Liberal England

Labels: Britblog Roundup, Shropshire

Labels: Shropshire

While looking for a picture of the town for you, I came across this...



That's me on the far left of the picture in the blue shirt.

Of course, this is all displacement activity. What I really came here to do is write my New Statesman column.

Labels: Shropshire

Labels: Shropshire

From Shropshire County Council's website:

Labels: Shropshire

Having an online column is very pleasant, but there remains something magic about seeing your name in print. So I am pleased that I have made it into this week's New Statesman with a short article on the Wenlock Olympian Games:

A thousand people have travelled to Shropshire to take part in the 14 different sports at the Wenlock Olympian Games, which take place from 11-14 July. The event may seem quaint, but the Olympic movement owes the pretty town of Much Wenlock a great debt.

The movement's founder, the French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin, was inspired by the values of ancient Greece - or so we shall be told when television covers the opening ceremony from Beijing next month. But there is more to Olympic history than that, and Much Wenlock and its Victorian doctor played a central part in it.

I know it sounds just the sort of thing I make up, but I promise you it is true.

Given my memories of buying the Statesman when I was at school, I am deeply chuffed.

Labels: New Statesman, Shropshire

From time to time this blog has drawn attention to the antics of Ludlow's town council - surely Britain's most dysfunctional local authority?

Now the South Shropshire Journal has drawn our attention to the existence of Ludlovius, which is a blog designed to expose the doings of the councillors.

There is now only one posting on the blog, and in it the author announces that he is closing the thing down. But the cached version shows there have been more postings in the past. And it leads us on to CittaScam Ludlow - "Lancing the boil on the arse of the whore of Ludlow".

The plot thickens.

Labels: Ludlow Town Council, Shropshire

Or so the Shropshire Star says:

Staff from the Tern Hill Hall Hotel, which is located a short distance from the barracks, say it is likely the lights the soldiers saw were Chinese wedding lanterns, which had been let off at the hotel by wedding guests the same night.

Hotel manager Stuart Willatt said the lanterns were let off on June 7 at about 11pm, just minutes before the soldiers claimed to have seen the lights.

Mind you, the paper also reports that:

Dozens of residents from all over the county say they have seen mysterious lights moving across the sky in recent weeks.

Now read about the Sun front page that started this story off.

Labels: Shropshire, UFOs

Today is already comfortably the record day for visitors to Liberal England. The reason is not some sudden upsurge of interest in the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats, but my occasional references to sightings of UFOs over Shropshire.

Elsewhere:

• Another mysterious big cat has been sighted in Shropshire - and this one has dropped 50p;
• The Wrekin turns out to be a sacred mountain;
• I am being assailed by David Icke supporters.

Is this what the end of the world feels like?

Labels: Shropshire, UFOs

In the past this blog - via the good offices of the Shropshire Star - has shown interest in the possibility that aliens have been filmed in the county's skies.

Which makes the front page of this morning's Sun very interesting:

ARMY SPOT UFOs OVER SHROPSHIRE

Soldiers report new sightings of craft

WATCH VIDEO

Labels: Shropshire, UFOs

Relying on the Shropshire Star for the bulk of my news has its compensations. One of them is coming across fascinating stories like this.

When he was in the county the other day, Nick Clegg met the Star's rural affairs editor. His contributions are not among my favourite on the paper's website. They are a milder version of the absurd Muckspreader column in Private Eye, where anyone who questions the right of the farming interest to be given huge amounts of public money is ridiculed.

Anyway, this piece is reasonably supportive of Nick and the Liberal Democrats. What struck me was this section:

And then came TB, with the farmers pushing for trials to see whether a pilot badger cull would prevent the crisis.

“Everyone seems to be up in arms about a badger being culled but what they don’t realise is that we are culling cows all the time,” Arthur added.

Mr Clegg agreed, despite admitting that it wouldn’t go down well with a lot of people in his party.

“We are completely open to these trials. You are right - Britain’s fascination with animals is curious to say the least. But this issue needs to go forward, even though plenty of people in the Liberal Democrats do not like this position.”

I do not know if culling badgers to prevent bovine TB is good science, but I am sure that it is bad politics. It may play well go down well in a few rural constituencies, but it will go down very badly in many more urban and suburban seats. Like Sheffield Hallam, for instance.

This feels very much like a return to the 1970s, when the old Liberal Party's fortunes depended on clinging on to a handful of seats where the farming interest was strong. I thought we had all moved on since then.

And why is "Britain’s fascination with animals ... curious to say the least"? I should say that it is a settled part of our national character and one of the more appealing parts at that. What does Nick propose to put in its place and how does he intend to go about it?

Labels: Environment, Nick Clegg, Shropshire

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News. It turns out that it is the 1000th issue rather than the 20th birthday, but the thought was there.

Incidentally, the joke about masonry bees, which first appeared in an early Lord Bonkers' Diary, occurred to me when I came across them at the house in Shropshire where Malcolm Saville wrote Mystery at Witchend.

You see how it all fits together?

Completely Bonkers

What could I do this week but give over this column to Lord Bonkers? I have been editing the diaries of Rutland’s most celebrated peer for Liberator magazine for almost as long as the Liberal Democrats have existed. So here are his thoughts on the 20th birthday of Liberal Democrat News.

I sit in front of my hearth with a tumbler of Auld Johnston, that most celebrated of Highland malts, at my elbow, wondering that the last 20 years have passed so quickly. Let me share with you the pictures I see in the flames.

People say that Dr David Owen - or ‘Dr Death‘, as he is affectionately known by his many friends in politics - was so demoralised when his "Continuing SDP finished behind the Monster Raving Loony Party at the first Bootle by-election of 1990 that he closed the party down.

That is true, but it is equally the case that David Sutch never recovered from his disappointment at beating Owen by such a narrow margin. The poor fellow was to take his own life only a few years later.

In those days I had my own problems with masonry bees here at Bonkers Hall. (They burrowed into the mortar and exchanged peculiar handshakes.)

Time moved on, and the New Party and it philosophy of Newism was swept to power. I remember asking one newly appointed minister why he had not undone more of the mischief wrought by the Tories. "It's very simple," he replied. "Privatisation, for instance, is Government policy, so now that we are the Government it automatically becomes our policy."

Not that the Conservative Party took their defeat well. It appointed William Hague as its new leader. As a six-year-old he had wowed the party‘s conference. Three years later, now aged 74, he thought he would become prime minister. It was not to be.

The fire has burned low and I see I must draw my remarks to a conclusion. There is no time for me to tell you about the Bonkers Patent Exploding Focus (for use in marginal wards) and its important role in the Leicester South by-election.

Instead let me finish by wishing you the best of good fortune and raising my glass. Here’s to the next twenty years.

Labels: House Points, Lord Bonkers, Malcolm Saville, Shropshire

Pity the poor souls who edit the Shropshire pages of the BBC website. They are up against the mighty new machine that is the Shropshire Star.

Nevertheless, they do manage the occasional scoop. Try this for size:

A shopkeeper who found a packet of seeds from the 1960s in a drawer said he was amazed when they germinated.

Denis Moore had had the seeds since he moved into the village shop in Cheswardine, Shropshire, 31 years ago.

He initially planted the parsley on cotton wool, but nothing happened so he put them in a tray of compost and left them for another three weeks, but still nothing happened.

Mr Moore said: "My paperboy said 'Have you ever heard the saying about parsley seeds, that they go down to the devil and back nine times before they grow'.

"So I gave them another three weeks and they came up."

Labels: Shropshire

And in the Shropshire Star:

Mr Clegg is on fact-finding trip to the county and Herefordshire to find out more about the problems facing rural schools and businesses.

After visiting Lydbury North Primary School near Bishop’s Castle, which Shropshire County Council is proposing should be amalgamated with Clunbury school, Mr Clegg was due to meet with farmers at Much Wenlock.

Or as the old joke goes...

My leader's gone to Shropshire.

Much Wenlock?

I wish you wouldn't keep dragging up that GQ interview just to get a cheap laugh.

Later: Nick Clegg has just been interviewed on Channel 4 News with Lydbury North Primary School and protesting pupils in the background.

Labels: Nick Clegg, Shropshire

"Could this finally be proof that aliens exist over a Telford housing estate?"

asks the commentary on this video from the Shropshire Star website.

Judge for yourself.

And then read Have aliens landed in Shropshire?

Labels: Shropshire, UFOs

I don't make these stories up, you know. This one is in the Shropshire Star:

Shropshire MP Daniel Kawczynski had a beef with the Commons authorities because they have refused to let him take a cow into the parliamentary precincts.

The Shrewsbury & Atcham MP sought permission to take one of his constituent’s cattle to Westminster as part of a demonstration by farmers later this month.

The animal was to have been used to illustrate the threat from bovine tuberculosis to Britain’s dairy industry, but the Tory MP has been told cows are not among the few animals allowed on to the premises.

Mr Kawczynski’s request went right to the top - to Commons Speaker Michael Martin, who confirmed that the Palace of Westminster is a no-go area for cattle.

But it may not be quite as Ealing Comedy as it sounds. In Conservative circles a demand for something to be done about bovine TB usually translates as "Gas All Badgers Now".

Labels: Environment, Shropshire

Important news from the Shropshire Star.

Labels: Shropshire

How can I resist a website like this?

Labels: Shropshire

Ludlow Town Council has been quiet of late. No fist-fights or dogs at its meetings.

But the Shropshire Star suggests that it is returning to its old ways:

Mayor-making in Ludlow was disrupted as one councillor branded another a liar and threatened court action before leaving without seeing the ceremony.

Councillor Nick Galtress ... made the accusations towards deputy mayor-elect Derek Davies at yesterday’s robing ceremony in the town’s Assembly Rooms.

After Jim Newbold was chosen as mayor, and before Councillor Davies could be approved as his deputy, Councillor Galtress asked to address the meeting and made his claim.

In a statement to the Shropshire Star, he said he had reported Councillor Davies to the council’s monitoring officer and was taking legal advice over the alleged “lies”. Councillor Davies said following the meeting: “We’ll see how it goes.”

Labels: Ludlow Town Council, Shropshire

Whatever his other failings, our prime minister knows a good newspaper when he sees one:

Labels: Gordon Brown, Shropshire