Nick Clegg: The comeback kid?

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Serena Kutchinsky writes in the New Statesman:

After spending half a decade as a political pariah, Nick Clegg seems to be on his way to a comeback of sorts. The former Liberal Democrat leader has teamed up with his old political rival, Ed Miliband, and a small but significant group of Tory Remainers, to lead the call for there to be full parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s Brexit plan. 

Earlier this week, he found himself resoundingly cheered from the Labour benches as he demanded to know how the government could claim the right to know what Brexit means. 

During today’s parliamentary debate on Brexit he went further, effectively accusing the Prime Minister of hypocrisy over her reluctance to allow parliamentary scrutiny, in an impressive speech which won plaudits from the twitterati. 

As the former Deputy Prime Minister, Clegg understands the inner-workings of both the Tory party and Whitehall better than most politicians. He also has a firm grip on the intricacies of Brussels bureaucracy. Before becoming an MEP in 1999, he worked as European Commission trade negotiator.

Yes, the Brexit crisis could be the making of Nick.

Wellington to Craven Arms revisited

Last year I posted three videos (part 1, part 2 and part 3) following the old railway line from Wellington to Craven Arms in Shropshire.

Holden Webster, who made those videos, has now gone back to the line to record the good news that the Telford Steam Railway (which he visited in part 1) has recently been extended.

With the closure of Ironbridge power station, there is a chance that it will be extended again.

“Sad”, “limp”, “depressing” and “cowed”: the unwanted genitalia popping up all over Brussels

Photo: Myrabella

CityMetric wins our Headline of the Day Award.

Petula Clark and Tony Hatch on the recording of Downtown

There is a nice piece in the Guardian today where Petula Clark and Tony Hatch talk about the making of their classic record Downtown:

In 1964, I was a huge star in France but the swinging 60s were starting to take hold in London and I wasn’t part of it. Tony Hatch, a junior producer at Pye Records, came to see me in Paris and told me I had to record again in English. 

I was in the kitchen making some tea when I first heard him playing the melody to Downtown. I ran in and said: “What’s that?” 

At that point, it was just a melody and a title, but I said: “If you can write a lyric as good as that melody, I’d love to sing it.”

Reader's voice: Aren't you going to link to your Petula Clark story?

Liberal England replies coyly: You've heard it before.

Reader's voice: But we like it.

Liberal England replies: Oh all right then. Did you know Petula Clark phoned me once?

Cyclist nearly hit by egg in Kettering

Thanks to the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, we have our Headline of the Day.

'Creepy clowns' craze: Professionals hit out at pranksters

With thanks to BBC News.

Bill Clinton meets President Kennedy

A photograph of this encounter often turns up on Twitter, but I have not seen this film before.

The meeting took place in July 1963 when Bill Clinton was 16. Four months later, JFK was dead.

Low number of butterflies "a shock and a mystery"

The Guardian reports:

If you think you saw fewer butterflies than ever this British summer, you are probably correct: the Big Butterfly Count has recorded its lowest number of common species since records began. 

Normally ubiquitous butterflies such as the gatekeeper, comma and small copper experienced their worst summers in the history of the count, which is run by Butterfly Conservation and began in 2010. 

Scientists said the low number of butterflies is “a shock and a mystery” because this summer was warmer than average and much drier in England than the previous worst year for butterflies, 2012, which was unusually cold and wet.

Because I approve of butterflies, I have a buddleia in my front garden, but I hardly saw any this summer.

The eight attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria

My great great great uncle refused to shave his beard off for Queen Victoria. Penny Pepper's great great great uncle tried to shoot her.

In an article published by the Guardian on World Mental Health Day, she tells the story of Edward Oxford's crime and of his humane treatment when he was found innocent by reason of insanity.

She concludes:

It’s tragic that there is very little sense of true asylum, of sanctuary, within today’s mental healthcare system.

Remarkably, Oxford's attempt on Victoria's life - he fired two pistols at the royal carriage at Constitution Hill near Buckingham Palace in May 1840 - was the first of eight more or less serious attempts on the old girl's life.

Barrie Charles, who has written a book on the subject, lists them on his website.

The Social Historian lists only seven but adds a press report from the Nottinghamshire Guardian:

Saturday 15 June 1895 ATTACKS ON THE QUEEN. The apprehension of a crazy youth with a loaded revolver on his way to Balmoral on Friday to obtain an interview with the Queen is the first incident of the kind that has occurred on Deeside. There her Majesty has been singularly free from annoyances of any description, and has usually moved about without any guard or protection whatever.

And there was also an incident in Sidmouth when she was a baby. Shooting Victoria has the story:

When in June 1840 Edward Oxford fired his two pistol at Queen Victoria, she suffered the first of her eight assaults. But that was not the first time she found herself at the wrong end of a gun. 

Twenty years before, in January 1820, seven-month-old Princess Victoria had just moved into Westbrook Cottage outside Sidmouth, Devon, with her father and mother, the Duke and Duchess of Kent. Her father, then deeply in debt, had chosen the place both to flee creditors in London, and to make sure that his precious daughter, in line for the royal succession, remained in England. 

It was there that a boy outside the house, shooting birdshot at sparrows, fired through a window, narrowly missing the infant Victoria, then in the arms of a nurse.

This incident was the starting point of And So - Victoria by Vaughan Wilkins, whose historical novels were popular in the 1950s. There it takes on a far more sinister aspect.

Tim Farron slams Shami Chakrabarti's intention to abstain on Snooper's Charter

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I am more and more puzzled by the actions of Shami Chakrabarti, who has junked her reputation to serve under a leader of the opposition who gives every indication of being on course to lose the next election horribly.

True, it is a well-worn path - when I was a teenager the leading lights of what is now Liberty were Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman - but Chakrabati risks becoming a figure of fun.

The latest blow to her reputation is the news that she is to follow other Labour peers in abstaining on the government's Snooper Charter this week.

Tim Farron, as quoted by the Sunday Mirror, is suitably outraged:

“Shami sold her principles to get a peerage. 

“She has sold the final bit of her credibility by accepting a shadow Cabinet role in a party which plans to sit on its hands and wave through this illiberal and intrusive Bill.”

And:

“What really smarts is that she has spent her whole career attacking others for the craven thing she is about to do. 

“Shame on her. I actually thought better of her.”

Following the course of the Ludlow to Clee Hill railway

This video follows the route of another remarkable Shropshire railway: the line from Ludlow up to the quarries on Titterstone Clee.

Coal mining was resumed up there during the Second World War, which must have meant the line saw more use. It finally closed in 1962.

Legend has it that the people down the hill in Ludlow could not understand the dialect of Clee Hill village, only a few miles away.

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"This is not only yet another misguided and myopic attack on overseas students, it is also an insult to the rich diversity of universities on display within UK higher education. Because the fact is, universities excel in different academic areas." Johanna Waters has no time for Amber Rudd's plans for a new student immigration regime.

Steven Duckworth offers a strategy for Labour moderates following the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn.

"Jura was everything that was threatened in Nineteen Eighty-Four; it offered an abundance of wild natural beauty, and required a visceral physicality of its inhabitants. Orwell understood these qualities to be among the precious constituents of human freedom." Madeleine Bunting argues that the Hebrides have shaped British culture.

Wolfgane Suschitzky, photographer and cinematographer, died this week at the age of 104. The Daily Telegraph obituary tells you about his remarkable career..

Francis Thackeray on a new twist in the Piltdown Man hoax.

Line by line, Football 365 takes apart Robbie Savage's argument that Ryan Giggs should have been appointed manager of Swansea City.

Ride: Twisterella

I understood pop again in the 1990s: white boys with guitars and harmonies.

And this track at least still sounds good.

Twisterella, incidentally, was the name of the song that Billy Liar wrote - I think he really did. So here as a bonus are Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie...

How Aberdeenshire Liberal Democrats sacked a colleague who crossed Donald Trump

With Donald Trump in the news tonight, I am reminded of an article in Liberator 328 (that link will download a PDF: scroll down to pp. 28-9) from September 2008.

Written by former collective member Gina Ford, it tells how her husband Martin had a motion of no confidence in him as the Liberal Democrat chair of Aberdeenshire Council's Infrastructure Services Committee after he used his casting vote to turn down a planning application from Donald Trump.

That application was for 500 houses for sale, 950 holiday apartments, a 450 bed hotel and two championship golf courses and would cause serious damage to a site of special scientific interest.

When the motion was moved, the Lib Dem leader of the council, the provost and 14 other Lib Dem councillors abstained.

After Martin Ford had been removed, the planning application was called in by the SNP Scottish government, a public inquiry was held and the development was approved.

Something to remember as we Lib Dems are shocked by Trump or laugh at his travails.

Giant rodent the size of a labrador is living wild in a Rutland village

A capybara yesterday - photo: Charles Sharp

The other day it was a panther between Teigh and Market Overton. Today it is a capybara at Empingham.

It's been a good week for exotic fauna in Rutland.

And congratulations to the Leicester Mercury on winning our Headline of the Day Award.

"The history of York is the history of England"

A gentle travelogue from the 1930s.

Police appeal for information about chicken crossing road

A chicken yesterday

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.

Six of the Best 632

"We must accept that our recent failures to understand the tensions in society, and find answers, have partly led to our undoing." The Liberal Democrats need answers, not just anger, says David Hopps.

Don't nationalise Southern Rail: mutualise it. David Boyle is on the money as usual.

Liz Lightfoot shows there is hope for the future after all: "Children at this state junior school have lessons in using sharp knives, saws and even air rifles. They get to cook food and smelt metal over an open fire and to skin and bone rabbits."

Sightings of evil clowns have spread to Britain. Matthew Dessem analyses this perennial scare story in the United States.

What remains of Armenian culture in Turkey is in danger of disappearing entirely, reports Amos Chapple.

Rachel Chanter introduces us to The Book of Beasts - T.H. White’s translation of a 12th-century Latin bestiary.

Liberal Democrats win the Battle of Culloden

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Good news from the Inverness Courier:

The vacant Inverness seat at Highland Council has been filled by Trish Robertson. 

The Liberal Democrat won the Culloden and Ardersier by-election by just 25 votes, overtaking Scottish National Party candidate Pauline Munro in the eleventh hour. 

As no clear winner was returned based on voters’ first preference, a process of elimination was used based on voters’ order of preference. 

A result was not produced until the eighth stage, when Ms Robertson overtook Mrs Munro, who had been leading until that point.

In other words, voters who do not support Nationalism are happy to use their lower preferences to vote against the SNP.

For National Poetry Day: W.H. Auden's birthplace in York

Autumn Song

Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last;
Nurses to the graves are gone,
And the prams go rolling on.

Whispering neighbours, left and right,
Pluck us from the real delight;
And the active hands must freeze
Lonely on the separate knees.

Dead in hundreds at the back
Follow wooden in our track,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.

Starving through the leafless wood
Trolls run scolding for their food;
And the nightingale is dumb,
And the angel will not come.

Cold, impossible, ahead
Lifts the mountain's lovely head
Whose white waterfall could bless
Travellers in their last distress.