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Thom Hartmann says Trump is teaching America what every dictator knows: "When we think of strongman dictatorships we often imagine tanks in the streets, but those usually come in the later stages of repression (think Tienanmen Square) and often are never even needed (think today;s Russia). Instead, as every dictator on Earth can tell you, you don’t have to silence the entire country; all you have to do is shut up a few strategically selected people visibly and publicly enough and the rest of the country will get the message and back away." 

Zack Polanski did not handle the Green conference motion on Zionism well. But, asks Sangita Myska, why did his own party put him in the hold where he now finds himself?

"Her IHT policy would give older people who wanted to avoid inheritance tax a massive incentive to overinvest in property as a tax shield – to upsize or upvalue as far as they could so their heirs could benefit. It would put the top end of the housing market into a deep freeze. Moreover, it would divert spare cash away from investment that could help the British economy grow, into unproductive housing assets." Jill Rutter argues that Kemi Badenoch’s inheritance tax proposals represent myth-based policy making at its worst.

Municipal Dreams looks at how the London Borough of Hackney came to embrace high-rise housing.

Mark Kermode talks to Nick Newman about the restoration of Ken Russell's 1971 film: The Devils: "I always knew that there was something wrong with it because the first time I ever spoke to Ken about it, he said to me, 'It’s damaged goods.' That was the phrase that he used. He said, because they just took this stuff out of it, that left it with a hole. Something is damaged about it, and then you put it back in and go, 'No, that is better. That is what it always should have looked like.'"

"What works so well here is the author’s ability to look at this world objectively through Fanny’s eyes while also satirising this eccentric, privileged milieu with humanity and wit – Mitford is acutely aware of the absurdities of the system she is dissecting here." JacquiWine celebrates Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford.

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Jonathan Freedland argues that the Greens' anti-Zionism motion is yet another attempt to tell Jews what they should think: "In each generation, those making such demands of Jews believe they are acting in a righteous cause. The Christian persecutors of the Inquisition were sure that they were honouring Jesus; today’s Greens are certain they are advancing the cause of anti-racism, even as they would hound and defame and shame a tiny minority."

"Money matters in politics, especially if you have a lot of it. Alistair McAlpine understood this all too well. 'If you’ve got £1 million or £2 million to spend on political advertising, forget it,' he told a journalist three decades ago. 'If you’ve got £8 million, you can make people believe anything you want.'" Peter Geoghehan examines our continuing failure to regulate party funding.

Aaron Tucker says facial-recognition technology is scarier than you think.

"What happened to Luna reflects the mental health struggles of many young people, but it is also, in part, a story about money: a private education industry that has grown increasingly reliant on the fees international students bring, propped up by a patchwork of private companies that profit from these children while carrying almost none of the legal obligations that would normally come with caring for them." Samira Shackle on the death of a 16-year-old from Hong Kong in Shropshire.

Geraldine Kendall Adams goes to see the Bayeux tapestry: "Then there’s that special moment when we get our first glimpse of the tapestry from above, stretched out so long that it almost seems to disappear over the horizon. I wasn’t prepared for how much this sight would move me: it genuinely took my breath away, and I could see it did the same to other visitors. In terms of pacing, this overhead view is a masterstroke of suspense-building and payoff."

"This delightful gem of a movie is, for me at least, ironically not only the best Warner Bros film released so far this year, it also is, hands down, the best animated/live action hybrid since Robert Zemeckis’ classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit hit screens four decades ago." Pete Hammond reviews Coyote vs Acme.

David Alton, Andy Burnham and telescopic radicalism

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It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe that I kept this to myself. – Bleak House, Charles Dickens.

Mrs Jellyby goes in for what Dickens call "telescopic philanthropy", in that she devotes her energies to promoting a philanthropic project in far-off Borrioboola-Gha while her own children fall into the grate. We've all known political households like that.

You can also have telescopic radicalism. In the distant era when David Alton was a Liberal, then a Liberal Democrat, and a Liverpool MP, one commentator pointed out that he was idealistic about issues that were a long way away, but hard-headed when they were close to home.

It seems we now have a telescopic radical for a prime minister. 

Yesterday, Andy Burnham wrote a courageous article for the Guardian, explaining the sanctions his government is rightly imposing upon Israel for its illegal actions in the occupied territories.

But, back in Britain, masked, uniformed fascists are roaming the streets and closing down ports without a word from our new prime minister.

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"We need to have the courage and vision to support the Jewish community without destroying a fundamental and necessary right. It is Jews who will ultimately be harmed too, as members of the UK population, if the right to protest is further eroded." Jo Glanville argues that banning pro-Palestine protest in the UK is no solution to antisemitism.

Glen O'Hara on the government's stealthy culling of Britain's universities: "This way, they get to make the whole sector smaller with little political pain on their part. They can dump responsibility on bad managers, risk-taking, too much borrowing. The dark side of Higher Education’s pain and toxicity will dribble out on the local and regional news, all the better for voters not to join the dots. The rundown will look piecemeal, disorganised, random."

Helen Currie, Irene Gregory-Eaves and Steven Cooke are our guides to research on how to build cities for wildlife, not just people.

"The film interviews landowners such as Francis Fulford, who has long been the media’s favourite outspoken reactionary toff, a sort of posh version of Viz’s Farmer Palmer, snarling “Get off my land”. There are other, more thoughtful landowners, including Hugh Inge-Innes-Lillingston, who cheerfully admits how silly his name is, and is open to developing new ideas about managed access." Peter Bradshaw has been to see Our Land (2026).

"Just one thing remained to be done before the 1923 FA Cup Final could take place on 28 April. The structure of the stadium had to be tested, to make sure that it was safe for spectators to use. All 1,200 workmen on the site had to march round the stadium as a group, visiting all parts of the terraces and stands. Following instructions and in unison, they had to stamp their feet, lean against the safety rails, and sit down then up on the seats, to recreate the effect of the crowds at an actual event." Philip Grant looks back to the construction of Wembley Stadium.

Matthew Lyons reviews Peter Ackroyd's biography of W.H. Auden.

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Jessica Valenti sounds the alarm about the Heritage Foundation's plan for American women: "Like the conservative movement more broadly, the organisation wants young women to believe this is all being done for their benefit: that work is soulless and unfulfilling, that feminism has made women miserable, and that the real path to happiness is being a stay-at-home mom. The latest right-wing mantra for women? 'Less burnout, more babies.'"

The government’s proposed model for mandatory reporting of suspected child sexual abuse bears no resemblance to the frameworks used in the 82 per cent of countries that have enacted such legislation, argues Tom Perry.

Jonathan Cook believes the jury was right to acquit the Palestine Action defendants.

"It was the only post-war building on London’s South Bank to remain unlisted, refused protection on six separate occasions by successive culture secretaries, who since 1991 had repeatedly rejected Historic England’s (formerly English Heritage) recommendations." Richard Waite on the Listing of the South Bank Centre – that's the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, Hayward Gallery and their associated terraced walkways and stairs – after 35 years of refusals.

"The shifting appeal of The West Wing during the past quarter century raises a sobering question: Is political competence and an idealized respect for democratic norms losing popularity in 2026?" Karrin Vasby Anderson and Nick Marx track the political drama's move from bipartisan hit to a polarised comfort watch.

Mansel Stimpson enjoyed Nouvelle Vague as I much as I did: "The casting ... which uses mainly relatively unfamiliar faces is one of the film's great successes. It is quite easy to accept Guillaume Marbeck as Godard and Aubry Dullin catches the essence of the young Jean-Paul Belmondo. Even more surprisingly given that Breathless contains an iconic performance by Jean Seberg, we find this film’s best-known name, Zoey Deutch, creating a Seberg in whom we really do believe."

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"What matters is not the books themselves, but the thinking they reward. They cultivate a taste for compression over depth, for transferable lessons over context, for confidence over uncertainty. They attract people who want the world to be legible in a handful of rules, who prefer inspiration to explanation, and who mistake momentum for understanding. Over time, this becomes a habit of mind: a way of approaching problems that privileges clarity and speed over patience and complexity." John Oxley fears British politics is suffering from Airport Book Brain.

Rosalind KennyBirch looks at the way Finland counters fake news. "There is no vaccine for fake news, but media literacy can come close."

Rose Runswick has posted Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's election address from 1906. Here he is on the record of the Conservatives: "The legacy which they have bequeathed to their successors – and I say it in no partisan spirit, but under a full sense of responsibility – is in the main a legacy of embarrassment, an accumulation of public mischief and confusion absolutely appalling in its extent and its ramifications."

"The Israel-Palestine conflict is often framed as a religious struggle between Muslim and Jewish groups, but the witness of Palestinian Christians exposes the hollowness of that narrative. It is a nationalist struggle between Israelis and Palestinians." John McHugo highlights the plight of Palestinian Christians.

"Stoke-on-Trent says it is facing a heritage emergency and needs £325m in public and private funding to safeguard its historic sites and stories," reports Rebecca Atkinson.

Gráinne Maguire lists five things Is This Thing On? gets wrong about the world of stand up: "Will Arnett has all the natural funny bones of a dead family pet. He wears the same expression the entire time—startled and blinking, like Eeyore caught looking up porn at work and hauled into HR. Yet we're supposed to believe this set – more misguided late-night voice note than comedy – is all it takes for him to be embraced by the world of comedy."

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"The government continues to frame the cost-of-living crisis as a problem that can be solved largely through domestic policy choices. Announcements focus on price caps, fare freezes and measures like free school meals and breakfast clubs to ease pressure on family budgets. But these treat the symptoms, not causes." We need to recognise that geopolitics is driving the cost-of-living crisis, argues Anna McShane.

Harriet Walter on the effect of the government's misbegotten treatment of Palestine Action: "By accusing them of being part of a terrorist organisation rather than a protest movement, the government ensures that these people who broke machinery in factories or sprayed paint on aeroplanes or helped to plan these actions can be seen not as ordinary people who are innocent until found guilty of ordinary crimes such as criminal damage or violent disorder, but as outside forces that are deeply threatening to social order and our ways of life."

Chaminda Jayanetti says falling school rolls are not just a problem for London.

"His fabulously wry first wife, Eileen, described his landmark 1941 essay ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ as ‘a little book explaining how to be a Socialist, though Tory’. Even in his most revolutionary moods, Orwell was very specific about what should stay and what should go. Small wonder that he found fault with every version of socialism except his own." Dorian Lynskey reviews two recent books on George Orwell.

"She became a byword for the brutal and controlling ways of the ‘Hollywood factory’ and its tendency to swallow up child stars. You’ve probably heard that MGM encouraged Garland’s use of drugs – ‘pep pills’ to get her to work and suppress her appetite, downers to help her sleep – only to criticise her for being unreliable when she became an addict who sometimes couldn’t show up for work. Eventually, the studio dropped her. She wasn’t yet thirty." Bee Wilson on Judy Garland.

Peter Adams has good news. The Devon Heritage Orchard at RHS Garden Rosemoor is preserving traditional apple varieties, some of which were on the point of disappearing.

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Before his books about the Royal Family, Andrew Lownie wrote about Britain's intelligence services. He found them much more helpful than royals have been. Here he talks to Peter Geoghegan about the way that British institutions protected Prince Andrew for years.

Peter Oborne reports that Alistair Burt, the former Middle East minister, admits he was wrong to give Israel unconditional support and wonders if other British politicians will follow his lead.

Polly Mackenzie maps the limitations of the 'add it to the school curriculum' mentality. "If we want a society that is literate in money, media, and citizenship, we need an infrastructure for lifelong learning that reflects how adults actually live. Schools are only one node in a much bigger information system, and we’ve been neglecting the rest." 

"[Ewen] Cameron destroyed the lives of his subjects, many of whom were exceptionally vulnerable, and achieved nothing of scientific value. His work is a catalogue of exploitation and abuse. Yet there is no comprehensive account of Cameron’s studies to be found anywhere in the bioethics literature." Carl Elliott on the way that scandals in scientific research are conveniently forgotten.

"Imagine walking out of Camden Town tube station, turning north towards Camden Market and finding yourself facing a twelve-lane concrete motorway full of roaring traffic. This was the intended outcome of the 1960s Ringways plan to drive four giant circular roads through the capital in order to enable millions of Londoners to drive their private cars straight through the heart of the city." Jim Waterson meets the man who has spent 20 years researching that plan.

Boak & Bailey discover Rustic Ale and what became of it.

Lib Dems call for a review of the law after Palestine Action arrests

Lisa Smart, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesperson, has asked the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation to urgently examine the "troubling precedent" of the use of the Terrorism Act to arrest large numbers of people expressing support for Palestine Action.

In the letter to Jonathan Hall KC, she said: 

"While we recognise the serious nature of this group’s activities, including criminal offences, such as vandalism of military equipment and RAF aircraft, aggravated burglary and violent disorder, and some cases awaiting the conclusion of trials, we are deeply concerned about the use of terrorism powers against peaceful protesters in this context."

Meanwhile, reports BBC News, Kishwer Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has written to the home secretary and Metropolitan Police commissioner Mark Rowley.

Her letter said

"We are concerned that some recent responses may not strike the right balance between security and fundamental rights. Heavy-handed policing or blanket approaches risk creating a chilling effect, deterring citizens from exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and assembly through fear of possible consequences."

Yesterday, I wrote a post suggesting the government's proscribing of Palestine Action has been counterproductive. 

I could have added that if people come to believe that government throws about the label "terrorist" to freely, they will be less likely to believe it when it warn us of groups that certainly are terrorists.

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"The general intention of the Act’s drafters is clear: they wanted those who supported terrorist groups to be given long jail terms; they wanted those who campaigned against proscription to remain free. But this is another line that the police are now crossing. Among those arrested in London on 19 July were protesters carrying placards which read ‘Ban Starmer not Palestine Action’, although saying that Palestine Action should not be banned is the one speech act the Act expressly permits." David Renton on the challenge to the banning of Palestine Action.

Liberal Democrat Women responded to the Women and Equalities Committee consultation on misogyny and the manosphere.

"To encourage young people to flourish as learners, we need to help them value non-formal and informal learning contexts. Hobbies are great for this. Hobbies are serious leisure activities which young people find interesting and fulfilling. They are serious because hobbies require perseverance to gain experience, a skillset and a knowledge base." Ioannis Costas Batlle reminds us that learning doesn't just take place in the classroom.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has admitted it has no evidence to show the Hundred as attracted new fans to other forms of cricket, reports Simon Burnton.

Roads.org.uk argues that Britain's first motorway is unclassified, tolled and links a small Dorset village to a chain ferry.

Graham McCann remembers a forgotten comedian: "Paul Squire was a comedian who shot to fame in 1980 with the ITV talent show Search For A Star and a spot in that year's Royal Variety Performance. He was promptly hailed as 'television's newest superstar', handed his own series by ITV in 1981, starred in another show for the BBC in 1983, and then, little more than one year later, he found himself ostracised by television so completely that he spent the rest of his career playing working men's clubs and the cruise ships."

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John McEvoy reveals that the government was advised Palestine Action is "highly unlikely" to advocate violence and that officials struggled to produce evidence the group posed a national security threat.

"The might of the MATs give them a power within the DfE that smaller schools do not have, highlighted here in a 2019 Schools Week article reporting that an academy leader boasted that he 'flicked away safeguarding concerns' raised by a whistleblower." Pam Jarvis explores the dark side of multi-academy trusts.

"Just in case anyone reading this doesn’t have an inkling of the relevant law, this is horseshit of the highest order. It is absolutely untrue that council tenants can be evicted in order to house asylum seekers. It is not a 'complex issue with legal and ethical considerations', it is a non-existent issue because it cannot legally happen." Giles Peaker is furious about what people may now see if they use Google to research something in the news.

Jennifer Quellette talks to two researchers whose work suggests that people who believe conspiracy theories don't realise that they are in a small minority.

"Officials would want to avoid the fate of Dunwich, where erosion led to skeletons sticking out of the dunes after plots were washed away by the sea in the 1920s. There are similar macabre tales relating to Eccles-on-Sea, which featured in the Domesday book of 1086 and was swallowed by the sea over a number of centuries. The church tower finally collapsed in a winter storm in 1895." Owen Sennitt on the debate over what to do with the graveyard at Happisburgh in Norfolk, which will be lost to coastal erosion.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine finds that the new box set chronicling the birth of Nick Drake's debut album Five Leaves Left offers some quiet revelations: "Hearing Drake speak his aural aspirations for songs – notably, he wants Made to Love Magic to sound 'celestial' – helps reframe the refined baroque arrangements of the finished album, underscoring the intentionality of the sumptuous, sighing strings."

Pro-Palestinian campaign groups have their bank accounts frozen

At least two peaceful pro-Palestine organisations in the UK have had their bank accounts frozen, reports the Guardian.

The two examples the paper gives are the Greater Manchester Friends for Palestine and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which have had access to their funds cut off indefinitely by Virgin Money and Unity Trust bank respectively.

The Guardian says of this news:

Coming amid the banning of Palestine Action earlier this month and the arrest of more than 100 people for showing support for the group, and the threatened arrest of a peaceful protester for having a Palestine flag and “Free Gaza” sign, it has amplified concerns about a crackdown on critics of Israel.

This has made me remember what I wrote when everyone on Twitter was hurhuring about Nigel Farage losing his Coutts account:

I'm uneasy with the enthusiasm for Coutts's decision to close his account.

Because, despite what right-wingers believe, the banks are not part of a woke blob. They are conservative organisations, and if they start refusing people accounts because of their politics, then it is left-wingers who will suffer more.

And I can see government and right-wing activists putting pressure on the banks. Why do Just Stop Oil activists have accounts with your bank? Ban them!

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Alexandra Hall Hall lists 10 things Britain could do if it really cared about Palestinians.

"If this plan is about prevention, then nature should be central to it. The science is unequivocal: contact with the natural world supports human health in wide ranging and profound ways. It lowers stress, improves mood, and alleviates symptoms of anxiety." Andrea Mechelli et al. argue that there is a striking omission from the NHS's 10-year plan.

"I recently wrote an article for the Telegraph about a series of unexplained electrical substation fires across the country. There had been eight in the space of a few weeks between March and mid May, when normally you might expect one or two every few years." Coincidence or enemy action? Jonathan Ford investigates.

Henry Jeffreys has the latest on the Unbound scandal: "Pete Brown, Britain’s best-known beer writer, said: 'I don’t think I got a single UK review or mention anywhere apart from those I generated myself. It was then that I realised the model gave Unbound absolutely no incentive to try to sell a book post-publication.'"

"In late May he secured an incredible coup over Caroline’s chief advisor, the Whig MP Henry Brougham, who was trying to negotiate a behind-closed doors settlement. Instead, Wood met Caroline in Calais and convinced her to return from exile, take up residence in his London home and from there claim the right to be crowned Queen of the United Kingdom." Martin Spychal on Matthew Wood, who took up the cause of Caroline of Brunswick, the estranged wife of George IV.

B.D. McClay speaks up for her favourite Jane Austen novel: "It’s not my intention to turn Northanger Abbey from a gleeful romp into a treatise on human judgment. It is a light novel – Austen’s lightest – and that lightness should be burdened as little as possible through overthinking it. Nevertheless, at risk of weightiness, it’s worth exploring how Northanger Abbey is more than a satire of other novels. Managing disastrous first impressions, discerning the sincerity of another’s intentions, seeing into somebody’s character: these are all here, explored in just as nuanced a way as they will be in Emma or Pride and Prejudice."

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"Weaponising food deprivation has been Israeli policy for decades. As a senior adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it in 2006, the government’s aim, in strictly restricting the entrance of foodstuffs into Gaza, was to 'put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.' Now, Israel seems to have committed fully to the latter goal." Jennifer Zacharia details the sufferings of the Palestinians.

Roland Smith weighs the objections to the European Convention on Human Rights and says we'll need good arguments against them if we're to resist the coming campaign for Britain to withdraw from it. 

"I moved to the city eight years ago to study neuroscience at University College London. Since then, rents have nearly doubled but the square footage of my digs has stayed the same. As I grow up in age and out in size, I begin to see that the hoped-for upgrade that should come with time now looks impossible. My generation is running but we’re not moving." Rose Dodd reports on life as a private tenant in London.

Michael Rosen proves that educational research did not begin with Michael Gove.

Londonopia tells the story of a unique London store: "Arthur Liberty wasn’t just flogging  fabrics. He was hawking a vision - a sensual rebellion against the stiff moral corsetry of Victorian Britain. Where others sold sensible serge, Liberty offered peacock-feather glamour, hand-painted decadence, and the vague but thrilling possibility that you might run away with an artist and spend your life eating figs in an atelier."

"War is a dreadful thing, amongst all of the horrific things that human inflicts upon other human in the name of 'war' there are some events that stand out as atrocities: one such atrocity took place in the aftermath of the battle of Naseby." Keep Your Powder Dry tries to pin down the exact location of The Farndon Massacre in the villages just south of Market Harborough.

Layla Moran calls on government to stand up to Trump over Gaza

Interviewed here on The News Agents podcast, Layla Moran calls on the government to take a stand against Donald Trump's plans for the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza. 

She wants Britain to recognise the state of Palestine and to call for an immediate meeting of the United Nations security council.

Her point that Trump respects strength, and certainly won't respect the government's current timidity, is well made.

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Outraged by the January 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was the ProPublica reporter Joshua Kaplan.

Miranda Pirch reminds us: "There are so many Jewish people, both within Israel and outside it, who are committed to fighting against the oppression of the Palestinian people, regardless of what pro-Israelis would have you believe."

"The oddly intrusive feeling of each viewing being mediated - by a business standing between oneself and the viewing, the listening, the reading - bears a chill of surveillance. That’s not the case when one holds in one’s lap a book that one owns, pops a disk into a player, or lays a needle on a record." Richard Brody counsels against throwing away your DVDs.

Hannah Williams goes in search of London's oldest pub.

"Lodge’s highly-praised campus novels were major representations of university life across the 1970s and 1980s: Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975); Small World: An Academic Romance (1984); Nice Work (1988) - all better, because funnier and wider-ranging, than Lodge’s friend Malcolm Bradbury’s sour The History Man (1975).": Adam Roberts pays tribute to David Lodge.

Casmilus identifies a new genre of children's television: Glam Smiley. These were drama series with a very Seventies aesthetic in which children got caught up with high espionage.

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Andy Boddington, a Lib Dem councillor in Ludlow, explains why he won't be signing a petition on Gaza organised by a Shropshire resident: "How can you be a peace campaigner when you accuse people who won’t sign as having extreme views without knowing their views or reasons for not signing. Mr Robbins should withdraw his reckless attempt to name and shame councillors and to put them in danger. He should work towards peace in the Middle East not towards creating conflict in Shropshire."

"When I explained my situation to my manager, they said I had just two weeks off on full pay. After that, I’d get what is known as statutory sick pay from my employer, paid at just £109.40 a week. I could hardly believe it." After experiencing the financial blow that being diagnosed with cancer also brings, Danny Berry has joined the Safe Sick Pay campaign.

"The point is - there were no pro-slavery societies. People who wanted to carry on benefiting from slavery for as long as possible counseled delay and inaction - that was the only realistic course. It would not have been tenable for Dundas or any other public figure to argue in favour of slavery. In that sense, there are analogies with climate change." Jackie Kemp looks at the different ways the story of slavery is represented by Edinburgh's monuments."

Historic England considers Cornwall's under-researched queer literary history.

"Eight new villages were planned for the Forest, Kielder itself would be the largest - 'new village communities of estate workers, adequately and compactly housed, and enjoying a high standard of local amenities'." Municipal Dreams on a postwar experiment in rural housing.

Stephen Wagg likes Kenneth More far more as an actor than I do, but I still enjoyed his discussion of the sudden decline of More's career: "More ... received an offer from David Lean to play the lead in an adaptation of Richard Mason’s interracial romance novel, The Wind Cannot Read. He says he turned it down, unsure if the public would accept him in a 'Rupert Brooke-style' part; More later called this decision his biggest professional mistake."

It's not just the economy the Tories are trashing: they are setting about our democracy too

Only a former Labour MP could come up with such a repressive measure.

From the Guardian:

Ministers are considering proposals to ban MPs and councillors from engaging with groups such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil.

The plans, put forward by the government’s adviser on political violence, John Woodcock, say mainstream political leaders should tell their representatives to employ a 'zero-tolerance approach' to groups that use disruptive tactics or fail to stop 'hate' on marches.

Rishi Sunak and James Cleverly, the home secretary, are due to discuss the proposals as part of a review conducted by Woodcock, the former Labour MP who now sits as Lord Walney, a cross-bench peer.

MPs and councillors are not the representatives of their party leaders: they are the representatives of their constituents. They should therefore be free to talk to anyone they damn well choose.

The speaker of the Commons needs to say this loud and clear, but he is such a diminished figure that I doubt he will.

This is an attempt by the Conservatives to make it harder to express views that dissent from their own, even when those views have widespread support.

Public opinion favours a ceasefire in Gaza and is concerned about the climate crisis, even if voters are less supportive of some of the tactics climate protestors have employed.

It's not just the economy that the Tories are trashing before they have to call an election: they are setting about representative democracy too.

GUEST POST Councillor defections: The scores on the doors at the end of 2023

Augustus Carp with an end-of-year update on the number of councillors who have left the party under whose flag they were elected.

The end of the year is probably as good a time as any to consider recent changes of political allegiances amongst our elected councillors. For divers reasons, numerous individuals have decided to re-align themselves away from the political party whose views they espoused when elected.  

What this might mean is for you to decide – maybe it’s irrelevant, perhaps it’s just the manifestation of personal vanity, or it might be evidence of impending political change, either locally or nationally.  

In any event, I would suggest that any councillor jumping ship means the loss of a formerly dedicated party worker (and perhaps some of their family and friends) on whom their erstwhile parties might have been relying for the impending General Election. Have the parties kept centralised canvassing records, or will they disappear with the resigning councillor? Who will deliver the leaflets in that ward now? Who will run the poling stations on election day?

In headline terms, the net change in councillor defections since the last council elections in May 2023 is Conservatives down 48, the Lib Dems down 15 and the Nationalists down 12, with the Greens flat. The Labour tally of 100 defections elegantly mirrors the Conservative figure when I wrote my first guest post on this subject in February.  

Without a doubt, the biggest surprise of the year has been the series of mass defections from Labour, caused by events in Palestine. 

It’s difficult to ensure absolute accuracy, because a number of factors might have been in play, but over 60 Labour councillors have said that they have resigned because of these events; there have also been a handful of suspensions for the same reason.  

Mass resignations in Burnley (12 councillors) Oxford (11) Blackburn (10) and Walsall (9) have led to changes in the running of the council. Other mass resignations in Sheffield (8) and Hastings (10) do not appear to have the same cause, but it might be a factor in the latter case.  

It will be interesting to see if the Labour Party nationally is able to devise a face-saving mechanism to entice most of the defectors back into the fold, but perhaps the damage is done.  

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have lost on average 1.4 councillors every week. Let’s see what happens in 2024 when the local elections will be largely a replay of 2021, when the Conservatives made significant gains. It could be that, rather than defect or resign, more Conservative Councillors will retire early, in order for the vacancies to fit in with the May timetable.    

Postscript: Probably in an attempt to confuse my arithmetic, the Liberal Democrats have just announced half a defection to them – the Leader of Shetland Council has joined the Party, but will continue to sit as an Independent councillor.

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

Coventry Cathedral Choir: The Coventry Carol

This recording by the boys of Coventry Cathedral Choir is on an LP issued in 1971.

The 16th-century Coventry Carol was traditionally performed in Coventry as part of a mystery play, The Pageant of Shearman and the Tailors, which relates the Christmas story from the second chapter of the Gospel of St Matthew and refers to the Massacre of the Innocents. It takes the form of a lullaby sung by the mothers of the doomed children.

And on that cheerful note, let me wish all my readers a merry Christmas and a happy new year.