The Joy of Six 1302

Clare Coffey watches It's a Wonderful Life: "It is seeing Mary without him that breaks George enough to make him ask for life, as it is her just anger at him that sends him into the most desperate phase of his downward spiral."

"A target will probably be someone who has particular weaknesses that can be exploited, often revolving around money or sex. They are seldom at the very pinnacle of power. But that, in itself, can leave them resentful and hungry for affirmation." Philip Murphy believes the British establishment offers a "target-rich environment" to spies.

Timothy Garton Ash asks what will happen if Russia wins in Ukraine: "Ukraine would be defeated, divided, demoralised and depopulated. The money would not come in to reconstruct the country; instead, another wave of people would leave it ... Europe as a whole would see an escalation of the hybrid war that Russia is already waging against it, still largely unnoticed by most blithely Christmas-shopping west Europeans."

Chris Dillow on the rise of managerialism and fall of British business management: "Managerialism has a messiah complex and belief in great leaders, whereas management looks for good fits between bosses and roles. Managerialism tries to apply the same methods everywhere, whereas management knows it is domain-specific; what works in (say) supermarkets might not work in universities."

The inter-war council estates that George Orwell wrote about in The Road to Wigan Pier are visited by Municipal Dreams.

"Thirkell makes quite a few stealth jokes about sexuality that have a camp insouciance, in strong contrast to her otherwise default tone of extreme social conservatism." Kate Macdonald considers the contrasting treatment of male homosexuality and lesbianism in the novels of Angela Thirkell.

A brief defence of teaching Latin and natural history in state schools

I went to a comprehensive, I received free school meals, I even had Allison Pearson in the same class. But I still took and passed O level Latin.

Which made me sad to read this story in Schools Week:

Thousands of secondary pupils are facing "significant disruption" after the government scrapped its state school Latin programme mid-year as it seeks to plug a fiscal black hole.

In a letter seen by Schools Week, the Department for Education has informed schools it is terminating its Latin Excellence Programme in February.

The £4 million scheme was supposed to run until 2026, but government has enacted a break clause to end it earlier. The scheme provided a centre of excellence to create resources for partner schools, and also funded teacher salaries and trips to Rome.

Money is tight, but having read recently that the proposed GCSE in natural history is on hold because it's seen as a Tory initiative,* I suspect a combination of inverse snobbery and Gradgrindery is at work here too.

For myself, and perhaps because we received so little formal grammar teaching in English in those days, I found studying Latin invaluable because it taught me how languages work. That was about the most useful knowledge I brought to studying philosophy at university, though those staples of primary school maths, Venn diagrams, proved to he useful in proving the validity or not of syllogisms.

A few weeks ago, Liberal Democrat MPs were posting about their belief in choice in education as a way of justifying their opposition to VAT on school fees. If choice is good for those who can afford private education, then it is good for everyone.

So I hope to see them posting in favour of giving state schools the freedom to offer a diverse curriculum - including natural history and Latin.

* Mary Colwell once wrote a guest post for this blog making the case for this qualification, The idea that natural history is somehow Tory reminds me that George Orwell began one of his As I Please columns in Tribune: "Last time I mentioned flowers in this column an indignant lady wrote in to say that flowers are bourgeois." 

Bob Trubshaw on the ironstone railways of Leicestershire

A thorough survey of a vanished local industry and its associated railways. At 33:20 we visit Nevill Holt, which is believed by many scholars to be the inspiration for Bonkers Hall.

"A handbag?" Edward Fox hears about Michael Medwin's childhood

Embed from Getty Images

I've found it!

When I disappeared down the rabbit hole of the childhood of the British film actor and producer Michael Medwin in August, I came across an account of talking about it at some event where he shared the platform with Edward Fox. But I couldn't find it again after I emerged into the fresh air.

Now I have. I was thinking of an interview with Andrew Young of The Herald - Medwin was about to play Colonel Pickering to Fox's Professor Higgins in a touring production of My Fair Lady that was coming to Glasgow.

Young writes:

It was my innocent question about what I supposed to be his own Cockney roots that brought about the most remarkable revelation concerning his background. Home truths about which even Edward Fox (whowas sitting in on the chat) had be en completely unaware.

''I was one of life's social indiscretions,'' he said. ''Adopted and brought up by two maiden ladies in Dorset. In other words, I'm a bastard.'' This bold, freely-offered information provoked paroxysms of mirth in Fox.

A lucky bastard, as it happened. ''It was a most felicitious adoption. I had a halcyon upbringing and was not prepared for the world at all. Things were very quiet and lovely. The maiden ladies were a Dr Mary Jeremy, OBE, and a Miss Clockton Roberts. The former was an OBE because there were not many lady doctors around at the time and she had done much good work in India before the 1914-18 war.''

The ladies then ''put me through the local public school and then sent me off to what you might call a finishing school in Switzerland. Being maiden ladies, presumably they had it in their heads that that was the natural progression.

''I was with them until they died, Dr Jeremy when I was 12, and Miss Roberts when I was in my twenties. So I have no-one in the world. I have no relations that I know about.''

In tracing his ancestry back to his mother and father, all he had ever learned was that his mother came from Dublin and his father was Dutch.

''For a long time I kept hoping that I would be traced by someone who would tell me that I was a Guinness heir and that all this was mine.''

Fox, who would be an asset to any audience, had by this time gone into spasms of laughter that were obviously causing him great pain. ''A handbag? A handbag?'' he shrieked, Lady Bracknell-like, although, so far as he knew, Medwin had not actually been found in one.

Honestly, what is Edward Fox like? I can't understand someone who finds orphans funny.

The comforting lie de Gaulle told France after the second world war

This blog's hero Neal Ascherson has a piece in the new London Review of Books. It's a review of Julian Jackson's France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain.

Pétain, a hero of the first world war, headed the collaborationist Vichy regime after the German invasion during the second. After the Allied victory, he was tried for treason, convicted and sentenced to death. Because of his age (he was 89), this was commuted to life imprisonment and he died in 1951.

Ascherson writes of the detailed charges bought against Pétain:

Nothing shows better than this trial the way perspectives on the Second World War have changed almost out of recognition in the course of the last eighty years. In much of the world, children can now leave school vaguely believing that the war was fought to save the Jews from the Holocaust. 

But in 1945 Pétain’s indictment included only a brief mention of ‘abominable racial laws’, referring to Vichy’s antisemitic discrimination, and said nothing specific about the mass round-ups and deportations to the gas chambers that were made possible by the collaboration of French police, ministry officials and railway managers.

Incredibly, no Jewish survivors of the camps stood as witnesses at the trial. Antisemitism lay somewhere in the background here, but more immediately important was de Gaulle’s shamelessly misleading version of French behaviour under the occupation. 

Almost everyone, it ran, had supported the Resistance in thought if not in deed, and France had been let down only by a small clique of traitors. This new myth plastered over the fact that Vichy and its policy of keeping the Germans contented had been accepted, with intense and bitter reluctance, by most of the population during the early war years.

Josh Reynolds takes no nonsense from Amazon boss

Josh Reynolds MP repeatedly attempts to get Amazon boss Jennifer Kearney to answer his question about why so many of her staff have chosen to go on strike.

He is the youngest Liberal Democrat MP, sitting for Maidenhead. Slightly mysteriously, Wikipedia says he was born in 1998 or 1999.

The Joy of Six 1301

"The international community has failed to rise to the occasion. Western governments have largely confined their responses to handwringing statements of “concern” over the violence, and the introduction of travel restrictions on a few government officials. The EU’s hands have been tied by Hungary and Slovakia, who have threatened to veto any effort to introduce tougher measures, such as sanctions." Alexandra Hall Hall says the West will regret abandoning the Georgian people to the clutches of Russia.

Gilo dissects the culture that prevents Church of England bishops from speaking out on abuse in the Church of England.

Jonathan Liew finds that the brave new world of cricket is now so new after all: "All over the world, at differing rates, players are learning that cricket’s new dawn is really the oldest tale of all: a game that was always rigged against them. Where a few get rich, and the rest simply fight over the scraps."

New research reveals that Doggerland - a sunken swath of Europe connecting Britain to the mainland - was more than a simple thoroughfare. It was home, reports Tristan McConnell.

"'I loved that man,' Kenneth Williams wrote that night in his diary. 'His unselfish nature, his kindness, tolerance and gentleness were an example to everyone'. Barry Took, one of Horne's regular scriptwriters, was similarly moved, describing him as 'one of the few great men I have met, and his generosity of spirit and gesture have, in my experience, never been surpassed'." Graham McCann looks back on the career of the comedian Kenneth Horne.

Francis Young considers a seasonal theological dispute: "It does seem that in the minds of some clergy, Jesus Christ and Santa Claus exist in a kind of cosmic opposition, with belief in Santa representing a hindrance to faith in children because it keeps faith always at the level of childish fantasy. The trouble with this approach, however, is that it fundamentally fails to understand the nature of faith and belief - and speaks, in fact, to a deep lack of faith in those religious believers who feel threatened by myth and story."

GUEST POST Councillors changing party: Christmas update

Augustus Carp finds that 84 councillors have changed allegiance since his last report.

The last time I reviewed the state of political defections by councillors was in October, so a brief update is probably in order. The rate of change seems to have picked up since the autumn - 84 councillors on first-tier authorities have changed allegiances in the last three months.

The significant beneficiary has been Reform UK, which has picked up 16 councillors from the Conservatives and the Independents. There are some examples of 'slow burn' defections, with councillors going Independent before joining Reform.  It will be interesting to see if more of these become apparent in the spring, particularly in the run up to council elections in May (assuming, of course, that the Labour government allows us to have them).

The Conservatives have lost 22 councillors, Labour 19, the Lib Dems six and the Greens two. The Nationalists have acquired one new councillor.  The balancing figure is 32 new Independents.  Note that these are net figures, which can disguise a lot of movement – even Reform lost one councillor to the Independents. There are also a few examples of 'double hatting', where one individual has defected from two council groups.

Aberdeenshire seems to have had the most febrile body politic recently, with five individuals responsible for seven events - two of those being delayed defections to Reform from the Conservatives via the Independents. Newcastle has experienced 6 defections from Labour, who have formed a new Independent group, and North East Derbyshire has seen four new Independents, with three from the Lib Dems and one from the Tories.

No other authorities have seen more than three recorded changes of political allegiance, but for all we know there might be turbulence beneath the surface which will only become apparent when political pressures (or personal animosities) become too great to bear.  

As ever, these figures have been taken from reliable sources, but might not stand up to rigorous forensic scrutiny, so are provided on an “errors and omissions excepted” basis.  I will try to do a full tally scorecard for 2024 some time in the new year, but in the meantime, "a deep and meaningful Yuletide scenario to you all".  

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

Snailbeach like it used to be

Embed from Getty Images

This is Snailbeach as I first saw it. The white heaps of spoil from the lead mines made it a miniature version of the china clay country in Cornwall.

That was on 3 June 1989 - I can date it so accurately because I remember it as the day England best  Poland 3-0, the unexpectedly comfortable victory doing much to secure our qualification for Italia 90.

This photograph was taken in 1995, which I suspect was the year the bulldozers moved in to landscape the tips.

You can read more about Snailbeach in the old days in guest posts by:

• Christina Samson - Memories of Snailbeach in the 1950s
• Eric Loveland Heath - Snailbeach and the music of abandonment

This video explains the thinking behind Tiny Forests

A Tiny Forest is coming to The Headlands in Market Harborough. This video tells you all how Tiny Forests are grown and what they are intended to achieve.

Judge who took bribes in return for locking up children given clemency by Joe Biden

Embed from Getty Images

Joe Biden had managed to grant a pardon more controversial than the one he gave to his son Hunter..

Democracy Now explains:

Biden announced nearly 1500 commutations and pardons last week in what the White House described as the largest single-day act of clemency from a president, but among those whose sentences were reduced is former Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan - one of two judges in the notorious "kids for cash" scandal. 

In 2011, Conahan was sentenced to 17.5 years for accepting nearly $3 million in kickbacks for sending 2,300 children, some as young as 8 years old, to for-profit prisons on false charges. His co-conspirator, former Judge Mark Ciavarella, remains in prison.

Offenders guilty of sexual or violent offences were not eligible for this clemency. An exclusion should also have been made for judges convicted of conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice.

This kids for cash scandal was shocking, but should not have been surprising in a prison system designed to generate private profit. 

I have tended to see things this way since reading Crime Control as Industry by Nils Christie.

First newspaper listing for what became the Spencer Davis Group?

It's not much to look at, but this notice from the Birmingham Mail for 23 October 1963 sets a new record for the earliest press mention of Steve Winwood I can find.

The previous record was 3 December 1963, and because new titles are being added to the British Newspaper Archive all the time, it's possible that this one will be broken too.

Here again, though he was only 15, Steve Winwood shares top billing with Spencer Davis. The band has not yet become the Spencer Davis Group.

This notice is on page 2 of the newspaper. Stories on page 1 include:

• Final moves made to allow prime minister Alec Douglas Home to renounce his peerage;
• All seven aboard a test flight of the BAC III die when it crashes in Wiltshire;
• Michael Foot continues to recover from a serious car accident.

Spencer Davis is in the Manchester Evening News for 18 October 1963, but it looks as though he was sitting in with the Graham Bond Organisation the following evening rather than playing with the rest of the SDG.

The Joy of Six 1300

"The lesson of the 1974 reorganisation is not that it put in place a robust system of local government which would survive for 50 or 70 years like the previous arrangements, but that it heralded a near-permanent revolution of structures and types of leadership." Tony Travers on the perils of reorganising local government.

Freethinking Economist asks why Labour expects to improve Britain's record on economic growth when its policies are so similar to those that have been tried in the past.

"In the years AD ('after Dennett'), the story continues and - in large part because of Dennett - philosophy of mind divested itself of its obsession with our ordinary thought and talk about the mind, and instead took its inspiration from science - in particular, neuroscience." Tim Bayne examines Daniel Dennett's contribution to philosophy.

"When the Prince of Orange marched in triumph into London, in December 1688, he did so after ordering all the remaining English troops in the capital to withdraw a minimum of 20 miles from the city. The bulk of the Dutch army was brought into, or placed around, London; Dutch Blue Guards took up all the posts around Whitehall and Hyde Park; and London remained under Dutch military occupation for 18 months." An old article by Jonathan Israel challenges the Whig account of the Glorious Revolution.

Olivia Petter explains why digital cameras are back.

Jonathan Nunn argues that the East End's pie and mash shops were responsible for their own demise: "Outside the East London hipster stereotype, there is still a working-class in Cockney heartlands – in Bow, in Whitechapel, in Dagenham, in Romford – they just happen to not all be white. Pie and mash shops could and should have adapted to bring this demographic in. They could have ensured their survival by instilling a new generation with some sense of ownership over it. Instead, they have chose"n to become ossified.

Launde Abbey: Thomas Cromwell's little heaven here on earth

There is an abbey, Launde, in the heart of England. The air is always sweet there and it's quiet. A little heaven here on earth. And I think to myself: "I'll live here one day, when all my work is done."

These were Thomas Cromwell's last words in the wonderful Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light yesterday evening.

Launde is a real place and still much as Cromwell described it - a green bowl in the hills of High Leicestershire.

Today Launde Abbey is a Church of England retreat house. Its website sets out the site's history:

Launde Abbey was founded as an Augustinian priory in 1119 by Richard Basset, a royal official of Henry I. During the first century of its life the community buildings, cloister and garth were built, including an imposing church of which one side chapel still survives, now used as the Chapel at the present-day Abbey.

Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister responsible for the dissolution of the monasteries, found Launde’s location very desirable. After visiting the priory in April 1540 he wrote in his Remembrances (a kind of personal journal) "Myself for Launde," although he never occupied the house as he was executed just three months later for treason. 

His son Gregory, however, had kept royal favour – no doubt helped by his marriage to Elizabeth Seymour, sister to Henry VIII’s beloved wife Jane – and lived at Launde Abbey with Elizabeth for ten years; during this time he had some of the dilapidated monastic buildings restored or rebuilt. Gregory was buried at Launde and a monument erected by his wife remains in the Chapel to this day.

I took these photos at some sort of open day back in 2008. I understand the buildings at Launde have been fully restored since then and the site is looking far more prosperous. You can find a photograph of the interior of the chapel, including the monument to Gregory Cromwell, on the Launde Abbey website.

We knew how to celebrate election victories in Harborough in 1892

This blog's hero J.W. 'Paddy' Logan gained Harborough from the Conservatives at a by-election in May 1891 and held it at the general election the following July.

The Leicester Chronicle (8 August 1892) reported the resultant celebrations:

On Saturday afternoon the Liberals of the Harborough Division visited the residence of Mr, J.W. Logan, M.P., at East Langton Grange, to celebrate the triumphant return of that gentleman to Parliament. 

An immense number of people were present from all parts of the division, long special trains running from Leicester. 

Tea was partaken of in the riding school, and in the evening a public meeting was held, when congratulatory speeches were delivered, to which Mr. Logan responded.

Good news: Tiny Forests are coming to Harborough

From HFM News:

Tennis-court sized areas of woodland known as ‘Tiny Forests’ are set to be created in two parts of the Harborough District.

Areas on The Headlands in Market Harborough and Devitt Way in Broughton Astley have been selected for the project, which will see hundreds of fast-growing trees put in the ground.

Tiny Forests? Earthwatch explains:

A Tiny Forest is a dense, fast-growing native woodland, about the size of a tennis court. These forests are not only great homes for butterflies, birds, bees and other wildlife but also a place for people to connect with, and learn about, nature. Each forest is a unique public asset – planted and cared for by the local community.

These super tiny, super powerful forests aim to mimic natural forests but in a small space. They include a mix of native trees which, over time, will create a wildlife-rich woodland. Tiny Forests don’t require much space and they can be planted anywhere that land is available – in a park, school or on a brownfield site.

Neil Sedaka: One-Way Ticket to the Blues

I came across a singles chart from 1979, and there among the New Wave classics was a disco track: One Way Ticket by Eruption. I was pleased to be reminded of it - it's a good record - and almost chose it for today's Sunday music video.

But then I got into the history of One Way Ticket and found that the original version had been on the B-side of Neil Sedaka's 1959 hit Oh! Carol. (Carol, as you probably know, was Carol Klein, a former girlfriend of his, who we know as the singer and songwriter Carole King.)

One Way Ticket, though, is not a Neil Sedaka song - it was written by by Jack Keller and Hank Hunter. Keller, like Sedaka and Carole King, was one of the Brill Building stable of songwriters.

There's a lot wrong with One Way Ticket - the very 1959 backing singers, the cutesy references to other songs in the lyrics, Sedaka's 'laugh in the voice' singing style - but it's still an exiting record and must have sounded even more so when it was first released.

Meet C.W. Allen: Market Harborough's champion walker of the Edwardian era

Remember C.W. Allen, the "pedestrian holder of the 2,000 miles road record" who saw a phantom airship over Kelmarsh? He turns out to have been quite a figure in his day: the newspapers were full of reports of his feats and appearances.

Here is an account of a visit he paid to Great Malvern in 1905, which was recycled by the Worcester News a century later:

How To Walk And The Boots To Wear was a headline in the Malvern Gazette 100 years ago.

It came as Mr C W Allen, the champion long-distance pedestrian of the world, gave an exhibition of his powers in Malvern.

"At six o'clock in the evening, he started from Mr Oliver's boot stores on the Promenade and walked along the Belle Vue Terrace, through the Wyche cutting, round the hills by West and North Malvern, down Trinity Bank to the Graham Road and up Church Street to the starting point," the paper reported.

"This walk, which is practically an afternoon's walk to an ordinary individual, and has plenty of difficult ascents, he accomplished in the marvellous time of 49 minutes, or at the rate of eight miles an hour.

"A considerable number of people watched him en-route and the critics had to admit that in spite of the rapidity with which he travelled, it was a fair and square walk with no suspicion of breaking into a run.

"Mr Allen wore a pair of Oliver's celebrated boots and stated that he never had any others to beat them as regards wear and ease and comfort."

But then Allen, whose forenames I have yet to discover, was a great one for endorsing things. He endorsed the tonic Phosferine tonic in the makers' advertisements, even when he had joined up as an air mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps during the first world war.

Another Phosferine advertisement gives Allen's home address: 43 Nithsdale Avenue, Market Harborough.

The illustration above is one of a number of postcards of Allen that the CardHawk site has sold in recent years. You will see that in this one he is endorsing Harboro Rubber Soles, which were made at the Dainite Mill in St Mary's Road by the Harborough Rubber Company.

Later. A reader has researched this (thank you!) and his full name was Charles William Allen. He was a commercial traveller working for a boot manufacturer, so he was a walking advertisement.

Allen was originally from Stroud. His first child was born in Market Harborough, but he had left the town before the 1911 census and was living on Jersey in 1921.

It occurs to me that he may have seen that airship because he was off his tits on Phosferine.

The Joy of Six 1299

Arthur Snell explains why Assad was so violent: "The implications of a small, historically marginal and theologically unorthodox group holding the reins of power are clear: from the start they have had a strong incentive to shore up their power-base through inter-marriage, self-enrichment and repression of the majority."

"A decade ago, liberals, liberaltarians and straight libertarians could readily enthuse about “liberation technologies” and Twitter revolutions in which nimble pro-democracy dissidents would use the Internet to out-maneuver sluggish governments. Technological innovation and liberal freedoms seemed to go hand in hand. Now they don’t. Authoritarian governments have turned out to be quite adept for the time being, not just at suppressing dissidence but at using these technologies for their own purposes." Henry Farrell analyses the changing politics of Silicon Valley.

Isabelle Roughol and John Elledge take us on a women's history tour along London’s Suffragette line: "In a tale as old as social progress itself, suffragists and suffragettes clashed with one another over issues of ideological purity and how to win over public opinion. As the suffragettes’ tactics got increasingly radical, 50,000 women marched on London’s streets in 1913 to say 'Not in our name!'"

"The sea has been pressing back into the boulder clay here for centuries, claiming churches, homes, villages and lives. Ten miles north of Withernsea, at Aldbrough, I saw a recently tarmacked road charging confidently out into thin air like something from a Road Runner cartoon." David Hancox writes about living on the fastest-eroding coastline in Europe.

"Her new home in Rotherfield, East Sussex had fifty acres and included a lake, topiary and an orangery. Lisa Marie cooked, gardened, created her own pub at the house where local friends such as Jeff Beck would pop by for a pint and a singalong." Jessica Olin reviews Lisa Marie Presley's posthumous memoir.

Charles Bramesco argues that David Lynch's Dune (1984) is due a re-evaluation.

Tracing the route of Butterley Tunnel on the Cromford Canal

The 3083-yard Butterley tunnel is the great obstacle to the full restoration on the Cromford Canal. It was condemned as beyond economic repair as long ago as 1909.

In this great video, Trekking Exploration - subscribe to his YouTube account at once - begins at Codnor Reservoir, the first of three that supplied water to the summit level of the Cromford Canal. He then visits the Eastern portal of Butterley Tunnel before following the length of it above ground to the Western portal. He ends at Hartshay Wharf near Ripley.

If you want to see what conditions are like beneath the ground, have a look at the Friends of Cromford Canal site, which has photographs from a 1979 inspection.

And the Wikipedia entry for Butterley Tunnel tells us something remarkable:

About 880 yards (800m) from the tunnel's western portal there is an underground wharf about 60 yards (55m) long with the tunnel here widened to about 16 feet (4.9m). 

One of the horizontal tunnels departing from the tunnel at this point used to run to the Butterley Company's Butterley Carr Pit which opened in 1812 and loaded its coal directly into narrow boats at the underground wharf. 

There were also vertical shafts from the wharf which allowed goods in tram boxes to be lowered directly from and lifted up to the Butterley Company's works (on the hill above the tunnel) to and from the underground wharf.

Vince Cable nails Labour's "big mistake" in opposition

The University of York student newspaper York Vision has an interview with the city's famous son Vince Cable.

Asked for his reaction to Rachel Reeves's budget, Vince says:

"It was necessary to have a substantial increase in taxation because public services are in a very poor state. I think people have to get used to the idea that if they want good public services, they have to pay for them. That means taxation. So, yes, I agree with that.

"I think the big negative thing, which is not about the budget itself, but the preparations. I think the Labour Party made a bad mistake in opposition, not being honest about the need to raise taxation substantially. And they should have said to people that you’re going to have to pay more VAT, more income tax.

"But as a result of not doing that, what they’ve got into looks a bit sneaky, and they’ve got into bad taxes. This national insurance for employers looks like a victimless tax but it’s actually going to hit consumers, it’s going to hit workers indirectly. It’s not the best way to raise taxation."

Asked what the Liberal Democrats should do to become the official Opposition in Parliament, Vince stressed the importance of Europe, local government and climate change:

"I think they need to be a bit more explicit about Europe and the commitment to Europe. I would be much more outspoken in saying Britain needs to have higher taxes for better public services, and I think particularly areas like education.

"I think the Lib Dems should be ... pushing very hard to get more funding into local government rather than central government, because ... councils are closer to the public. At the moment, they’re disempowered, and many of them are bankrupt, so I think reforming local government  would be a high priority."

And on electoral reform, he had no time for the argument that the rise of Reform should make Lib Dems reconsider their support for it:

"We do need electoral reform. The fact that you get more people from Reform is neither here nor there. They exist as a force. We’ve seen with Trump, we’ve seen in Germany that populist parties are very, by definition, very popular. Just sweeping them under a carpet and pretending that they don’t exist is the worst kind of response."

When I was a student at York in an earlier life, there was only one newspaper on campus, Nous. Judging by its website, it is still going strong.

Maria Jones from The Box of Delights would agree that Die Hard is a Christmas film

There must have been a time when arguing that Die Hard is a Christmas film, or that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the best filmed version of the book, was novel and interesting. That time ended some years ago.

But there is one character in John Masefield's The Box of Delights, a book that, like A Christmas Carol, encompasses the Christmas and pagan sides of the festival, who would certainly agree about Die Hard.

She is Maria Jones, who complains: 

"Christmas ought to be brought up to date. It ought to have gangsters and aeroplanes, and a lot of automatic pistols."

I took that quote from a good essay on The Box of Delights by Bob Fischer. In particular, he argues convincingly that if you read the first book about Kay Harker, The Midnight Folk, and then read the full original text of The Box of Delights, then the revelation that it was all a dream does not come as a great surprise.

A word too for the BBC radio adaptation of The Box of Delight that won my heart in the 1960s.

David Hemmings in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (BBC, 1980)

Made by the BBC in 1980, this is a superior telling of the tale. It features David Hemmings in the two title roles, with support from Lisa Harrow, Ian Bannen, Clive Swift, Toyah Wilcox and Diana Dors.

The change in Hemmings when he transitions from Jekyll to Hyde is a remarkable one. The baroque facial hair of a Victorian gentleman falls away, revealing the glamorous film star beneath. A few years later Hemmings was to look more like Jekyll than Hyde in real life, but in 1980 he was still recognisable as the lead in Blow-Up.

A problem with the story is that the revelation that Jekyll and Hyde are the same man was the climax of the original story, whereas that is now the one thing that everyone knows about it. So those who adapt it have to introduce a new ending. The one here, as Jekyll loses control of when he turns into Hyde and then of what he turns into, does not disgrace the original.

And, let's face it, any film with Hemmings in is worth a look.

The mysterious drones seen over New Jersey and the phantom airships of 1909

From the Guardian:

The mysterious reported sightings of drone clusters in the night skies over New Jersey and other parts of the US north-east has prompted frustrated outbursts from Congress members, triggering calls for a limited state of emergency to be declared over the region.

Jon Bramnick, a Republican state senator in New Jersey, has demanded a ban on all drones until the mystery is solved. ABC’s Action News reported that he called for a “limited state of emergency … until the public receives an explanation regarding these multiple sightings”.

Concern about unexplained drone sightings began in mid-November as isolated postings by local residents on social media. The issue has steadily risen up the political food chain, bursting this week on to the stage of state and federal authorities.

And you can see a report from yesterday's CBS Evening News above - note its use of that fashionable measure  of size, the small car.

People do see strange things when they look up, but maybe what they see depends on what they expect to see or are worried they might see.

I am reminded of the phantom airships seen over England in 1909:

The reporter failed to find the airship's base, but he found a good supply of fresh witnesses who were prepared to say they had seen it in the air. One of these was a Mr C.W. Allen, described as "the pedestrian holder of the 2,000 miles road record" who claimed he distinctly saw the craft whilst driving with two friends near the Northamptonshire town of Market Harborough on 5 May 1909:

"we had been for a night run, and when we were passing through the village of Kelmarsh, we heard a loud report in the air like the backfire of a motorcar. Then we heard distinctly from above our heads the 'tock-tock-tock' of a swiftly-running motor-engine, and we looked up. I was sitting on the front seat, next to the driver, and had a clear view of a dark shape looming up out of the night. 

It was an oblong airship, with lights in front and behind, flying swiftly through the air. It seemed some five or six hundred feet up, and must have been at least a hundred feet long, although owing to its altitude it looked smaller. The lights were not very bright, but we could distinctly see the torpedo-shape and what appeared to be men on the platform below. 

We slowed up our motorcar and stopped to watch it. The steady buzz of the engines could be heard through the still air, and we watched it under it passed out of sight in a northeasterly direction towards Peterborough."

Love is Enough: Ed Davey sings in Bath on Saturday

From Somerset Live:

The Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey is to perform Top 40 Christmas hits with Bath Philharmonia Young Carers’ Choir at a live concert in Bath. The choir is performing their Top 40 hit ‘Love is Enough’ featuring Sir Ed this Saturday (December 14) at The Bath Forum.

The concert will include The Snowman on the big screen with a live orchestra, while the MP for Kingston and Surbiton will narrate ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and sing the chart song. 

Written by six young carers and former young carers, the song ‘Love is Enough’ is a tribute to the caring responsibilities of young carers and the bond they share with the people they care for.

Ed Davey is quoted in the story:

"It was a joy to spend time with this amazing group of young carers, to see their incredible talents, energy and love. With the wonderful Bath Philharmonia, they have created something that I'm sure will strike a chord not only with other young carers - often invisible in our communities - but also with all carers and families. I can’t wait to perform it live to audiences in Bath."

If you can't make it to Bath on Saturday, you can stream or download Love is Enough.