2024-02-02 22:44
Something has always puzzled me about Desborough: where are the shops?There's a Co-op supermarket in what was the once the yard of the town's railway station and a Sainsbury's just out of to… Read More
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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
2024-02-02 18:45
Caron Lindsay raises the question of whether we should support the government's plans to prohibit anyone born after 1 January 2009 from ever buying cigarettes.And I think she comes down… Read More
2024-02-02 11:32
Embed from Getty ImagesThe website of Eton College promises that “Eton believes in equal opportunity for everyone irrespective of gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, belief, di… Read More
2024-02-02 10:28
The Guardian wins our Headline of the Day Award, despite the judges' misgivings about the lack of a capital letter in yorkshire. I pointed out in reply that the Guardian is so down on t… Read More
2024-02-01 22:37
Embed from Getty ImagesThree week after repeatedly refusing to apologise over the Post Office Horizon scandal, Ed Davey has apologised.He has done it in an article for the Guardian and a spe… Read More
2024-02-01 18:43
Andrew Gimson, serial biographer of Boris Johnson and scion of a great Leicester Liberal family, has been to Wellingborough for Conservative Home.44 Midland Road, though still named on the l… Read More
2024-02-01 12:14
"We’re not where we want to be in the polls, the election draws closer with every passing day, because we’re media homeless people generally don’t know what we stand for no… Read More
2024-01-31 23:45
The Derbyshire village of Derwent was sacrificed to the construction of Ladybower Reservoir during the second world war. Its buildings had all been demolished by the autumn of 1943 and the s… Read More
2024-01-31 17:42
A Doctor Who serial from 1973 has a surprising degree of relevance to the world of 2024, argues Peter Chambers.The Green Death is a serial in series 10 of the classic Doctor Who era, broadca… Read More
2024-01-31 12:08
The Shropshire Star reports:The new Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway Company (WSMR) is proposing to bring back a direct service to and from London in 2025.The plan would see new, dai… Read More
2024-01-30 12:21
The Conservative campaign in the Wellingborough by-election has run into trouble over two of the people who have nominated their candidate Helen Harrison.They are pithily described by the Su… Read More
2024-01-30 11:01
BBC Kent wins our Headline of the Day Award.The judges suggested the Happy Pants Ranch in Bobbing wasn't so happy after being stung for £100. Dugee himself, incidentally, appears to be… Read More
2024-01-29 21:47
Paul Whitewick takes us from Ivinghoe Beacon in the Chilterns to Wiltshire. There we see Liddington Castle, which was sacred to Richard Jefferies, and then some of our sexiest prehistoric mo… Read More
2024-01-29 20:43
This is the former Harborough Autos Test Centre waiting for the end. It is about to be demolished and its site on the corner of Abbey Street and Fairfield Road occupied by a 'two and a half… Read More
2024-01-29 19:20
Whether Donald Trump wins a second term as President or not, Europe must strengthen its defences and learn not to rely on the US, argues Wolfgang Münchau.Chris Dillow says the Post Offi… Read More
2024-01-28 22:31
Why did British popular music rule the world in the 1960s? I can't answer that - leave a comment if you can - but I have found that some of the brightest stars of that generation had two thi… Read More
2024-01-28 20:55
The photo of Market Harborough locomotive depot was tweeted today by Adrian Pullen and forwarded to me by a reader.I don't know enough about steam locomotive to date it, but the depot closed… Read More
2024-01-28 13:06
I was thinking the other day of First Impressions, a song made the charts in the UK in 1975. It's a song about the importance of those first impressions ("First impressions are lasting impre… Read More
2024-01-27 21:39
I think it was those parodies from a few years back - some of them published by Penguin, who would once have looked down their beak at the idea - that cemented a false idea of Ladybird Books… Read More
2024-01-27 18:32
There's a lot to be said for the cricket journalist George Dobell. He has a record of discomfiting the game's authorities and is both sensible and trenchant in his views.Here he is on Englan… Read More
2024-01-26 22:25
This is a find. Ken Russell's two 1978 television films about the Wordsworths and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, co-written with Melvyn Bragg, have long been difficult to see. But both are current… Read More
2024-01-26 00:31
Harborough District Council, reports the Harborough Mail, has launched a consultation on adding a number of historic buildings to its list of heritage assets.Former Nat West, Barcl… Read More
2024-01-25 18:30
PC Dixon was in no doubt: "There's nothing worse than a rotten copper. Nothing. The lowest thing that crawls on God's earth."That's him addressing a corrupt young constable played by Pa… Read More
2024-01-25 00:28
Chris Huhne says the public documents in the cases brought by three former Liberal Democrat ministers - Vince Cable, Norman Lamb and Huhne himself - show that phone-hacking was directed by N… Read More
2024-01-24 23:11
Timothy Garton Ash says Poland is learning that restoring democracy is even harder than creating it."The Tories are in arguably the worst state we’ve ever seen a major party in. T… Read More
2024-01-24 21:05
The reality of the American frontier and its celebration by the cinema were remarkably close in time. Buffalo Bill was a major figure in the real West and lived to appear in films about it.O… Read More
2024-01-24 18:54
Natural England has drawn up a proposal to expand the existing Stiperstones National Nature Reserve in Shropshire by up to 5,000 hectares - that's a chunky 20 square miles.A press… Read More
2024-01-23 22:28
On 30 March the Northampton & Lamport Railway will open its half-mile southern extension from Pitsford and Brampton to a new station at Boughton.After that, eyes will turn northwards to… Read More
2024-01-23 21:45
Wales Online had a terrific story last week:A Conservative councillor from Sunderland with no apparent links to Wales is running multiple Facebook groups opposing the 20mph limit here despit… Read More
2024-01-22 22:07
Saturday's Independent had an interview with Christopher Eccleston by Helen Brown:Eccleston has also turned down roles that he feels patronise working-class people. He’s described his… Read More
2024-01-22 21:13
This is lovely. Ella Ravilious takes us on a personal journey through her grandfather Eric's life. She explores the techniques Eric Ravilious learnt and mastered, his influential creati… Read More
2024-01-22 17:21
A shocking story from Harborough FM:An investigation has been launched after an otter found seriously injured in Little Bowden died.It had been caught by a snare, which caused a deep wound a… Read More
2024-01-21 19:59
>Ian Bannen will always be Jim Prideaux from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to me, but he enjoyed a long and varied acting career. Here is one of its more outré moments.The Deserter was… Read More
2024-01-21 16:59
Victoire Ingabire Umahoza, leader of the opposition in Rwanda, explains why UK government's rhetoric is misleading and Rwanda is far from safe: "Human rights organisations have regularl… Read More
2024-01-21 13:21
John Denver was everywhere in the Seventies. His gentle take on country music may not have pleased hardcore fans of the genre, but he was enormously popular with a wider public.Turn on the r… Read More
2024-01-20 20:21
This is the one I've been waiting for. I've not watched it yet, but if they leave Richard III alone in the interview room with Barlow, he'll get a confession out of him in no tome.It's an od… Read More
2024-01-20 19:53
Search for a podcast on a subject you like, and the odds are it'll begin with protracted banter between people you don't know. I once had to fast forward for 30 minutes to get past it.The wo… Read More
2024-01-20 19:08
The 4 Day Week Campaign has published a mini-manifesto for the general election. It calls for:A reduction to the maximum working week from 48 hours per week to 32 hours per week by 2030;An a… Read More
2024-01-19 18:19
Sheila Fitzpatrick reviews Anna Reid's A Nasty Little War: The West’s Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution in the new London Review of Books:"A really nasty, dirty little war ... Wa… Read More
2024-01-19 11:09
Embed from Getty ImagesWhen the British Scandal podcast announced it would be doing the Kray Twins next, I was a little underwhelmed. Isn't this a story we've heard too many times already?So… Read More
2024-01-18 22:03
This is a good video on XTC, the tensions within the band and the genesis and extraordinary success of their song Dear God.I love the story (at 13:50) that British Steel countered the song M… Read More
2024-01-18 17:39
Pseuds Corner isn't the only poor column in Private Eye: I was pleased to see the current issue has another letter from a reader criticising The Agri Brigade.If the Eye has an, if you will… Read More
2024-01-17 22:34
"Animal factories are amongst the worst atrocities ever perpetrated by humanity. Animal factories are inherently cruel and create massive suffering for billions of animals, destroy the envir… Read More
2024-01-17 21:12
As Edwin Hayward observed on Twitter earlier today:The Tories have reached the "invade France" stage of the immigration debacle, and it's only Wednesday.He was talking about a statement that… Read More
2024-01-17 18:22
Daisy Cooper is interviewed by Care Home Professional about Lib Dem policy on social care. As she says:"So many people don’t realise just how broken the system is until they, or a love… Read More
2024-01-16 22:07
Another short extract from David Storey's A Stinging Delight. This one contains a thumping dangling participle, but the book was published posthumously, so he probably never got to revise it… Read More
2024-01-16 21:36
The Guardian has an obituary of the actor David Kernan, who died on Boxing Day:Kernan had been asked by Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth to put together a revue for their Stables theatre in W… Read More
2024-01-16 20:55
It's not at all spooky, but I was led to this amusing Birmingham Mail story of unsuccessful criminals by the latest issue of Fortean Times:It was during this incident, Mr Harrington told jur… Read More
2024-01-15 19:12
Historian Alex Grant explains why an often-overlooked spy scandal of the early 1960s matters – and how it changed British journalism, and security vetting, for ever."He had 'mino… Read More
2024-01-15 12:22
Collyweston Palace in Northamptonshire, the home of Henry VII’s mother Lady Margaret Beaufort, was once famous. The pre-wedding celebrations of the marriage of Margaret Tudor and James… Read More
2024-01-15 11:36
Chris Skidmore tells a Press Association reporter that he has "no regrets" over leaving parliament and warns his former party that it faces its "toughest by-election fight so far" in Kingswo… Read More
2024-01-14 19:26
More about the JCPCP on the Egalitarian Publishing site. I've slightly lost the thread of which issue which column has appeared in, but this one came out some time last year.I reviewed The P… Read More
2024-01-14 11:47
Visiting Jim Dale's birthplace in Rothwell led me to this record from 1957, a parody of Lonnie Donegan's popular recording of Rock Island Line.The songwriting credits on Piccadilly Line are… Read More
2024-01-14 00:00
This story had passed me by until today. From the Leicester Mercury:Road closures will be put in place for a major project to remove unsafe cladding from a Leicester building. The Phoen… Read More
2024-01-13 17:58
I cannot share the outrage among my fellow Liberal Democrats at the questioning of Ed Davey over his actions as the minister responsible for the Post OfficeThose actions are bound to be of i… Read More
2024-01-12 22:15
Embed from Getty ImagesDenmark Street, Britain’s Tin Pan Alley, played a pivotal role in the music industry. Peter Watts takes us from through the street’s history including its… Read More
2024-01-12 18:46
LBC reports:Former environment minister Zac Goldsmith has been banned from driving after being caught speeding four times in London in less than four months.Lord Goldsmith pleaded guil… Read More
2024-01-12 18:01
If you thought you'd heard it all about the Post Office Horizon scandal, here's a news story from Harborough FM:A former Harborough sub-postmaster was accused of stealing nearly £2,000… Read More
2024-01-11 19:02
Josh Self on why Reform UK remains a mystery.The government is blocking the release of all information about Prince Andrew’s decade as a taxpayer-funded trade envoy. This is the mark o… Read More
2024-01-11 13:29
The Church of England was even more starstruck by Paula Vennells that I realised. A thread from Marcus Walker on Twitter reveals that she was appointed by the CofE to conduct a review of its… Read More
2024-01-10 19:07
Embed from Getty ImagesSir Ed Davey, leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats, has faced harsh criticism this week for his role in the Horizon IT scandal, after it was revealed that he fa… Read More
2024-01-10 13:48
Embed from Getty ImagesI first came across David Storey when his novel Saville won the Booker Prize. It was one of those books about the progress of a working-class grammar school and his al… Read More
2024-01-09 20:58
Scan the Wikipedia entry for Paula Vennells and you find a paragraph on her involvement with the Church of England:From 2002 to 2005, Vennells trained for Holy Orders on the St Albans and Ox… Read More
2024-01-09 18:48
Matthew Pennell uncovers the roots of the Post Office Horizon scandal: "The political origins for Horizon date back to 1994, with the idea of computerising payments and moving away from Giro… Read More
2024-01-08 21:17
Yer man travels to Croydon to find the remains of a railway station that closed in 1983 - you can support Jago's videos via his Patreon page.The page for Spencer Road Halt on the Disused Sta… Read More
2024-01-08 19:41
Barney Ronay often appears the Private Eye's Pseuds Corner. That's because he writes intelligently and allusively about football, and nothing reveals the Eye's roots among public school boys… Read More
2024-01-07 19:03
Eric Loveland Heath writes of growing up in the Shropshire village of Snailbeach and his artistic reaction to it today.I grew up amongst the ruined mine buildings of Snailbeach in the shadow… Read More
2024-01-07 15:00
Wellingborough Conservatives met this afternoon to choose their candidate in the forthcoming by-election.Their choice? Helen Harrison, who is Peter Bone's live-in partner. She is also a… Read More
2024-01-07 10:27
I don't know why this song sounds so familiar: it wasn't a hit in the UK or anywhere much else when it was released as a single in 1994.But that may be the effect the Smithereens wanted on s… Read More
2024-01-07 00:01
We had floods in Market Harborough earlier this week but, judging by this newsreel, they were nothing to what the town experienced in the summer of 1958.The Ritz stood opposite the Market Ha… Read More
2024-01-06 10:39
The Turnip Taliban are back, says the Independent.James Bagge, one of the Conservatives who resigned from the party in protest at Liz Truss's selection as candidate for South West Norfolk in… Read More
2024-01-06 00:25
When Derek Fowlds was cast in Yes, Minister he was, as a secondary modern boy, apprehensive about playing a Whitehall highflyer, So he turned up for the first rehearsal with a pair of glasse… Read More
2024-01-05 18:52
Computer Weekly has investigated the Post Office Horizon scandal since 2008. Now Karl Flinders has written a guide that tells you everything you need to know about it.Chris Bowers finds that… Read More
2024-01-05 18:02
Chris Skidmore, the Conservative MP for Kingswood, has resigned the party whip in protest against Sunak's decision to maximise the extraction of North Sea oil and gas.He explains his decisio… Read More
2024-01-05 17:39
Helen Morgan's chances of holding North Shropshire, the seat she won in the 2021 by-election, have been boosted by the recruitment of three local Green councillors, reports the Border Counti… Read More
2024-01-04 22:19
When I was taking my MA in Victorian Studies at Leicester, I was told that it was enlightening to look at what contemporary reviewers had made of classic novels when they came out.The lectur… Read More
2024-01-04 21:24
This, as far as I can establish, is Leicester's only Edward VIII pillar box. You will find it on Windley Road, where the Saffron Lane Estate reaches the ring road.Edward VIII's rounded monog… Read More
2024-01-03 21:39
John Rogers introduces this walk on YouTube:Our walk starts with the incredible story of Oliver Cromwell's body being kept in the cellar of The Red Lion pub in Holborn in 1661 and its possib… Read More
2024-01-03 12:17
Ladies and gentlemen, we have our Headline of the Day. The judges were unanimous in making the award to the Guardian Read More
2024-01-03 11:23
Stephen Williams entices us with the prospect that the general election of 2024 will see the collapse of the Conservative Party.Ruxunda Teslo offers a bracing outsider's view: "Trains do not… Read More
2024-01-03 10:42
Jonathan Harris, who represents Brixworth ward on West Northamptonshire Council, is to stand for the Liberal Democrats in Daventry at the next general election.He has an extensive career in… Read More
2024-01-02 20:51
Back in the Eighties there was a big house in the village of Marston Trussell, some three miles from here, that used to open as a second-hand bookshop on Sunday afternoons.I walked there onc… Read More
2024-01-02 17:59
This is not a proto version of Royston Vesey, but another film about how soldiers fared after the second world war in which Jack Hawkins plays the Colonel.But, unlike in The League of… Read More
2024-01-01 00:01
Happy New Year! Let's hope for a better year in 2024, and in particular for a change of government.As Martin Carthy's recording of The January Man has reappeared on YouTube, I can give Benja… Read More
2023-12-31 18:02
A survey of what the doyen of Rutland Liberalism has been up to this year.FebruaryThe old boy found himself grappling with the party leader's unwillingness to have the European Union mention… Read More
2023-12-31 12:03
This is a song written by Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick and sung by Sandy Denny. It appeared on Fairport Convention's 1969 album Liege and Lief.Thompson had first set his words to a tr… Read More
2023-12-30 16:55
Augustus Carp with an end-of-year update on the number of councillors who have left the party under whose flag they were elected.The end of the year is probably as good a time as any to cons… Read More
2023-12-30 11:31
"In March 2023, the EU made the historic decision to deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine within 12 months. But the number that has actually been sent is closer to 300,000. For all… Read More
2023-12-29 23:11
When I published a book chapter on Charles Dickens and antisemitism a couple of years ago, I managed to slip in the expression 'well-behaved orphans'. But it turns out that the original Well… Read More
2023-12-29 22:10
You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep.That was Moria, where they let loose the Balrog.The Dwarves were similarly ill advised in the Nottinghamshire co… Read More
2023-12-28 15:04
My latest Joy of Six includes a piece by Francis Young on Britain's Christmas hobby horse customs, and I have seen other references to the Mari Lwyd and hoodening over the holiday… Read More
2023-12-28 10:29
Alan Sugar makes the case for the European Single Market in a video issued by the Department of Trade and Industry. As the market was launched on 1 January 1993, this presumably dates from a… Read More
2023-12-28 08:15
On holiday in Southwold years ago, I wondered why the town seemed oddly familiar. Then I realised it's because Peter Greenaway's film Drowning by Numbers was shot there.Greenaway had a vogue… Read More
2023-12-27 23:37
Good news from the Leicester Mercury:Bears, wolves and even lynxes could be on the doorstep of Rutland Water if plans are approved. The move, if successful, would see wildlife return to the… Read More
2023-12-26 23:07
I had dozed off with the TV on a high-numbered channel and woke up a little way into this. You can imagine my confusion. What was I seeing?If I say it's nothing like a usual episode of On th… Read More
2023-12-26 16:46
"Give or take the odd percentage point, and Sir John tries to persuade the media not to sensationalise small, meaningless poll movements, Labour has a solid lead of around 20 per cent over t… Read More
2023-12-24 13:00
This recording by the boys of Coventry Cathedral Choir is on an LP issued in 1971.The 16th-century Coventry Carol was traditionally performed in Coventry as part of a mystery play, The Pagea… Read More
2023-12-23 21:57
A flickering pinpoint of naked flame leads the way through the low and narrow passage: dank and pitch black, where the smell of candle grease mingles with that of freshly turned earth and sl… Read More
2023-12-23 11:15
Embed from Getty ImagesOur Headline of the Day Award goes to Nottinghamshire Live for this tale of crime fighting in the East Midlands.Thanks to the reader who nominated it, and also to the… Read More
2023-12-22 21:38
Today is the fifth anniversary of Paddy Ashdown's death. I still mourn him as a man and a leader.By coincidence, at 20.50 this evening Talking Pictures TV (Freeview Channel 82) is showing a… Read More
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