Liberal England in 2016: Part 2

Part 1 appeared yesterday, so on with part 2.

April

Sergey Karjakin, I explained was Vladimir Putin's challenger for the world chess title. (He was to lose his match with the reigning champrion Magnus Carlsen later in the year.)

Helped inadvertently by a passing cyclist who startled them, I took a striking photo of some pigeons by the canal in Leicester.

I explained why Why Twitter doesn't work, Labour won't win and the Lib Dems are irrationally cheerful:

Political activists do tend to make their political affiliation central to their identity. More than that, they find their social life, their friends, even their partners, through their activism.

This leads on to a video from the social psychologist Alex Haslam, who argues that you are the groups you belong to.

The rise of the SNP in last year's general election spooked Liberal Democrat voters into turning Conservative, right? Wrong.

As the European referendum campaign ground on, I found that Jeremy Clarkson made the best case for Remain,

If you don't believe me, follow the link.


May

I visited the Battlefield Line in the west of Leicestershire:

Some heritage lines are preserved and polished to within an inch of their lives: this one is not like that.

Why has the groundbreaking 1969 film Royal Family never been repeated? I posted a clip that explains.

I joined a march through Leicester against the badger cull and the march joined a wedding party.

The philosopher Richard Rorty, I discovered, had forecast the rise of Donald Trump back in 1997.

This was the month when I became obsessed with the 1960s police series Gideon's Way and all the well-known actors who appeared in it.

Tim Farron began to be seen on chat shows and in comedy studios. Good.


June

I visited the ruins of St John's, Boughton, which some claim in Northamptonshire's most haunted site.

A possible sugar tax was in the news and I supported the idea.

And I argued that a referendum on Europe had always been a bad idea - "scribbling on the constitution".

That was when everyone thought Remain was going to win. When the result was announced I sought solace in Thorpe Langton.