Plans for horse laundry facility at farm approved

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BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award for this tale from West Yorkshire. The judges were left wondering just how large the washing machines are going to be.

Martin Wainwright's Guardian obituary of Michael Meadowcroft

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Michael Meadowcroft, who wrote so many obituaries himself, is remembered in the Guardian by Martin Wainwright, the son of a fellow Yorkshire Liberal MP:

Michael Meadowcroft, who has died aged 84 after a short illness, was a Yorkshire Liberal politician and activist of great resource and flair. He constantly wrong-footed Labour in its former heartlands in Leeds as a nimble source of new ideas, closely in touch with voters and patient at working with them to get local problems solved.

He served as a Liberal party member of Leeds city council from 1968 to 1983, and then as an MP for Leeds West for four years.

Meadowcroft was famously the only MP in the city’s history who led a weekend jazz ensemble in the main shopping precinct, pausing between numbers to discuss political issues with passers-by.

Exuberantly self-confident, he was a natural challenger with less interest in becoming part of any status quo. But he was steeped in Liberal philosophy as well as being a rigorous organiser, central to the party’s adoption of "community politics" during its resurgence under the charismatic leadership of Jo Grimond in the 1960s.

Michael Meadowcroft (1942-2026)

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Sad news on Liberal Democrat Voice this morning: Michael Meadowcroft has died at the age of 84.

His victory in Leeds West in 1983 – the first Liberal gain from Labour at a general election in decades – was one of the few high points of what was, in the context of the Alliance's hopes and ambitions, a deeply disappointing election night.

By then Michael already had a reputation as the Liberal Party's thinker – I remember the frisson when he turned up on the final day of a Union of Liberal Students conference in Leeds in 1979. His pamphlets for Liberator gave you some hope that there was still a coherent Liberal philosophy that was distinct from centrism or social democracy.

Michael was unable to hold Leeds West in 1987 and the West Leeds Dispatch summarises his later career:

Following his defeat he turned to journalism and was a columnist in The Times and The Yorkshire Post. In later years he wrote obituaries of political figures for both The Guardian and Yorkshire Post.

From 1990 he was a consultant to new and emerging democracies and for 26 years led or was a member of 50 missions to 35 different countries

His attempt to run a continuing Liberal Party after the foundation of the Liberal Democrats soon foundered, and he later joined the merged party. It's a mark of his forbearance that he never once objected to my purloining his name to give to Lord Bonkers' gardener.

Alan Bennett on Northern culture and his creative process

Three years ago Alan Bennett visited the BFI Southbank to discuss the influence of his northern roots in a conversation that formed part of the BFI's Northern Voices season.

The blurb on YouTube says:

Few writers have successfully mined Northern culture and specific northern speech patterns as Alan Bennett. Growing up in Leeds, he listened in on the chatter of his relatives, absorbing the patter of domestic conversation, which would emerge across a glittering and much-loved range of plays, particularly those written for television. Here, Bennett explores the way Northern culture is so integral to his creative process.

Exploring the disused railway tunnels at Standedge

Britain's longest canal tunnel is Standedge Tunnel on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. It runs for three and a quarter miles, taking boats from Marsden in West Yorkshire and Diggle in Greater Manchester.  Before local government reorganisation in 1974, both ends of the tunnel were in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

The canal tunnel opened in 1811, and by the end of the 19th century three railway tunnels had been built more or less in parallel to it. Two of them have long been disused, and it is these that the video explores.

As you will see, the four tunnels are still linked underground and contain many surprises. Don't have nightmares.

Pineapple Road station, Rhubarb Curve and the Rhubarb Express

Transport for West Midlands

On Tuesday three new railway stations are opening in Birmingham: Kings Heath, Moseley Village and Pineapple Road. They're on the Camp Hill Line, which will see local passenger trains for the first time since the 1940s.

Pineapple Road is a great name for a station. There was one on the site between 1903 and 1941 with the name Hazelwell, but Pineapple Road was the most popular choice for the new station in a public vote.

A Birmingham World report says its champions thought it was memorable and described the station's better than the other two candidates, Hazelwell and Stirchley.

So there's now a Pineapple Road station on the network, but there has long been a Rhubarb Curve. It's in Bristol and mainly used by freight trains, but it does see rate but regular passenger workings. It allows trains from Bath to go to Bristol Parkway and the Severn Tunnel without going through Bristol Temple Meads.

There's also a Rhubarb Triangle in West Yorkshire, of course, but that has nothing to do with trains even though it sounds as though it should have. It's an area famous for the production of forced rhubarb that was awarded Protected Designation of Origin by the European Union in 2010. The points of the triangle are Wakefield, Morley, and Rothwell.

But there was a Rhubarb Express, as a post on a railway forum explains:

The LNER "Rhubarb Express" was a 209 mile non-stop overnight run seasonally from Leeds to London Kings Cross (or St. Pancras). Conveyed hundreds of tons of early-season forced rhubarb originating from various locations in the West Riding of Yorkshire for sale in London (Covent Garden/Spitalfields) and the South, the following day. ...

The rhubarb trains were cancelled in early 1940 following the onset of WW2. Not sure if, or when, they were ever subsequently resumed ... following the end of the war.

Ponden Hall: Sitting round a hearth with the Brontë sisters

Ponden Hall, which can be found below the village of Stanbury near Haworth, has been suggested as one of the inspirations for Thrushcross Grange in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and also for her sister Anne's Wildfell Hall.

What is certain is that the Brontës knew the Heatons, the family who owned Ponden Hall, and would visit them to make use of their extensive library. And, as everyone is talking about Wuthering Heights, I have been thinking about the place.

Ponden Hall was put up for sale in 2020, so you can see the interior in a Country Life article from that year. When I knew it – I had short breaks there twice in the 1990s – it had a more bohemian vibe, but I still recognise the place. I remember the stone-flagged floors in particular.

The first time I stayed was with a couple of colleagues from work, and I think it was in a pub in Haworth that I learnt to drink gin and tonic. My memories of the event are necessarily a little hazy, but I do recall that we walked to Wycoller and back by the reservoirs the next day, so I can't have been too bad. I also remember visiting Bingley Five Rise and seeing birds nesting in the lock gates.

My second visit to Ponden Hall was with some people from Leicester Friends of the Earth. I was never a member, but I was a sort of Friend of Friends of the Earth. Also staying that time were an American and his wife, and he turned out to be an expert on the Brontës.

As we sat in front of the open fire, he told us about the sisters using the library here, and then added: "They probably sat round this very hearth." We all shivered violently.

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Martin Parr looks at successful and unsuccessful attempts to depose a prime minister: "Labour, significantly, has never toppled a prime minister. It’s not in the culture of so cooperativist a party: there’s no equivalent of the 1922 Committee. And whenever it might have happened, the challenger blinked: Herbert Morrison with Attlee; Roy Jenkins with Wilson; David Miliband with Brown; Wes Streeting may have just joined the roster of the rueful."

Sumaiya Motara on the brutal contest for low-paid work: "It’s like The Hunger Games, but you’re all trying to get a job in a shop where you’re going to be folding clothes all day, for just over minimum wage."

"The case took a dramatic turn in November when Erin’s teenage son ... ran away from his father’s home and hired his own solicitor. After a period in foster care and a series of urgent hearings, he was later reunited with his mother for their first Christmas together in six years." Hannah Summers reports on a hearing that highlights the issue of unregulated psychologists appearing in court as expert witnesses.

Some major news organisations are limiting or blocking access to their content in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. They are doing so largely out of concern that generative AI companies are using it as a back door for large-scale scraping. Mark Graham argues that these concerns, though understandable, are unfounded.

"Whilst Landlord continues to power its way across the country ... it has to be hoped that the company doesn't forget its roots and the locality that sustained it for much of its existence." Real Ale, Real Music visits Keighley, home of the brewer Timothy Taylor.

Robert Hugill praises the new Opera North production of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes.

Tom Gordon on how to get more working-class people into politics

Tom Gordon, the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, is the guest on the Spectator's latest Coffee House Shots podcast.

He talks to James Heale about his campaign to improve working-class representation in politics. Tom, newly elected in 2024, explains how getting his mum involved in local politics in West Yorkshire led him to think about the structural issues that exist preventing more people from getting involved in politics.

It sounds as though Tom would welcome contact from Liberal Democrats who share his interest in this important issue. 

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"The idea of progression in prison is seductive but unachievable. Too many prisons are struggling to get men out of their cells for even an hour a day, there is little or no opportunity for education or work, the food is stodgy and there’s too little of it, contact with family is intermittent, and violence prevalent. How such a prison could possibly encourage people to go to non-existent work to earn early release is just pie in the sky." Frances Crook finds that David Gauke’s sentencing review tackles prison overcrowding but fails to challenge the system’s core flaws or offer a true path forward.

Lewis Baston says the Liberal Democrat by-election win in Sutton on Thursday underlines the trouble  that London’s Tories are in.

"The region that was the birthplace of rail has fallen behind Europe and the world when it comes to high quality rail network that meets the needs of the current age." Rob Naybour argues that it’s high time the cities and towns of the North of England were better connected.

Christopher Kaczor on the importance of the philosopher Alasdair MacIntryre, who died last week: "MacIntyre emphasised that the study of ethics cannot be separated from history, for it is an understanding of historically situated practices within communities that is needed to make sense of moral judgments. 'We should, as far as it is possible, allow the history of philosophy to break down our present day conceptions, so that our too narrow views of what can and cannot be thought, said, and done are discarded in the face of the record of what has been thought, said, and done,' he wrote in A Short History of Ethics."

Sean Wilentz takes us back to the winter of 1965/6 and the making of Bob Dylan's album Blonde on Blonde.

"From the opening it has precision, style and wit, as well as a dash and sparkle that is all its own, and it doesn’t matter if future readers know nothing about his relatively fleeting fame, because this book’s not about a famous person – it’s about someone who wants to be famous." Lissa Evans recommends Emlyn Williams’ autobiography George.

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Ben Quinn explains how the National Trust fought back against the culture warriors: "When it comes to disinformation, [Celia] Richardson speaks of taking 'a broken windows approach' - borrowing from the criminology theory that addressing low-level problems creates an atmosphere that discourages larger ones."

"From the 19th to 20th century, children were physically removed from their homes and separated from their families and communities, often without the consent of their parents. The purpose of these schools was to strip Native American children of their Indigenous names, languages, religions and cultural practices." Rosalyn R. LaPier says Joe Biden's apology for the horrors of Native American boarding schools doesn’t go far enough.

Dominic Grieve has some good advice, which the Conservative Party will ignore, concerning the severe problems that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights would cause.

It is all too clear that unelected bureaucrats now control what happens on the West Yorkshire Rail network on the grounds that declining passenger numbers, a result of their own failures, justify further cuts. Curtailments to Sunday and evening services could soon follow. In a reversal of decades of local progress, argues Colin Speakman, West Yorkshire’s once-thriving commuter rail now struggles under bureaucracy and neglect.

"Arlott was a superlative cricket commentator, a failed Liberal politician (was there any other kind in the post-war era?), and a major catalyst in the D'Oliveira Affair. Were it not for John Arlott we may never have heard of Basil D’Oliveira and the controversy sparked by D'Oliveira’s selection for England’s tour to South Africa, turning South Africa into even more of a pariah state may never have happened." Matthew Pennell wrote a post for Black History Month on British Liberals and the D'Oliveira Affair.

Andy Lear searches for the ghost woods of Rutland's Leighfield Forest.

GUEST POST Councillors changing party: general election update

Rather to his surprise, Augustus Carp finds himself offering an update on the latest trends in councillors changing party.

I am not particularly good at political forecasting.  I had expected a quiet summer, with just a slight peak in the number of local council defections in the run-up to the local elections in May. 

Well, it’s only been eight weeks since then, and a grand total of 115 councillors have changed their political allegiance one way or another.  Some have had it changed for them, by way of expulsion or suspension. 

In any event, that’s a net figure of 85 defections once movements in different directions are taken into account; those changes are bound to have an impact on the leafletting, canvassing and telling operations of the parliamentary candidates in those areas.

Clearly, the general election has caused a number of people up and down the land to reassess the way they want their political ideals to be made manifest. Five councillors have resigned in order to stand as Independent General Election candidates – three Conservative, one Labour and one Lib Dem. 

A Tory in Sussex has gone Independent having publicly supported a Labour parliamentary candidate, and in a famous case discussed in this forum, an East Anglian Lib Dem has been expelled for supporting tactical voting with a little too much enthusiasm.  

A net 29 Conservatives have left the party that saw them elected, but that number is exceeded by the 43 who have left Labour. The Lib Dems have lost eight, the Nationalists four and the Greens one. Six Conservatives have joined Reform, including four who have formed a group in Tendring, which covers the Clacton constituency. 

Most defectors seem to join a new party after a few months as a notional Independent (broadly defined) but there have been six instances of councillors immediately changing Party labels – two from Labour to Lib Dem, one from Tory to Lib Dem, one Tory to Green and one each way Labour to Tory or vice versa. 

The Conservatives and Lib Dems have both (on paper) lost control of councils as a result of defections, but it’s the Labour Party who seem to be nurturing nascent opposition groups within their bosom – new Independent groups have formed out of the Labour Party in Flintshire, Hackney, Kirklees and Worthing.  

Anyway, here’s a forecast – depending on what happens after 4 July, the number of councillor defections is either going to decline slightly or accelerate out of all proportion, depending on the Conservative Party’s relationship with Reform. Who knows, I might have to start counting MP defections as well.

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

For the first time in 37 years a new parliament will meet without a member of the cast of The Railway Children

Whatever happens in the general election, the new parliament will be the first without a member of the cast of The Railway Children for 37 years.

For an explanation, listen carefully to Bernard Cribbins in the film's most famous scene.

I hope I cut that short in time. I didn't? I'm sorry. Please help yourself to a tissue.

What I hope you heard was Bernard Cribbins saying "Right away, Mr Cryer" as he dispatched the train.

Mr Cryer was Bob Cryer, a moving force behind the preservation of the Keighley and Worth Valley line. He was also instrumental in convincing the people behind The Railway Children that it was the perfect place for them to film.

When the man who had played the guard through most of the filming ran out of holiday and had to return to his day job, Bob Cryer stepped in. So that's why he's in the scene above.

In February 1974, Bob Cryer was elected as the Labour MP for Keighley. If you are surprised to hear of a Labour left-winger being involved in the railway preservation movement, a guest post on the blog by Joseph Boughey on the uncertain politics of railway preservation may interest you.

Bob Cryer held the seat in two general elections before losing to the Conservatives in 1983. He then served as MEP for Sheffield between 1984 and 1989, before returning to the Commons as MP for Bradford South in 1987.

He held his new seat in 1992, but died in a road traffic accident in 1994 to widespread dismay. You can read an obituary by Tam Dalyell from the Independent.

His widow Ann Cryer was returned for Bob's old seat of Keighley in Labour's 1997 landslide, and held it until she retired in 2010. 

And Ann had also been an extra in The Railway Children too.

But there was a Cryer in parliament after the 2010 election: Ann and Bob's son John had been elected as Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead, a seat he has held ever since.

He was also an extra - a young one - in The Railway Children. That's him and his sister Jane in the photo.

Today John Cryer announced that he will not be standing at the general election. So for the first time since 1987 - that's 37 years - a new parliament will meet without a member of the cast of The Railway Children.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The former headquarters of the Association of Liberal Councillors

The start of a new week finds Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer in sunny mood. Perhaps it's from meeting the lovely Hazel Grove again?

Incidentally, having studied the local geography, I have moved the Spring of Immortal Life from a hillside above the Birchcliffe Centre to one below it.

Monday

Home from a tour of our best prospects in the coming general election – insiders think it most likely to be on a Thursday, incidentally – I allow myself a lie in before tackling the eggs and b. 

My closest companion for the past fortnight has been the new edition (which is considerably fatter than the last) of Wainwright’s West Country Marginals, but I have visited many other parts of the country. In Stockport I came across my old friend Hazel Grove; she does not look a day older than when she was in Parliament 14 years ago. 

From there I headed to Hebden Bridge for my yearly bathe in the Spring of Immortal Life that issues from the hillside below the former headquarters of the Association of Liberal Councillors. The Elves of Rockingham Forest and their elixir are all very well, but one likes to make doubly sure. 

After breakfast I pore over Wainwright, my own notes and the latest Timeform bulletin and come to the conclusion that we Liberal Democrats can look forward to an enjoyable evening whenever the election is called

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