Lib Dems get five new peers and drop opposition to government bill

Photo by Martina Jorden on Unsplash

I can't see behind its paywall, but the Telegraph is convinced that the Liberal Democrats dropped their opposition to the government's workers' rights bill in return for being granted five peerages.

Whether there's anything to this theory I can't say, but I'm pleased by both its elements.

We Lib Dems have been short of new peers since the debacle of 2015, so it's good to see three being appointed – working for the leader now seems to be the highway to ermine. 

In fact we were granted five peerages, but two of those went to hereditary peers who are party spokespeople – Dominic Addington and John Russell. It may a good sign that this has been done, because it suggests it's still possible that Labour will remove hereditaries from the House of Lords.

Reform of the Lord's is desperately needed – it's one of the largest legislative chambers in the world and, uniquely, larger that it's own lower house. But while it exists in its current Ruritarian state, we need good Lib Dems to be there.

And I am delighted to see the Lib Dems dropping their opposition to Labour's workers' rights bill in the Lords.

Since the last election we have come for landowners, for parents who send their children to private schools and for the owners of £2m homes. It's good to see us siding with the workers again.

So if there has been a deal, we've driven a good bargain. Because both sides of it are good for the Lib Dems.

Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore: Tragic Magic

This is a track from Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore's new album Tragic Magic. An advertisement on Lattimore's Bandcamp page says:

Tragic Magic brings together Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, two of contemporary ambient, experimental and electronic music’s most celebrated composers, for a unique collaboration at the Philharmonie de Paris, with extraordinary access to the Musée de la Musique’s instrument collection, in partnership with the French label InFiné. 

The album features seven immersive, evocative compositions guided by the human spirit – intimate, grounded in friendship, both earthly and cosmic – and part of a greater continuum, reflecting the solace and transformative power of artistry across generations.

And KLOF Mag says its recording sessions were deeply influenced by the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires:

Melted Moon directly confronts the recent wildfires. Over Lattimore’s looping harp, Barwick’s voice, uncharacteristically clear of effects, sings with haunting hope: "Under the melted moon / The lights are all out… You may never go home again / At least not the home you know."

Reader's voice: You've been listening to Radio 3 late in the evening again, haven't you?

Richard Dimbleby, David Dimbleby, Henry Dimbleby and the hereditary principle

David Dimbleby's current television series is questioning Britain's hereditary monarchy. So it's time for a thumping ad hominem argument and some fun with the Dimblebys and the hereditary principle.

Here's his father Richard Dimbleby in 1956. Because of his work as the BBC's war correspondent during World War II, including reports from newly liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, he was Britain's most celebrated broadcaster and a significant public figure.

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Here's Richard's son David Dimbleby making his first broadcast for the BBC at the age of 12.

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And here's David's son Henry Dimbleby, at the age of 13, in one of the two BBC adaptions of Arthur Ransome books – Coot Club and The Bix Six – in which he played a leading role in 1984.

The Joy of Six 1448

David Howarth says Liberal Democrats should attack Brexit, not just "the Tories' botched Brexit deal".

"Many have had to take extensive measures to protect their staff and service users. They’ve hired security guards, put trackers on phones, removed company listings and names from websites. In some cases, they’ve even installed safe rooms." Nicola Kelly describes how far-right attacks against refugee charities are causing workers to leave the sector to protect themselves.

"Unable to defeat Ukraine quickly or force political capitulation in Kyiv, Russia has expanded the battlefield into the daily life of European societies. Moscow’s objective is clear: weaken Western unity by creating a constant sense of vulnerability, without crossing the threshold that would trigger a formal NATO response. This pressure is increasingly visible in Poland and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe." Piotr Arak on Russia's use of sabotage to wear down Europe

Louise Murphy explodes three myths about NEETs – young people who are not it education, employment or training.

Pete Paphides celebrates Madness and their song The Liberty of Norton Folgate.

"The main robbery takes place around the industrial warehouses that once sat behind King’s Cross. As vast changes and development has taken place, exactly recreating these shots is difficult. However, using old maps of the area, many shots can be roughly mapped." Adam Scovell goes in search of the locations used by the makers of The Ladykillers in 1955

Hunting ley lines in Shropshire: The view from Stapeley Hill

It turns out I've posted the second (Caus Castle) and third (Worthen) videos in this series, but not the first. So here it is.

My serious walking days in the Eighties and Nineties reinforced my scepticism about ley lines: once you've climbed to a ridge you stay up there as long as possible. But this video does explore a fascinating landscape: I remember finding an ancient and overgrown holloway on Stapeley Hill myself.

And if that doesn't convince you, just think of this as Shropshire hill porn.

John Carey and The Intellectuals and the Masses

The death of John Carey, the critic and former Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford, has been reported today. I discovered him through his 1992 book The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia 1880–1939, which skewered the snobbish and anti-democratic attitudes that pervaded modernist literature and Fabian politics.

Here is Ian Hamilton reviewing Carey's book in the London Review of Books the year it came out:

The book is not meant to be straight literary criticism. It is about attitudes, not artworks. And on the matter of attitudes, Carey’s testiness can be joyously unreined. He has no patience with high-flown talk about predicaments and alienation. He is first of all an educator. His sympathies are with readers rather than with writers and he believes that, with the advent of mass literacy, a great educational opportunity was missed. 

Instead of sneering at Leonard Bast’s pretensions, Forster should have been teaching him at night school. But that could never have happened because, however the intellectuals chose to dress up their disdain, it was actually class-based – it had its roots in a fear and loathing of the mass, a revulsion which in some cases turned into super man delusions or fantasies of mass-extermination.

Carey's views are, I think, less controversial now than they were when The Intellectuals and the Masses was published, yet the idea that modernist writers must be, or at least ought to be, on the side of social progress was held for many decades.

Here's my own personal Thirties poet W.T. Nettlefold expressing a generation's sense of betrayal when T.S. Eliot's Conservative politics and adherence to the Church of England became known:

HOW NICE for a man to be clever,
So famous, so true
So sound an investment how EVER
So nice to be YOU.

To peer into basements, up alleys,
A nose for the search.
To challenge with pertinent sallies,
And then JOIN the Church.

I had a very good teacher for A level English Literature, but I have shaken off his taste for the modernists over the years, now preferring Dickens and Auden to his gods Lawrence and Eliot. And I suspect we can all see now what Edward Mendelson's wrote in his introduction to W. H. Auden: Selected Poems in 1979:

Auden was the first poet writing in English who felt at home in the twentieth century. He welcomed into his poetry all the disordered conditions of his time, all its variety of language and event. 

In this, as in almost everything else, he differed from his modernists predecessors such as Yeats, Lawrence, Eliot or Pound, who had turned nostalgically away from a flawed present to some lost illusory Eden where life was unified, hierarchy secure, and the grand style a natural extension of the vernacular. 

All of this Auden rejected.

I commend The Intellectuals and the Masses to anyone with an interest in the literature and politics of the early 20th century.

Stuffed Victorian dog returns to train station home

The judges didn't like "train station" but were won over by the second mention in the story below: "the beloved Victorian mascot".

So BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.

This post is illustrated with a picture of this blog's favourite Victorian dog, Sir William Wallace, who belonged to my great great grandmother's brother Sandy Campbell. This photo appeared in The Sphere for 13 October 1900, so he was very much a late Victorian dog.

Just try cancelling your Your Party membership

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An anonymous letter to the Guardian's Consumer champions:

I subscribed to Your Party at its shambolic start and am now finding it impossible to cancel my membership. No one replies to emails. My local party branch told me it can’t help.

The portal requires me to open a new account and commit to another payment in order to cancel anything.

I tried to block the payments from my Amex card but they managed to sneak a £5 payment again this month. My attempt to reclaim the money from my card issuer was rejected. I’m so frustrated that they are helping themselves to my account when they’ve been messing people about so much.

The Guardian goes on to say:

Others have reported the same vain battle to cancel their subscriptions after months of public infighting among the founders.

A Your Party spokesperson gives an email to use if you want your money back and blames Zarah Sultana for causing the problem by setting up an unauthorised web portal.

Time for the Electoral Commission to take an interest?

The Joy of Six 1447

Keir Starmer's digital ID project is a techno-authoritarian’s wet dream, argues Carole Cadwalladr: "This is a policy that wasn’t in the Labour Party’s manifesto, that no party faithful campaigned for and that no voters were told about on the doorstep. Instead, after some brief ground softening by pet journalists in friendly newspapers, it appeared out of almost nowhere in late September."

David Nowell Smith shows that accusations of "left-wing bias" against the BBC have a long history and arose from newspapers' fear of competition: "The first coordinated newspaper campaign against the ‘Reds’ at the BBC was initiated by the Daily Mail in January 1937, less than two weeks after a new BBC Charter had given the Corporation further editorial independence."

Carolyn Jackson and Mieke Van Houtte say the high-stakes tests common in English schools could be having a serious effect on children’s wellbeing.

"Academics warned that recovery from the October 2023 cyberattack, apparently by an international ransomware gang, has been 'agonisingly slow'. Even the imminent restoration of functions such as the library’s online catalogue will be of only limited help to researchers still unable to access key resources: Frances Jones finds a lack of concern at the plight of the British Library.

"We handed a loaded weapon to four-year-olds." Alex Kantrowitz on the regrets of the man who built the retweet.

Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms tell the remarkable story of the two men who robbed eight London banks in a morning: "Robert wrote a lengthy confession and said he did it for: 'the devilment of the matter – the excitement, the ingenuity, the almost impossible success to crown it all, urged me to attempt the fraud'."

Argent: Hold Your Head Up

I loved this when it came out as a single in 1972. Almost 40 years later, I saw The Zombies play Market Harborough and Rod Argent shaking hands with the front row of the audience after playing this keyboard solo.

Taliban warn Afghans who wore 'un-Islamic' Peaky Blinders outfits

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Once again, BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.

Those Labour MPs who voted for (and against) the Lib Dem customs union bill in full

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Labour List has helpfully printed the names of the 13 Labour MPs who voted for the Liberal Democrat customs union bill yesterday and the 3 who voted against.

For the bill

• Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset)
• Fleur Anderson (Putney)
• Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower)
• Richard Burgon (Leeds East)
• Dawn Butler (Brent East)
• Marsha de Cordova (Battersea)
• Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch)
• Imran Hussain (Bradford East)
• Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme)
• Peter Lamb (Crawley)
• James Naish (Rushcliffe)
• Simon Opher (Stroud)
• Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill)

Against the Bill

• Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool)
• Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland)
• Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase)

It's interesting that there are some old lags of the left on the side of the angels, which you wouldn't necessarily have expected. On the other side, Jonathan Brash is a fully signed-up member of Blue Labour.

Though if I were creating an overambitious Labour MP for satirical purposes, Jonathan Brash is just the name I'd choose.

Michael Slater reveals the origins of A Christmas Carol

The great Dickens scholar Michael Slater, who died last month, explains the background to A Christmas Carol, reveals Dickens' reasons for writing it and discusses its monumental success.

Peter Kellner: The pro-Brexit majority of 2016 has literally died out

Huffington Post had gone behind the New World (formerly New European) paywall and emerged with a story about the level of public support for Brexit today:

Peter Kellner, who founded YouGov and sat as its president until 2016 – the year of the Brexit referendum – predicted that there’s most likely a majority of 8 million now in favour of rejoining the bloc.

And, because psephology is a heartless science, he said a lot more, beginning with the observation that more than six million Britons have died since 2016:

Considering the turnout among older voters was higher than average and that 64 per cent of over-65s backed Brexit, he said it is safe to assume 3.2 million pro-Leave voters have died in the last nine years, compared to 1.8 million Remainers.

Kellner said: "This means that among people who are alive today and who voted in the 2016 referendum, Remainers exceed Leavers by 14.3 to 14.2 million."

In addition, the pollster pointed out that the six million young people who have reached voting age since 2016 are more likely to be pro-EU.

Even if just three million of them were to actually vote in a future referendum, that would take the Remain majority to two million.

If you also take account of the Leave voters who have changed their minds since the referendum, then you arrive at Kelner's estimate of an 8 million majority for Remain today.

All of which means our government's policy on Europe is heavily influenced by a desire not to alienate dead people.

Matthew Green to fight South Shropshire again

At the last election Matthew Green and his team in South Shropshire achieved a remarkable 23 per cent swing from the Conservatives, finishing only 1,624 votes short of victory. Matthew was MP for the old Ludlow constituency, which covered much the same area, between 2001 and 2005.

Today comes news that Matthew has been reselected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for South Shropshire. He writes on his Facebook page:

In South Shropshire with the continued rapid collapse of the Conservative Party, at the moment it appears the next general election will be between the Liberal Democrats and Reform. We need to help stop the UK descending into a very dark place. This is the strongest motivation for me to stand and win in South Shropshire. I want to be able to look my children in the eye and say I didn’t stand back, and I played my part, to the fullest extent I could, in helping resist the rise of xenophobic populist nationalism in our country.

Many have already contacted me with messages of support and offers of help in order to fight off the threat of Reform in South Shropshire, and I believe it’s our patriotic duty to do so. If you want to help, please comment on this post or message me.

You can also follow Matthew Green on Bluesky.

And he concludes:

It’s going to be a busy three years but I’m confident I’ll still find the time for walking South Shropshire’s beautiful hills, visiting castles and abbeys, and if my knees permit, still playing a game or two of cricket for Much Wenlock.

Councillor quits Reform for second time in 2 weeks

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.

The judges wonder how our regular guest blogger Augustus Carp will cope with this when he posts his next survey of councillors changing parties.

Mark Pack will love it though.

Rutland mosaic depicts lost Aeschylus narrative of the Trojan War

The Roman mosaic discovered at Ketton in Rutland five years ago is even more remarkable than first thought. A story on the University of Leicester website explains why:

New research from the University of Leicester has conclusively determined why the famous Ketton mosaic in Rutland – one of the most remarkable Roman discoveries in Britain for a century – cannot depict scenes from Homer’s Iliad as was initially believed. Instead, it draws on an alternative version of the Trojan War story first popularised by the Greek playwright Aeschylus that has since been lost to history. 

The mosaic’s images combine artistic patterns and designs that had already been circulating for hundreds of years across the ancient Mediterranean, suggesting that craftsmen in Roman Britain were more closely connected to the wider classical world than has been assumed.

In this video from 2021, Time Team's community archaeologist Dani Wootton talks to John Thomas from University of Leicester Archaeological Services about the mosaic and the excavation of the wider site at Ketton.

The Joy of Six 1446

Cicero's Songs, making a welcome return, has naught for your comfort: "The decadence of the American Empire is upon us, and the consequences will be dire, unless the EU can manage to secure the defeat of Putin without American support.  Quite possibly the USA may now seek to obstruct the Europeans in their attempts to bring Putin's murderous misadventure to a close."

The allegations against British special forces operating in Afghanistan will not go away, argues Mark Urban.

John Sweeney says Reform's 19-year-old leader of Warwickshire County Council is skating on thin ice: "[George] Finch’s comments have the potential to jeopardise a fair trial and that, of course, would harm the victim and her family – and waste a huge amount of public money. ... Most people know that after someone has been charged for a serious offence, you must take care not to publish or say anything in the public square that could prejudice the criminal proceedings. ... Finch appears to have forgotten this."

"Here’s a rule I have developed for myself: never talk about a culture-war topic with anyone who only wants to talk to you about that topic. These conversations can only be helpful if they happen as part of a relationship. If you’re going in cold on a very hard topic, you will not be able to experience each other as people, only as opinions or symbols." Naomi Alderman offers 12 rules for online survival.

Dezeen chooses 10 key buildings by high-tech pioneer Nicholas Grimshaw.

"Screwball elements run through their films like runaway socialites: eccentric leads, unexpected reversals, physical comedy, chase sequences, false identities; best intentions go hilariously awry; hard-bitten cynics battle zany dreamers in matters of romance and will." Amber Sparks celebrates the Coen brothers' 1994 film The Hudsucker Proxy 

Tories and Reform have big falling out in Leicestershire over alleged threats of violence

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Leicestershire’s Reform UK and Conservative parties have entered into a public spat over alleged threats of violence, reports the Leicester Mercury:

Reform UK leader of Leicestershire County Council Dan Harrison used a speech at the full council meeting on Wednesday, December 3, to level accusations against the deputy leader of the authority’s Conservative group. 

He claimed that Councillor Craig Smith had “threatened” him with “physical violence”, including alleged threats to “knock [Cllr Harrison’s] block off” if the leader “hurt someone” Cllr Smith “cared for”.

And so on and on. It's worth reading the full report if you want a good laugh.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats are naturally making hay over this embarrassing display. Michael Mullaney, leader of the Lib Dem group on the council, told the Mercury:

“There are really serious issues facing this authority. We have responsibility for incredibly important services, whether it’s social care to the most vulnerable members of society, whether it’s the pressure on special educational needs, whether it’s the poor state of roads and pavements. ...

“So it’s very disappointing that we have got to a situation where personal disputes and threats of violence are down as the main issue for discussion.”

Given that Reform and the Tories are trying to attract the same voters, it's not surprising that they have fallen out. If this pattern is repeated in other parts of the country, it would make an electoral pact between the two parties harder to sell to activists on both sides. Neither is exactly a model of party discipline,

Giant purple dinosaurs, giant chickens and CCTV

Unusually, the contest for our Headline of the Day Award has ended in a tie, as the judges found themselves unable split two entries that share a common theme.

So our congratulations go to BBC News for:

Giant purple dinosaur caught fly-tipping on CCTV

and to Sky News for:

CCTV footage shows giant chicken replacing a car

Jethro Tull: A New Day Yesterday

It's 1978 and my favourite LPs, along with Kate Bush's The Kick Inside, are Songs from the Wood and Heavy Horses. So when I see Repeat: The Best of Jethro Tull Vol. II in a record shop, I naturally buy it.

I was expecting more songs about ley lines, poaching and outdated modes of agriculture, but what I got was the late British blues. I wanted to like it, and soon I did.

Sally Ann Howes couldn't cry for toffees: Why have child actors got so much better?

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I watched the 1945 Ealing period drama Pink String and Sealing Wax the other day. In it, the always-wonderful Googie Withers entangles a young Gordon Jackson in her wiles, only to be defeated by his father Mervyn Johns.

It’s a striking film in that the major characters are all unsympathetic, and an unusual one for Ealing in that the Jackson and his siblings’ dreams of escape to a better life come to something. Usually at Ealing such escapes were strictly temporary, whether they were Alec Guinness’s technological breakthrough in The Man in the White Suit or the people of Pimlico’s Burgundian summer.

A more minor point struck me too. One of Jackson’s young sisters was played by Sally Ann Howe. She appeared in Ealing films throughout the Forties and grew up to be a star of Broadway and, of course, Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Yet when required to cry in Pink String and Sealing Wax her acting is wholly unconvincing.

And it’s not just her. Jon Whiteley made some really interesting films as a child in the 1950s, yet in an episode of The Adventures of Robin Hood, where he plays a boy whose pet goose had been stolen by the Sherriff of Nottingham, he can’t cry for toffees either.

By contrast, I have recently come across two examples of modern British filmmakers being astounded about what child actors can achieve. 

Here’s Garth Jennings talking about the two young leads in his delightful 2007 film Son of Rambow:

“They were self-confident, but still kids. They hadn’t been to any acting schools, they were still themselves. They were quite happy to play and if you wanted them to cry, they weren’t worried about not looking tough in front of anyone. 

“On the second day of shooting, we were shooting the end of the movie in the cinema. I thought, ‘This is going to be too much for little Will Poulter sitting there.’ I’m talking to him off-camera about what he’s looking at and there’s all these people sitting there in complete silence. He started to well up, tears start rolling down his face, and I was just thinking ‘Holy Jesus Christ, this kid is amazing! He has no idea, absolutely no idea how much he has just made my day!’”

And here’s Nick Holt, the director of Responsible Child, a BBC drama from 2019 that has just resurfaced on Netflix, talking about its 12-year-old star Billy Barratt in the Evening Standard:

“I was amazed with how much he let go, especially in the scenes we shot in the secure unit. These were some of our most traumatic set ups – but he realised them. He understood the darkness in the story but wasn’t intimidated or overwhelmed by it.”

Holt also said in an interview Drama Quarterly:

“With this story, not only do you have a young boy in every single scene, you have him in a story that’s incredibly raw and intense and involves a brutal murder. He needs to look quite adult and it’s difficult to find all that in the same place. 

“With Billy, as soon as we saw him he had those aspects. He’s incredibly mature for his age. There is a heart-wrenching scene I find difficult to watch even now. He was superb in that.”

Both Responsible Child (Best TV Movie/Mini-Series) and Billy Barratt (Best Actor) won International Emmys.

Involving children in such dramas, of course, raises ethical questions, but I know from my old day job how seriously production companies now take the safeguarding of young performers. And the networks wouldn’t risk touching them if the companies did anything else.

So why are child actors so good these days? The obvious answer is the growth of drama teaching in  both specialist and conventional schools. Will Poulter didn’t go to a stage school, but in interviews he often pays tribute to the drama classes at his school, while Billy Barratt attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School.

Will Poulter has gone on to a successful adult acting career, and Billy Barratt appears to have every chance of doing so, which suggests both are exceptionally talented, but then so was Sally Ann Howes. This suggests that child actors need teaching as well as natural talent.

Mention of Sylvia Young gives me an excuse to end with an anecdote from a Guardian profile of her published in 2022 (she died earlier this year):

Every year Young takes an assembly – the school has 220 full-time students, between the ages of 10 and 16, and 900 Saturday school attenders – and asks the children “what mustn’t we be?” she says, “and they all shout out ‘stage school brats!’”

Like Mr Bumble, one master of Brixworth Workhouse ended as an inmate of his own establishment

Replying to a comment on my post on Brixworth, I referred a the writer to a page on Brixworth Workhouse. Having done a little more research on the place, I have found a story with strong Dickensian echoes.

In the final chapter of Oliver Twist, Dickens tells us what becomes of his characters in later life. Charley Bates, for instance, seeing what has befallen his criminal associates, resolves to mend his ways and, after toiling as a farmer’s drudge and a carrier’s lad, finds himself "the merriest young grazier in all Northamptonshire".

Others are not so lucky:

Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, deprived of their situations, were gradually reduced to great indigence and misery, and finally became paupers in that very same workhouse in which they had once lorded it over others. Mr. Bumble has been heard to say, that in this reverse and degradation, he has not even spirits to be thankful for being separated from his wife.

And the same thing, says the Brixworth History Society site, happened to one of the masters of Brixworth Workhouse:

Brixworth Workhouse had eight Masters during its 98 year history with all their wives acting as Matrons. One Master, a James Macdonald in the 1890s, was a man with exceptional physique who would deter tramps from entering the Workhouse by exercising outside with a set of Indian clubs. It was the same Master who adorned his lavish sitting room with autographed photographs of Queen Mary and her brothers. 

Despite having taught deportment and physical exercise to royal pupils, when he left the Workhouse in 1898 he fell upon hard times himself and on returning to the Workhouse as an inmate, he died there a pauper.

I've also discovered that a study of the Brixworth Union – the collection of parishes that operated the workhouse – has been published. It's Protesting about Pauperism: Poverty, Politics and Poor Relief in Late-Victorian England, 1870-1900 by Elizabeth T. Hurren.

The more you find out, the more books there are to buy.

In search of the Lost Gunthorpe Toll Bridge over the River Trent

Gunthorpe Bridge on the A6097 is the only road crossing of the River Trent between Nottingham and Newark. Built in 1927, it replaced an earlier toll bridge that opened to traffic in 1875.

In this video, Trekking Exploration – subscribe and like, my pretties – goes in search of the toll house and of the bridge's abutments on either side of the river.

The Joy of Six 1445

"Whether it is the private contractors paid enormous sums of public money to bring prisoners to court failing to bring prisoners to court, or technology procured at vast public expense simply not working, or entire court buildings being shut down because the roof is falling in, the Crown Courts every single day endure absurd, entirely-fixable inefficiencies which contribute significantly to the backlog of work." The Secret Barrister explains that abolishing most jury trials will not touch the main causes of delay in the legal system.

Paul Bernal argues that banning children from social media is a very bad idea: "For the most part, most kids, most of the time, are able to navigate the internet – and in particular social media – in ways that work. Rather than being a cesspit of trolling and misinformation, the internet mostly works. Just like for the grown-ups, the internet is simply part of their lives – how they organise themselves, how they get information, how the socialise, how they do their (home)work, how they find entertainment, how they listen to music and watch television and movies, how they date, how they shop and much more."

"You only have to take a look recent exam papers to see the problem. For example, when my colleague Catherine Gower and I surveyed 219 GCSE, AS and A-level history papers issued in the summer of 2023, we found only 6 per cent of 991 exam questions directed students to discuss women (37 per cent directed students to discuss men)." Natasha R, Hodgson shows that women are largely absent from the questions, sources, and mark schemes that shape how history is taught and assessed in schools in England.

Municipal Dreams reviews Ned Hewitt's Housing the People of Leicester: A History of Social Housing: "Spending cuts and a cross-party emphasis on rehousing slum dwellers (previously excluded from council housing dues to its relatively high rents) from 1930 had their own impact. The North Braunstone Estate, built as a slum clearance estate, is one of many across the country that reflected both these aspects and suffered a resultant social stigma."

National Museums Scotland tells the fascinating story of the Isle of Lewis chessmen and their discovery.

"Living in the Past was a song in five/four time, with jazz flute solos, and grumpy lyrics about how the hippie lifestyle, with protests about war and talk about revolution, wasn’t for Anderson, who was also very staunchly opposed to drug use, and in general found little common cause with the hippies, despite his bearded, long-haired, eccentric appearance." Andrew Hickey on the eccentric single that became Jethro Tull's biggest hit.

Elvis Costello and The Attractions: Watch Your Step

This is immaculate. And doesn't he know it?

It's a live performance on American TV in 1981, introduced by someone who's been specially flown in from 1961.

Folk horror, Saxons and the workhouse: Brixworth on a sunny winter's afternoon

I went to Brixworth yesterday afternoon. It's a large village between Market Harborough and Northampton famous for its Saxon church. (The spire is a 14th-century addition.)

A low winter sun and bare tree branches always make for shadows that look like they are out of a folk horror film.

There is a horrible irony about the village. It's workhouse was notorious:

Soon after the Workhouse had opened the Secretary of State had to send a Bow Street Runner to Brixworth to investigate the strict policy being adopted by the Guardians regarding the payment of "out relief" to the poor and needy of the parish. Brixworth became known as the "dark portion of rural England" due to its almost complete withdrawal of "out relief".

Conditions inside the building were often criticised too as being prison like and spartan and Mrs Briddon, one of the cooks, described the food as meagre and tasteless. It was an institution feared by the old and needy, a place where families were split up and accommodated in single sex dormitories.

The surviving central block of the workhouse – it used to be considerably larger – now houses a cafe. I always feel guilty when I order my avocado toast and latte there.

Man sought over trousering of hedgehog statue

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award. 

The judges were also impressed by the photograph provided by Lincolnshire Police.

Write a guest post for Liberal England

The nights are drawing in. There’s nothing to watch on any of the 94 TV channels. Doom scrolling is all you have left for fun.

Don’t despair! You could cheer your evenings by writing a guest post for Liberal England.

It could be on the Liberal Democrats, politics more generally or… anything really. Why not something on a local campaign or quirky piece of history?

Please drop me an email if you want to discuss your idea first: I’d hate you to spend time on a piece I wouldn’t want to publish.

Here are the 10 most recent guest posts published here:

• Shut it! Two words of advice from Jack Regan – Peter Chambers
• Councillor defections: The trickle becomes a stream – Augustus Carp
• Let next week's online summer school rekindle your Radical Liberal fire – William Lane
• What is the technical debt of Thames Water? – Peter Chambers
• The Tyranny of Numbers by David Boyle – Anselm Anon
• Defections Update: Lib Dem Conference Special – Augustus Carp
• Artist Nick Jensen steps into history's shadow at Belvoir Castle – Matthew Pennell
• Reform are still gaining councillors and Labour and the Tories are still losing them – Augustus Carp
• In the cause of duty: Walter Stolworthy is remembered at Wymondham station – Neil Hickman
• Understanding the views and worries of the city of Oxford Lib Dem – William Lane

Walking Charles Dickens' London with John Rogers

Here's a seasonal treat: a tour of the areas of London associated with Charles Dickens – or at least some of them -– in the company of John Rogers.

John's YouTube blurb for this walk explains:

This Charles Dickens London Walking tour starts in Southwark where Dickens lived as a child while his father was held in Marshalsea Prison on Borough High Street. This influenced much of his writing, most notably Little Dorrit. There are also multiple references to character in The Pickwick Papers around Borough. 

After stopping by The George Tavern where Dickens used to drink we cross London Bridge which is mentioned in multiple Dickens novels - most strikingly in Oliver  Twist, we walk through the City of London, The Magic Lantern, visiting various locations mentioned in the works of Charles Dickens including St Peter's Cornhill, The Guildhall, The Bank of England, Mansion House. We also look for the site of the first address the Dickens family stayed at on Wood Street when they arrived from Chatham. 

From here we go via St Bartholomew's Hospital, site of the Fortune of War pub (A Tale of Two Cities) before going to Bleeding Heart Yard (Little Dorrit), Saffron Hill (Oliver Twist) and finishing at The Dickens Museum in Doughty Street.

John has a Patreon account to support his videos and he blogs at The Lost Byway.

National Trust seeks to buy land around the Cerne Abbas Giant

The National Trust has launched a £300,000 appeall to buy the land surrounding the Cerne Abbas Giant, reports BBC News. The site it hopes to acquire amounts to 341 acres, but size isn't everything.

The Guardian says it has already exchanged contracts on the site and will use funds, grants and bequests to cover £2.2m of the asking price. Presumably the £300,000 is needed on top of that.

Its report also says:

The planned purchase is expected to clear the way for more archaeological investigations around Britain’s largest chalk hill figure, which looms over the rolling Dorset landscape.

It would also mean more work can be done to protect the flora and fauna on the hillside, including the rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly. And the conservation charity hopes the purchase will lead to better access for people to the figure, with more chances for exploration and play.

The National Trust clearly regards this as a major project, because it is using the graphic above on social media to promote it.

You can donate to the Trust's Cerne Abbas Nature Appeal online.

The Joy of Six 1444

"The mansion tax will impact less than the top 0.7 per cent of households. At a time when Britain’s public services are stretched to breaking point and taxes will inevitably have to increase, it is only right that we asked the wealthiest property owners to contribute more. Asking the wealthiest to pay more to lift children out of poverty or to invest more in the NHS and social care is the fair thing to do. In fact, it is the Liberal Democrat thing to do, or at least it was up until a few days ago." Paul Hindley says Ed Davey should support the government's new mansion tax.

Robert Reich on Trump, billionaires and the media: "Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media? Vanity may play a part, but there’s a more pragmatic – some might say sinister – reason."

Save Ukraine shows how Russia teaches children to hate the West.

"Restoring ponds – old and new, rural and urban – is one of the simplest, most effective steps we can take. Every pond counts, from a farm hollow to a garden bowl. Together, they form networks that wildlife needs to survive and make our landscapes more resilient to climate change." Lucy Clarke explains why restoring Britain's ponds is vital for wildlife and climate resilience.

"Philosophy is the foundation of Stoppard’s plays. They cite Aquinas, Aristotle, Ayer, Bentham, Kant, Moore, Plato, Ramsey, Russell, Ryle and Zeno. One philosopher in Stoppard’s radio play Darkside is never sure if he is spelling Nietzsche correctly." Fergus Edwards examines the importance of philosophy to Tom Stoppard's work.

Graham McCann uncovers one of comedy's great feuds: Tommy Trinder vs Bruce Forsyth.

Boarding on Insanity documentary to be shown at Westminster

There will be a special screening of the film documentary Boarding on Insanity at Westminster on 19 January. The evening will be hosted by Simon Opher MP and feature a panel of speakers including Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and  Alex Renton.

A page about the event emphasises that the prevalence of boarding education is not a niche or historical issue, but a "public interest issue affecting safeguarding, social mobility, governance, mental and physical health across generations". You can see Piers Cross making that case in the video above.

Attendance is by invitation only. MPs and members of the media can apply for a place via the email address on the page. There is also a draft letter there that you can send to encourage your MP to attend.

I review Charles Spencer's book A Very Private School in the current Liberator.

After three years online, Leicester Gazette launches a print edition

Leicester Gazette is one of a new generation of local news outlets born out of the collapse of local newspapers and the right-wing bias of most national ones.

It began almost three years ago as a website – Reece Stafferton wrote a guest post for this blog outlining the Gazette's plans a few months before it launched.

Now comes news that the Gazette is to launch a print edition.

An article on the Gazette site says it will have 32 pages and be a unique "half Berliner" size – slightly larger than a magazine but with the feel and look of a traditional newspaper:

Creating a print edition is a new thing for us. Our core team is made up of trained journalists, but we have limited experience in print. If you notice any mistakes, please let us know – and please be gentle with us!

For our inaugural issue, we’ve included a mix of old and new. You'll find striking features from our regulars like Margaret Brecknell and Joseph Herbert, as well as reports from the local democracy reporting service. Our hope is that it gives new readers a taste of what we're all about.

Our first print run is 5,000 copies, with plans to publish quarterly and increase circulation with each issue.

I wish this exciting development well.

The Three Tuns in Bishop's Castle has reopened

Good news from the BBC News Shropshire pages:

A historic Shropshire pub has reopened under new ownership, five months after it shut and was branded by locals as an "embarrassment".

The Three Tuns Inn in Bishop's Castle, Shropshire, closed on 11 July due to "unforeseen circumstances", former owner Heineken Star Pubs said at the time.

Now its doors are open again under the management of The Shed, a Shropshire-based events and hospitality business.

I visited Bishop's Castle this summer and found the Three Tuns closed and the town, partly as a result, rather depressed.

As Darren Dixon, one of the new landlords, told BBC News, "It's a great pub that should never really have closed."

He said there is investment planned with the neighbouring, Three Tuns Brewery that will "reshape the image" of the pub. Its appearance has been criticised in the town, as it has fallen into a state of disrepair.

A chance to see Frankie Howerd's Bottom

Put your titters away, because I'm talking about Shakespeare. In 1957 Frankie Howerd was invited to appear as Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Vic.

And very good he was to, at least according to Francis Wyndham in The Queen (7 January 1958):

Some members of the audience may have feared that his gift for gagging might interfere with the sacred text; others, that his comic genius might be constrained within the limitations of a classic. 

On the first night he struck a happy medium, under-acting in the rehearsal and Titania scenes but bursting out with hilarious bravado when performing Pyramus before the Duke. This play scene can have seldom been made so funny.

You can see Howerd's Bottom ("Shut your face.") in the video above.

Far down the cast as First Fairy ("And that's an achievement when you're with this lot, I can tell you.") was a young Judi Dench. You can see and hear her below.

We're building walls to separate social and private housing again

The segregation of the classes is back, and it's not done only by price. Here's a report by Jessica Murray and Michael Goodier from the Guardian:

The homes of people in Nunsthorpe, a postwar former council housing estate known locally as “The Nunny”, sit only a few metres away from their more affluent neighbours in Scartho with their conservatories and driveways.

Walking between the two is almost impossible because of a 1.8-metre-high (6ft) barricade between them, which blocks off roads and walkways that link the two areas in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.

Journeys that should only take a few seconds become a 25-minute walk down to the open field on the edge of the estate, or through the grounds of a hospital, to bypass the wall.

When I read that, I remembered that such walls had been put up in the 1930s. And then I saw that Municipal Dreams had posted a couple of examples from his blog on Bluesky.

The first was in Oxford, where in the city council built its Cutteslowe Estate. A couple of its roads joined up with roads on a private estate recently built by private developers, the Urban Housing Company:

The Company alleged council tenants were responsible for vandalism on the private estate. It also claimed that the rehousing of former slum-dwellers on the estate breached an undertaking given by the Council that it wouldn’t be used for this purpose. 

Whatever the (not so) niceties, it’s not hard to see the naked class prejudice and commercial interest that lay behind the Company’s supposed grievances. It erected two-metre high, spiked walls – separating the council homes from their private equivalents – across the connecting streets in December 1934. They forced a 600-metre detour for council estate residents trying to reach the main road.

And the second was in Lewisham, where this was the reaction to the opening of the council's Downham Estate: 

In 1926, a seven-foot high wall capped with broken glass was built across the street to the adjacent private estate, intended to prevent Downham’s residents using the street as a short-cut to Bromley town centre. The wall remained till 1950.

It was worse than that in Oxford where the Cotteslowe Walls lasted until 1959.

But they did come down. Today's society is putting walls up again.

The Joy of Six 1443

"Companies that have collaborated with immigration enforcement agencies in various ways to aid Trump’s mass deportation initiative – whether through allowing ICE to raid their parking lots, taking on contracts with DHS, or a variety of other actions – are starting to feel the rumblings of a consumer revolt." Adrian Carrasquillo says a backlash Is brewing against companies that help Trumps's ICE.

Rowena Mason maps the depressing journey of Motability cuts from right-wing social media to Rachel Reeves' budget.

Matt Simon finds that urban farms and gardens ease food insecurity, boost mental health and create communities.

"Getting Franklin’s story right is crucial, because she has become a role model for women going into science. She was up against not just the routine sexism of the day, but also more subtle forms embedded in science – some of which are still present today." Matthew Cobb and Nathaniel Comfort argue that the role of Rosalind Franklin in the discovery of DNA is still misunderstood.

"By the early 1940s, Watson had also become increasingly uncomfortable about the methods used in dairy and egg production, and so began to exclude all animal-based foodstuffs from his diet." Margaret Brecknell introduces us to Leicester's Donald Watson, the founder of the modern vegan movement.

Frank Collins reviews the 1947 film It Always Rains on Sunday. He says its director, Robert Hamer "seems to have regularly fought a corner for women working in film at Ealing, a studio often criticised for its very male view point of the world, and [Googie] Withers is a strong presence in many of his films.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Dame Agatha Mousetrap

And so another week at Bonkers Hall draws to a close. It looks like Keir Starmer is in the clear for a while, but I still wouldn't accept any invitations to stay on mysterious islands off the Devon coast if I were in his shoes.

Sunday

These days every television celebrity thinks he’s Dame Agatha Mousetrap, but there’s more to the whodunnit-writing game than meets the eye. I once had a shot at it myself; all went well until I sat down to pen the final chapter, only to find I had not included a butler among the cast of characters and thus had no murderer to reveal. 

My reason for mentioning this is that if the prime minister has been knifed by this own party by the time you read this, it will be like Murder on the Orient Express. They’ll all have had a go at him.

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

Earlier this week

• One of Violent Bonham Carter’s boys
• A phone number for the Overton-Window twins
• "I’ll fetch you one up the bracket"
• A young Marines officer called Ashdown
• A strange episode
• He should ask an eagle to do it

J.W. Logan left an estate worth £13m in today's money

My hero J.W. Logan – nicknamed "Paddy Logan" for his strong support for Irish home rule – died in 1925. He had been Liberal MP for Harborough from 1891 to 1904 and from 1910 to 1916.

He left, reported the London Daily Chronicle (Monday 21 September 1925), an estate of £167,159.

According to an online inflation calculator, £100 in 1925 is worth £7,769.23 today. So, after consulting the University of Rutland's celebrated Department of Hard Sums, I can reveal that Logan left an estate worth almost £13m.

No wonder he was able to provide Market Harborough with swimming baths and sports and recreation grounds. He also bought the local paper to ensure good coverage for the Liberals - what Nick Gibb would call "impartial" coverage.

The Daily Chronicle report lists some annuities that Logan bequeathed to his staff, among them his gardener.

My suspicion is that Lord Bonkers has made similarly generous provision for Meadowcroft in his will, but is determined to become immortal – all those trips to Hebden Bridge to bathe in the spring of immortal life that bursts from the ground below the former headquarters of the Association of Liberal Councillors and all those bottle of cordial he buys from the Elves of Rockingham Forest – so it is never paid out.

Magistrate Dr Delicate censured for swearing

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.

The good doctor's response was a bit "I'm sorry if you feel you've been sworn at":

Dr Delicate, who hitherto had a five-year unblemished record, apologised "if such behaviour occurred", and said some of her actions may have been misinterpreted.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: He should ask an eagle to do it

On Friday it was Peter the Painter: today it's Gandalf the Grey. You meet all sorts in Rutland.

It sounds as though Meadowcroft would have seen eye-to-eye with Hugo Dyson. Legend has it that he responded to Tolkien reading something from Lord of the Rings at a meeting of the Inklings in an Oxford pub by groaning "Oh fuck, not another elf."

Saturday

On Bonfire Night I was accosted at the village firework display by a white-bearded fellow who claimed to be a wizard. He said they were looking for a couple of chaps to trek into eastern Rutland and drop a ring into a crack that led to the earth’s molten core. Did, he asked, yours truly and my gardener fancy the job? He could guarantee that the gardener would get to meet an elf. 

I’m afraid I gave him both barrels, pointing out that the existence of a pothole that deep reflected poorly on the ward councillor. I added that I had tried taking a holiday with Meadowcroft, but he had done nothing but complain that he had to sit at the rear of the tandem and I wasn’t going to repeat the experiment. As to meeting elves, Meadowcroft was often be found chasing them out his herbaceous borders with a broom. 

My advice was that, if he was so keen to have a ring dropped down the dashed hole, he should ask an eagle to do it.

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

Earlier this week

• One of Violent Bonham Carter’s boys
• A phone number for the Overton-Window twins
• "I’ll fetch you one up the bracket"
• A young Marines officer called Ashdown
• A strange episode