and around Leicester.It reveals, for instance, that Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon both played Ye Old W… Read More
2023-07-26 07:10
Once again, the Shropshire Star wins our Headline of the Day Award.I'm pleased to say the trapped worker walked away unscathed. So I can end with a joke..."I had a terrible weekend. I went t… Read More
2023-07-25 20:45
Embed from Getty ImagesJohn Russell after making his maiden speech yesterday (Are you sure about this? Ed.)As Mark Valladares says on Lib Dem Voice, until yesterday, it was a long time since… Read More
2023-07-25 20:02
Claire Young, the Liberal Democrat leader of South Gloucestershire Council, has been chosen to fight Thornbury and Yate for the party at the next general election, reports the Gazette. … Read More
2023-07-25 08:47
Marcus Trescothick retired in 2019 after a remarkable 25-year career with Somerset and England. But when I first mentioned the Well-Behaved Orphans' summer holiday in the pages of Liberator… Read More
2023-07-24 21:19
Playing herself at the Borsetshire Fashion Show on The Archers in 1984, she sounded curiously flat and uninvolved, almost as though she couldn’t get to grips with her own character. Af… Read More
2023-07-24 10:16
I am pleased to see such a clear condemnation of what happened at Lord's. As to the widely publicised reason for the closure of the Bonkers Hall Safari Park, Lord Bonkers has suggested on mo… Read More
2023-07-23 21:36
"This mess was, of course, both predictable and predicted. That’s why I’ve been struck, visiting the UK this summer, by the curious political taboo against discussing how badly B… Read More
2023-07-23 12:28
Back in 2004, before Tony Blair had won his third election, I blogged:Conrad Russell died last week, an irreplaceable loss to the Liberal Democrats and to Liberalism in general. There were w… Read More
2023-07-23 10:54
Consisting of Sarah Nixey, Luke Haines (of The Auteurs), and John Moore (formerly of The Jesus and Mary Chain), Black Box Recorder were an indie band who flourished around the turn of the ce… Read More
2023-07-22 19:16
Embed from Getty ImagesI was still playing chess in the county league in the 1990s. Many of the matches took place in school classrooms in the evenings, and if I was on top in my game, I wou… Read More
2023-07-22 12:22
Somerton and Frome is important, not just because of the size of the swing to the Liberal Democrats, but also because of where it is, argues Katy Balls:In 2015, part of the Tories’ suc… Read More
2023-07-22 11:32
Lord Bonkers' magnanimity towards our Conservative opponents is legendary. By this I mean that many people have heard of it, but few have seen it - rather like the Rutland Water Monster.Frid… Read More
2023-07-21 18:52
Embed from Getty ImagesNews from Dorset Live:Walkers and beachgoers are being warned of the dangers of straying too close to cliff faces after a vast overnight landslip on the coast of Dorse… Read More
2023-07-21 11:07
I find this entry interesting. Lord Bonkers, I know, was a leader of the campaign against Labour's ill-fated nationalisation of the Stilton industry after 1945, yet here he is criticising th… Read More
2023-07-20 22:27
Matthew Pennell expects the Conservatives to look to the US Republicans when devising their strategy for the next general election. The good news is he doesn't think it will work."For mandat… Read More
2023-07-20 16:36
As so often, the Shropshire Star supplies our Headline of the Day Read More
2023-07-20 12:25
It's remarkable how the London gangs of the Sixties - the Krays, the Richardson, the Bonhams Carter - continue to be of interest today. Lord Bonkers' own He Never Touch Kids or Nothing: My Y… Read More
2023-07-19 20:48
Gentle footage of the city as it was when I started at the university there in 1978.I remember in particular two long-vanished bookshops: Godfrey's in Stonegate, which you could get lost in… Read More
2023-07-19 15:52
Liberator 418 is out. You can download a pdf of the magazine free of charge from its website.Which means it's time to spend another week in the company of Rutland's most notorious peer. &hell…Read More
2023-07-19 11:04
Embed from Getty ImagesNigel Farage has been a wholly malign influence on British life. His championing of Brexit has made us poorer and less free. He's an admirer of the genocidal Putin and… Read More
2023-07-18 22:30
Nick Drake has been everywhere recently because of the publication of Richard Morton Jack's Nick Drake: The Biography.Morton Jack was interviewed about his book on BBC Radio 4's Front Page l… Read More
2023-07-18 20:40
Embed from Getty ImagesLabour's self-elected sensible tendency has been busy today praising Keir Starmer's decision not to scrap the Conservatives' (indeed the Coalition's) two-child benefit… Read More
2023-07-17 21:44
Running Scared, David Hemmings' first film as a director, did not receive a general release. The consensus at the time seems to have been that it was too consciously arty for a popular audie… Read More
2023-07-17 21:05
Peter Walker has been to Somerton and Frome for the Guardian and talked to the Liberal Democrat candidate:Sarah Dyke sometimes feels as if she gets treated like the de facto local MP already… Read More
2023-07-16 21:14
The Guardian reports from Mid Bedfordshire:Labour activists campaigning before a byelection in a safe Conservative seat have been told to leave if they feel unable to be respectful to Tory v… Read More
2023-07-16 16:43
Thanks to the Shropshire Star, we have our Headline of the Day.The judges did point out that if the teenager is sufficiently chubby then he will need a large van, which perhaps makes it… Read More
2023-07-16 12:37
My big Christmas present in 1973 was a cassette recorder, and I remember taping a run down of the best-selling singles of the year. I can remember stopping the recording when Welcome Ho… Read More
2023-07-15 21:53
Stratford Johns's Charlie Barlow was the most famous detective on British television from the early 1960s to the mid 1970s, appearing successively in Z-Cars; Softly, Softly; Softly; Softly:… Read More
2023-07-15 09:25
Embed from Getty ImagesFrom this morning's Guardian:David Cameron’s appointment as vice-chair of the £1bn China-UK investment fund and Sir Danny Alexander’s appointment as… Read More
2023-07-14 21:12
Still sounding like a minor character from Poldark. Jago Hazzard looks at an abortive Tube scheme of the 1930s.Parts of it, he argues, have been built in the years since Read More
2023-07-14 19:27
I enjoy publishing guest posts on Liberal England. So if you've got an idea for a post you could write for this blog, please drop me a line. As you can see from the list below, I p… Read More
2023-07-14 15:03
"The self-styled free market task force seems to be yet another dark money outfit in British politics – led by senior figures from US and UK free market think tanks who have been funde… Read More
2023-07-13 22:49
Click on the (inevitable) image above to listen to this episode of the English Civil War podcast The World Turned Upside Down:The Civil Wars changed the lives of families all across the Brit… Read More
2023-07-13 22:15
The Shropshire Star reportsThis weekend marks the moment when 450 years ago the first Queen Elizabeth granted Bishop's Castle its charter to rule itself.The town is now bedecked in flags and… Read More
2023-07-13 21:02
It's official. Melton Mowbray is the most miserable place in Britain.The Office of National Statistics recently ranked all 393 local authority areas, taking into account anxiety levels, happ… Read More
2023-07-12 20:03
Zoe Crowther from Politics Home has been out canvassing with Sarah Dyke in Somerton and Frome, and her report is encouraging for the Lib Dems:Jane, a pensioner who also chose not to give her… Read More
2023-07-12 11:19
The Canal & River Trust is to lose almost half its funding from the government, putting the future of some parts of the inland waterway network in question.New Civil Engineer reports:Can… Read More
2023-07-11 19:07
At the end of a tribute to Peter Hellyer, William Wallace puts his finger on the Liberal Democrats' dilemma: "Britain still needs radical change, but the painful adjustments that will involv… Read More
2023-07-10 21:42
John eschews (hem hem) his London haunts and visits the Kent coast.The YouTube blurb says:The two harbours walk from Folkestone to Dover in Kent, partly following the North Downs Way. T… Read More
2023-07-10 18:57
They found themselves speaking in whispers as they came to the wood. There was no mistaking it for neither of the girls had seen anything like it before. The stunted oaks were not only growi… Read More
2023-07-10 09:32
I loved this tweet from the Sun's Kelvin Mackenzie, with its vision of tens of thousands of youngsters flocking to see Blur and Iron Maiden.Could it be that Uncle Kelvin is getting on a bit?… Read More
2023-07-09 10:06
Here's a number 5 hit from 1977 that I can't recall hearing since. Listening to it today, I suspect Mr Big had themselves been listening to Jon Anderson.It was Mr Big's only top 30 single an… Read More
2023-07-08 21:45
Embed from Getty ImagesBecause it was about hope and the future, the Conservatives couldn't wait to dismantle the Festival of Britain when they came back to power in 1951.One of the structur… Read More
2023-07-08 18:34
"As Putin progressed down the line John immediately said, 'John Sweeney BBC. Would you tell us why you are murdering people in Ukraine'. The President had to answer in English because his in… Read More
2023-07-07 21:57
Wandering around Braunston a couple of weeks ago, I thought of Running Scared, the lost David Hemmings film that was shot there.Released in 1972, that was his first film as director, But the… Read More
2023-07-07 20:31
Lee Dargue says legalising and regulating currently illegal drugs would bring us benefits in all sorts of areas.Politicians (and press officers) are always after policies that that can easil… Read More
2023-07-06 21:49
Embed from Getty ImagesCongratulations to Bridget Smith, the Liberal Democrat leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, for standing up to the government over the authority's trial of… Read More
2023-07-06 12:34
The Admiral Nelson at Braunston was kept for a time in the 19th century by George Adams Dickens, who was a cousin of Charles Dickens.He was once visited unexpectedly there by the great novel… Read More
2023-07-06 00:59
I've just got home from a Harborough Liberal Democrats social event. It was a joyous evening as we were celebrating the gains we made from the Conservatives on 4 May. As a result of them we… Read More
2023-07-05 23:16
These days Talking Pictures TV is the place to go for videos like this, but I used to post them quite regularly. So let's put a toe in the water again.There's nothing spectacular here - no t… Read More
2023-07-04 20:34
"There’s been a fair bit of discussion about Lib Dem housing policies and our record recently. It’s become obvious to me that many members, especially Young Liberals, don’t… Read More
2023-07-04 11:59
With Elon Musk have exhausted everyone's goodwill, the news that Meta is launching an alternative to Twitter is welcome. And BBC News reports that it will be available from Thursday.Eye… Read More
2023-07-03 22:20
Peter Doveston says liberals should reframe the transport debate by talking about the way public transport can offer freedom from the burden of car ownership.Here is a quotation from the con… Read More
2023-07-03 10:11
This morning Twitter is working normally on my PC, but when I try to use the app on my phone it's a disaster area.My conclusion is that Twitter has major technical problems and Elon Musk's a… Read More
2023-07-03 09:49
Despite the outrage from the England players, the Lord's crowd and MCC members in the Long Room, the dismissal of Jonny Bairstow was perfectly fair.Alex Carey, the Australian wicket keeper… Read More
2023-07-02 23:40
As an admirer of Karl Popper I've been pleased to see him getting renewed attention, even if this ubiquitous graphic gives an inadequate account of his views on tolerance.It's been less of a… Read More
2023-07-02 09:55
There's a programme about Les Dawson that used to be shown regularly on high-numbered TV channels. One of the people who pays tribute to Dawson is John Cleese, who was a regular in two serie… Read More
2023-06-30 22:01
At Last the 1948 Show is part of the prehistory of Monty Python's Flying Circus.Written and performed by Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Marty Feldman, this sketch show wa… Read More
2023-06-30 17:18
Here's a remarkable story from Richard James on British Chess News:For a few years in the mid 1930s a remarkable story was playing out in Leicestershire chess. The boys from Desford Approved… Read More
2023-06-30 12:12
Neal Lawson, the head of the cross-party campaign group Compass, writes in the Guardian:Last Friday an email from the Labour party – of which I’ve been a member for 44 years &nda&hell…Read More
2023-06-29 19:24
Its position close to the junction of the Grand Union and Oxford Canals has always given Braunston a strong claim to be the centre of England's inland waterways.I visited it several times on… Read More
Subscribe to Liberal England
Get updates delivered right to your inbox!