Liberal England's 10th birthday

Today is Liberal England's 10th birthday. It will spend the day climbing trees, shooting up, swatting for SATS or whatever it is 10-year-olds do these days.

My first post - Britain's oldest Liberal Democrat? - appeared on 11 March 2004. Sadly, Anita Taylor died later that year, though she does seem to have recorded a DVD of her memories of Newtown a few years before.

The post also mentioned Lembit Opik and Lord Bonkers, who have kept my readers entertained with their antics ever since.

Liberal England went into hibernation over the summer of 2004 as I battled with malware on my PC. Sorting that out was my first technological breakthrough. The others were getting broadband in 2007, which allowed me to start embedding videos, and buying a digital camera in 2009.

I don't want to write about myself, so I suggest you read In praise of Jonathan Calder by Mark Valladares while I blush prettily and stare at my shoes.

Finished?

I shall use this birthday as an excuse for looking back over some old posts - particularly the ones from the early years before I had many readers - and republishing a few that will bear re-reading.

Two fugitive wallabies on loose in County Down

Headline of the Day goes to the Guardian.

Garry Kasparov visits Bobby Fischer's grave

Yesterday would have been Bobby Fischer's 71st birthday. On that day Garry Kasparov, the only player who stands higher in the history of chess, visited his grave.

Dorchester to hold post mortem after record-breaking 212-0 defeat

The Dorset Echo wins our Headline of the Day Award.

A portrait of Heathrow in 1964

A cracking Look at Life from 1964. The film may be 50 years old, but the similarities to today are more striking than the differences.

These were the days before BEA and BOAC merged to form British Airways. As I recall, if you were in the know you pronounced the latter as two syllables - "Bo-Ac".

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Do you know the North Koreans?

Saturday

Do you know the North Koreans? Charming fellows, though it is best to keep on the right side of their chief man and not to let your spaniels run loose when they are in the neighbourhood. I was talking to one of them  the other evening and he told me something interesting: if someone in downtown Pyongyang feels he is getting the rough end of the stick from a fellow North Korean, then he is likely to accuse him of behaving in a way that “makes the internal disciplinary procedures of the Liberal Democrats seem benign, and anything done by Nick Clegg’s thugs to extract confessions from Chris Rennard’s courtiers gentle”.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West, 1906-10.

Earlier in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

Monday: In the shadow of Pendle Hill
Tuesday: Counting the teaspoons
Wednesday: Rabbit in the headlights
Thursday: A future leader of the Liberal Democrats?
Friday: The Great George Street rabbit

Six of the Best 426

John Pugh introduces "Grim Up North?" - a call for a rebalancing of the British economy by a group of Liberal Democrat MPs from the North of England - for Liberal Democrat Voice.

"Putin’s great fear is that the people of a future better Ukraine might inspire an entirely different unification with their East Slav brethren on his side of the border – a common cause of popular revolt against him and other leaders like him." James Meek reports from Ukraine for the London Review of Books.

Iain Dale pays his tribute to Marion Thorpe.

"Reaching the conclusion that you are part of a minority that’s smarter than everyone else does rather incline one to authoritarian or undemocratic politics." Matter of Facts reveals the nasty side of nerds.

It is, incredibly, 20 years since Morrissey's 'Vauxhall and I' was released. The Mouth Magazine marks the anniversary.

Jones the Planner visits the Thames estuary: "It is difficult to leave Thamesmead without a sense of disappointment. Clearly, the visionary concept was flawed but it honestly expressed social purpose and optimism for the future. Most of what we see today suggests tawdry short termism and self serving hype."

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Great George Street rabbit

Friday

I call in at Great George Street to tip off the party’s bigwigs about a fellow called Hancock. Between you and me, gentle reader, he has been up to no good in both Portsmouth and far Azerbaijan, and the party must Do Something about him – I  am also told that Fleet Street’s finest are on his case.

“Don’t worry,” says a one of the nobs, “we are well aware that there may be problems coming down the track, so we have someone working full-time on our response to the Hancock Affair. It’s Benjamin over there.”

I look across and – by Gladstone! – sitting behind a desk is the very same rabbit that I nearly ran over the other and it has that familiar silly expression on its face. I fear this will not end well.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West, 1906-10.

Earlier in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

Monday: In the shadow of Pendle Hill
Tuesday: Counting the teaspoons
Wednesday: Rabbit in the headlights
Thursday: A future leader of the Liberal Democrats?

Colin Blunstone: Say You Don't Mind

After The Zombies broke up in 1968 Colin Blunstone briefly held a proper job in insurance. He then set out on a highly regarded solo career.

This video from 1971 shows him at his peak. "Say You Don't Mind" is a Denny Lane song, which The Zombies used to perform as an up-tempo number. Blunstone reached no. 15 in the UK singles chart with this very different arrangement.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: A future leader of the Liberal Democrats?

Thursday

At a reception this evening I find myself talking to a charming lady by the name of Miriam-Gonzalez-Durantez. She turns out to have trenchant views on the public schools. “Some people from some of these top schools are fantastic but there are lots of people from these top schools who are unimpressive,” she tells me. “Quite right, my dear,” I reply. She goes on: "I know far too many that come out of there without speaking a single foreign language." 

As I am observing that speaking a lot of languages isn’t everything and pointing to that fellow Clegg as a case in point, she suddenly recognises an old friend on the other side of the room and disappears from view. Nevertheless, I am convinced she is Sound. Why does one never hear her spoken of as a future leader of the Liberal Democrats?

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West, 1906-10.

Earlier in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

Monday: In the shadow of Pendle Hill
Tuesday: Counting the teaspoons
Wednesday: Rabbit in the headlights

Bishop's Castle Cat of the Day

Photographed last summer. I think he also won this award in 2011.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Rabbit in the headlights

Wednesday

Who should I see coming down the Committee Corridor at Westminster but our own Nick Clegg? He sees me too and tries to dive into a hearing on white fish, but I take a manly grip upon his shoulder when he is not halfway into the room. “What this about your supporting the removal of citizenship for people have been convicted of no crime?” I hiss. “I hardly think the Home Secretary would go around persecuting innocent people” he replies, before wrenching himself from my grasp and diving under a table.

Driving home this evening, I am pleased to reach the woods and hills of Rutland. As dusk falls I see a rabbit sitting in the lane in front of me. Expecting it to lollop off as I approach, I do not slow; but it just continues to sit there with a stupid vacant expression on its whiskery face, even when I sound my horn. So I am forced to jam on my brakes and stop in the nick of time, whereupon I give the slow-witted creature a piece of my mind.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West, 1906-10.

Earlier in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

Monday: In the shadow of Pendle Hill
Tuesday: Counting the teaspoons

Ramsbottom is more important than Elvis

Labour's press team has been having fun with the result of yesterday's local by-election in Nottingham, where the Liberal Democrats finished behind the Buss-pass Elvis Party.

The result is a reminder that, though we Lib Dems are doing well in our areas of strength, our vote can by close to non-existent in areas where we have no history of campaigning. But as a pointer to the next general election it has little value.

There was, however, a local by-election yesterday that does look significant from that angle. Last night the Conservatives gained the Rambsbottom ward on Bury Council from Labour.

Mike Smithson writes on Political Betting:

Ramsbottom, where my mother was born, is part of Bury North which was taken by the Tories off Labour at GE2010. It is a seat that EdM really has to win back at GE2015 if his party has any hope of forming a majority. 

It is a ward that has a history of hard-fought contests between CON and LAB. In 2011 the two parties tied and LAB was given the seat after lots were drawn. 

A key factor in this latest election was the very high number, 60% or so, of postal votes which is vey good indicator of local party organisation. 

So a very good result for the Tories and a very bad one for Labour.

Holy Trinity, Hope, Shropshire

This little 19th-century church is still in use. With its churchyard, it occupies a wooded valley beside and below the A488, which makes it hard to spot as you speed past. They rest in hope.

Sharon Bowles interviewed by the Guardian on bankers' bonuses

The Liberal Democrat MEP Sharon Bowles, ranked by a 2012 survey as the most influential Briton in EU policymaking, is interviewed by Jennifer Rankin in tomorrow's Guardian:

Taking a break between meetings at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall, Bowles says she is not looking to change the bonus cap legislation, but acknowledges that "what angers a lot of people is that the overall sum, no matter what it is called, is too big. And to be honest there is nothing you can do about that unless there is rehabilitation of banking in general back to the ranks of normal." That is still some way off, she says. 

"I think the nature of banking will change: it is going to be harder for the banks to be able to engage in risky structures," she says, citing plans to separate risky investment banking from high street operations. These are the fundamental reforms that matter, she argues, rather than "the bit on the side" about bonuses.

Marion Thorpe has died

Marion Thorpe, the second wife of the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, died earlier today at the age of 87, reports Norman Lebrecht.

She is survived by Jeremy Thorpe and her three sons from her first marriage to the Earl of Harewood, a cousin of the Queen.

Last year, the composer's centenary year, she spoke to the BBC about her long friendship with Benjamin Britten.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Counting the teaspoons

Tuesday

From time to time I am asked by the leaders of our party to entertain a fellow at the Hall. “Give him the best of everything,” they tell me. “Bacon and eggs, shooting, Auld Johnston and so forth. Treat him right and he is good for a cool half million.” It happened under Jeremy Thorpe, it happened with a fellow called Brown under Kennedy, and only the other day Clegg sent someone called Choudhrie to stay. As a loyal Liberal and Liberal Democrat I have always done my best to oblige, but I have learnt that it is wise to count the teaspoons before you wave one of these fellows off.

I mention this last guest to the Revd Hughes when he calls this evening on some matter to do with the fabric of St Asquith’s, but he proves strangely reluctant to discuss the subject.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West, 1906-10.

Earlier in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

Monday: In the shadow of Pendle Hill

Scottish Football - Celtic star charged with assaulting Elvis impersonator

Our Headline of the Day Award goes to BT Yahoo! Sport.

The Clegg family pyramid in Ukraine

This photo has appeared on this blog before - where you will find further details of its history - but this seems an appropriate time to reprint it.

You will find this pyramid on the estate near Kiev that used to belong to Nick Clegg's family. And beneath it you will find Nick's great great grandfather, Ignaty Zakrevsky, a former attorney general in the imperial Russian senate.

£1m for historic buildings around Richard III's grave

From today's Leicester Mercury:

More than £1 million is to be spent polishing up Leicester's hidden architectural gems. 

Scores of Victorian and Georgian buildings will receive some tender loving care to preserve historic features in the Greyfriars area. 

The work will be carried out during the next five years, thanks to Heritage Lottery funding, which is being awarded in two phases.

Something else to thank Richard III for, I suspect. Let's hope the area is not left looking too tidy.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: In the shadow of Pendle Hill

The new issue of Liberator was waiting for me when I got home from work. So it is time to spend another week in the company of Rutland's most popular fictional peer

Monday

A ticklish few days in Pendle have come to an end. You may recall that the Liberal Democrats recently issued a statement condemning without reserve the burning of witches at the stake. I wondered if this was wholly necessary – it is some years since such an incident has taken place even in the Upper Welland Valley – but our people in Pendle (where they have previous in the matter) cut up rough. “There will be leaflets handed out in areas where we are as a party strong and active,” fumes one. “In Pendle I expect the Labour lot will be doing this (we hear they are already planning to do so).”

In the end I managed to bring both sides together and they signed a statement saying “We now call on those on both sides of this argument to return to moderate debate, free of insult and threat and we do so because we believe this is in the interests of our party.” It didn't mean a thing, of course, but what is Liberalism about if it is not about winning local by-elections in the shadow of Pendle Hill?

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West, 1906-10.

Malcolm Saville and the pubs of Leintwardine

The Secret of the Gorge, published in 1958, is the 11th of Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine series.

It is a topical book, in that it involves the demolition of a large country house (enormous numbers of them were lost during the 1950s), though the plot has been largely borrowed from The Nine Tailors by Saville's friend Dorothy L. Sayers.

The Secret of the Gorge begins with a stranger getting off the bus in the village of Bringewood Chase. This is a fictionalised version of Leintwardine, which is just over the Herefordshire border from Saville's favourite Shropshire.

First, the stranger looks at the menu pinned up outside the white-walled inn called The Evening Star:

Apparently he didn't like what was offered, or perhaps it was the price of the meal which sent him shambling off again until he reached a turning on the right which led him into a narrow street. The houses here were little more than cottages and most of them were shabby. The only shop was a greengrocer's, but at the far end on the left the man in the brown suit saw the sign of another inn. When he was close enough he realized that the sign had not been cleaned for years. At first he thought the artist had painted two dirty yellow pears or oddly shaped oranges on the sign, but after more study he realized that he place was called Two Bells.

I got off the bus at Leintwardine myself last summer. The Evening Star, the white-walled inn by the bridge, is clearly The Lion.

Find a sidestreet off to the right that once had shops - goodness knows how much a cottage costs in Leintwardine these days - and you will come to the Sun Inn.

This was famous as one of the last of the parlour pubs - I blogged about it back in 2010. The new owners have a built an extension at the back where most of the drinking now takes place, which has allowed them to keep the interior of the main pub as it was when they took it over from Flossie Lane.

As I drank there last summer England were building towards another victory over Australia - how long ago that now seems.

Anyway, you can see the The Lion/The Evening Star above and The Sun Inn/Two Bells below.

Now read more about Malcolm Saville and the countryside around Leintwardine.

Ipswich: The tree that looks like Postman Pat

Thanks to a reader for nominating the Ipswich Star for our Headline of the Day Award.

And, yes, the Star does have a photograph.

Six of the Best 425

Adam Taylor on Business Insider explains why Ukraine isn't 'The Ukraine' - and why it matters.

Charles West has a set of proposals for the NHS that would "render redundant a large number of national quangos and return at least some measure of local democratic control over the delivery of health services".

"Were I a banker seeking to distract the public from my troughing for bonuses, I could hope for no better foil than a university vice-chancellor. Indeed, the two groups share behavioural tics." In the Guardian, Aditya Chakrabortty says university bosses are lining their pockets like never before.

A Very Public Sociologist on the debate over the causes and the morality of the First World War.

On the Guardian website, Oliver Wainwright suggests that the Commonwealth Games are proving a mixed blessing for some poorer areas of Glasgow.

Leonard Barden looks at the debate over the stranding of the new world chess champion: "Carlsen's often opaque playing style, with its emphasis on endgames and physical toughness so as to exploit mistakes after a long and tiring session, is one reason he has detractors." Yes, that was in the Guardian too.

When Patrick Rock lost to Mike Hancock

From the Daily Mail website this evening:

One of David Cameron's closest aides has resigned after being arrested on child pornography allegations. 

Patrick Rock has been closely involved in drawing up Government policy on internet porn filters. 

He quit after the Prime Minister learned he was at the centre of a police probe over images of child abuse.

Thanks to Stephen Tall for reminding us that Rock would have become a Conservative MP 30 years ago if he had not been defeated in the Portsmouth South by-election by, er, Mike Hancock.

As I remember it, Hancock's victory for the SDP came as a huge shock. Another Daily Mail article tends to confirm this.

Later. The by-election was caused by the death of the wonderfully named Conservative MP Bonner Pink. A little googling will bring up some unsavoury allegations against him too.

Perhaps Jonathan Meades was right about Portsmouth?

Cromford Pond, Derbyshire

Taken last summer. Cromford Pond was constructed by Richard Arkwright in 1785 to provide power to his mill complex.

Across the water you can see the excellent Scarthin Books.

Lib Dems choose negotiating team for aftermath of next election

From tomorrow's Guardian:

Danny Alexander, the Treasury chief secretary, is to lead a Liberal Democrat team preparing for possible negotiations with other parties in the event of a hung parliament after the 2015 general election, the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, told his MPs late Monday. 

A politically balanced, five-strong team has been appointed: Alexander; general election manifesto co-ordinator David Laws; Lady Brinton; international development minister Lynne Featherstone; and pensions minister Steve Webb. Featherstone and Webb are regarded as on the left of the party.

Tristram Hunt in the Cambridge Footlights

Yesterday I suggested that Tristram Hunt "does not resemble a potential senior government minister so much as someone playing a government minister in an Oxbridge revue".

A little research shows I was more right than I realised. It turns out that Hunt was a member of the Cambridge Footlights alongside such figures as David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

Tim Walker mentioned those days in the Daily Telegraph last November:

Still, if the shadow education secretary looks back with a dreamy sense of nostalgia on his days performing in the Footlights at Cambridge with David Mitchell and Robert Webb, his erstwhile co-stars would appear to see things differently. “Tris wasn’t reliably funny in those days,” Webb says, tartly.

He must have fitted in rather well then.

I also suggested that Hunt resembles Hugh Dennis's better looking younger brother. Sure enough, they both went to the same (extremely expensive) school.

Six of the Best 424

Lynne Featherstone writes in praise of civil servants - and on how to be a minister.

The historical background to the current crisis in Crimea is given by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

"Yes, one must risk the nasty comments from trolls and the doubts of colleagues about the importance of public engagement. But how else can we demonstrate the deep and necessary relationship among specialized knowledge, critical thinking, and the world in which we live?" On The Chronicle of Higher Education, David M. Perry explains why more academics should use the web to write for a general audience.

Cosy Moments discusses the early history of the National Council for Civil Liberties.

Peace Day was celebrated on 28 June 1919. (The Armistice on 11 November 1918, which is still commemorated, was merely a ceasefire to allow the business of negotiating peace with a defeated Germany.) In Swindon the occasion was marked with three nights of rioting, looting and burning the Union Jack. The BBC World War One at Home pages tell us why.

"W.H. Auden had a secret life that his closest friends knew little or nothing about. Everything about it was generous and honorable. He kept it secret because he would have been ashamed to have been praised for it." Edward Mendelson gives some important insights into the character of Britain's greatest 20th-century poet in the New York Review of Books.

Donovan: Donna Donna

This is Donovan in the days when he was a teenager and seen as Britain's answer to Bob Dylan. Donna Donna appeared on his first LP, What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid and had already been made popular through a recording by Joan Baez.

I know it from the days when I had a rule that if I went into a charity shop I had to buy a record. The 1971 compilation Golden Hour of Donovan was one of my better purchases.

Donna Donna sounds like a folk song, but dates only from 1940 when it was written for a Yiddish theatre production in New York. It is hard not to see its real subject matter as the Holocaust.

The problem with Tristram Hunt

Watching Sunday Politics I think I have put my finger on what worries me about Tristram Hunt.

He does not resemble a potential senior government minister so much as someone playing a government minister in an Oxbridge revue. Think Hugh Dennis's better looking younger brother.

Later. Now read this.