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"Ever since she took over from David Cameron last summer, she has spoken as if Britain is a nation harmoniously united, aside from the divisive forces of party politics and liberal elites seeking to thwart the 'will of the people.'" William Davies dissects Theresa May's vapid vision of a one-party state.

Bernard Aris looks at the history of internationalism in the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats.

The privatisation of the Forensic Science Service in 2010 has brought about a crisis in the criminal justice system, argues Jerry Hayes.

Bethlem Museum of the Mind on the rumour of a Petition of the Poor Distracted Folk of Bedlam from 1620.

Northamptonshire Britain's Best Surprise visits Kelmarsh Hall, which is down the road from here. I shall go back this summer to see the exhibition of artwork by MacDonald (brother of Eric) Gill.

"The presence of the 'slick, flashy' Spivs gave post-war British cinema an excuse to make their own version of the 1930s Hollywood gangster movies – still loved and regularly watched by much of the UK cinema audiences after the war." Rob Baker looks at this genre of films.

The evidence behind the Lib Dem call to legalise cannabis

The Liberal Democrat call for a regulated market in cannabis this week has attracted more media interest than out policies normally do.

You can read the evidence behind this policy in the report A framework for a regulated market for cannabis in the UK: Recommendations from an expert panel.

That expert panel was made up of:

• Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst, Transform Drug Policy Foundation (Chair)
• Mike Barton, Chief Constable, Durham Constabulary
• Niamh Eastwood, Executive Director, Release
• Tom Lloyd, Chair of the National Cannabis Coalition and former Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Police
• Professor Fiona Measham, Professor of Criminology, Durham University
• Professor David Nutt, Founder of DrugScience and former Chair of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs
• Professor Harry Sumnall, Professor of Substance Use, Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University

To give you a taste of the report:

The prohibition on cannabis production and supply: 

• Creates opportunities for criminal entrepreneurs, fuelling a vast and socially corrosive criminal market, associated with violence, people trafficking and slavery, including of children 

• Ensures that people who use cannabis have little or no information about the potency of the product they are consuming 

• Ensures people who use cannabis buy from potentially risky illicit markets that put them in contact with dealers of other more harmful drugs 

• Has progressively tilted the market towards more risky products (with higher THC and lower CBD) that are more profitable to the criminal entrepreneurs who control the trade 

• Has led to the rapid expansion of markets for more risky synthetic cannabis analogues (e.g. ‘spice’)

St Pancras Old Church on St Pancras's Day

Having begun the day by wishing you a happy St Pancras's Day, there was only one place to go.

St Pancras Old Church stands just to the north of the railway station and to the west of the line.

As St Pancras Old Church History explains:

St Pancras Old Church has been a site of Christian worship since the 4th century. It is thought that this church is on a site that has offered worship for more than 1700 years. Fragments of Roman material can still be seen here and there in the fabric of the current building. 

The monuments and reuse of stone chart the history of the church’s development over time. Spanning eight centuries since Fulcherius in the late 12th century the incumbents stretch down to the present day, Fr James Elston becoming the Team Vicar in 2012.

And the last two times I have been there the church has been open.

In the churchyard you will find Sir John Soane's mausoleum, an influence on the design of the classic red telephone box, and the Hardy Tree.

Happy St Pancras Day

As John Betjeman wrote:

Saint Pancras was a fourteen-year old Christian boy who was martyred in Rome in AD 304 by the Emperor Diocletian. In England he is better known as a railway station.

Today is also Steve Winwood's birthday.

Arts Council grant for the Richard Jefferies Museum

Good news from Swindon Link. The Richard Jefferies Museum at Coate has receive a donation of £55,000 from the Arts Council towards a programme of arts and heritage activities.

The website quotes a couple of reactions:

Hilda Sheehan, who organises most of the museum's events as well as being a poet and mainstay of the Swindon Poetry Festival, said: "This is such good news for us. We are a tiny museum and really want to reach as many people as possible. Having a grant from the Arts Council means we can bring in really good artists and internationally renowned poets and not have to charge the earth for people to enjoy them."

Museum manager Mike Pringle said: "We have only been developing the museum for a relatively short while after taking it over from the Council. This helps us to go even further, developing local arts and heritage through our relationships with local services such as the Alzheimer's Society, the Downs Syndrome Society, Mind, local schools, community groups, libraries and galleries. We think that arts which respond to this sort of audience participation grow in new and unexpected ways, and bring our museum to life."

The museum occupies Coate Farm, which was the birthplace of the 19th-century nature writer Richard Jefferies.

For more on the man and the location see the guest post on Liberal England by Rebecca Welshman. It was written before the museum's recent renaissance.

Tensions between May and Hammond mean the government is neither strong nor stable

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What makes a government weak and unstable?

Tensions between the prime minister and the chancellor that's what.

It was when Margaret Thatcher fell out with Nigel Lawson in 1989 that she started to look vulnerable. She did not last much longer.

Which is why the most important political news today is this one behind The Times paywall:

Relations between the chancellor and Theresa May’s top team have deteriorated following a series of clashes over policy and presentation. 

Philip Hammond infuriated senior Downing Street aides by effectively committing the prime minister to ditching a promise not to raise VAT, tax or national insurance days after she called the election and before the policy had been settled, The Times has learnt. 

Yesterday, both sides denied reports that Mr Hammond had initially opposed Mrs May’s promise to cap energy bills for 17 million households as they sought to present a united front before the launch next week of the Conservative manifesto.

The report goes on to say that Hammond's relations with Theresa May's chief of staff Nick Timothy are particularly strained. The latter is said to have been "incandescent" at briefings (blamed on Hammond's aides) that he is economically illiterate.

All of which strengthens the impression that Theresa May is a control freak surrounded by a group of tantrum-prone manbabies.

The claim that her government is strong and stable is as false as the one that a big majority will somehow improve the deal she gets from the European Union,

Darlington to Middleton in Teesdale in 1963

More evocative footage of a lost branch line, This one closed to passengers the year after the film was shot.

Now a Market Harborough school imposes 'hands behind back' rule

It's reached Market Harborough. It's reached a Market Harborough school where, in an earlier life, I was a governor.

The Daily Mail reports:

A primary school has been accused of 'going back to Victorian times' by insisting children walk around the grounds with their hands behind their backs. 

Teachers at Market Harborough Church of England Academy say the antiquated rule is for the 'safety' of pupils and to encourage a 'calm' atmosphere. 

The ruling is also in force when youngsters finish their lunchtime break and return to classrooms. 

Angry parents have dubbed the new rule 'draconian' and blasted the school in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, for 'going back to Victorian times'.

I blogged about this bizarre idea when it was imposed upon a London primary school. Now it has arrived here.

The Mail quotes the Harborough school's head:

'As part of our commitment to providing a safe and orderly environment, we have recently introduced the practice of children gently placing their hands behind their backs as they move round school in large groups, or when they enter the building at lunchtimes.

I love the 'gently' - as though children placing their hands behind their backs with insufficient care might be a risk.

The answer is clear. The people of Market Harborough must point at the people responsible for this decision and roar with laughter whenever they appear in public.

Six of the Best 690

Conservative member Peter Reynolds says Theresa May is not strong and stable but cowardly, evasive and weak.

"This divorce is not going well. And the proceedings have only just started. There is a long road ahead. Heaven knows what sort of country we will be at the end of it. But, as with any divorce, we can be fairly confident that it is the children who will suffer the most." Chris Patten on what Brexit means for Britain's future.

Leonard Pozner, whose son Noah died at Sandy Hook, writes about dealing with the conspiracy theorists and hoaxers who have taunted him ever since,

Is it time do divorce Facebook? Mark Pesce asks the question.

A London Inheritance on his father's experience of VE Day.

Dirty South introduces us to Battersea and its pubs.

More titbits on Dr Teck Khong, the Ukip candidate for Harborough

Last night I introduced you to Dr Teck Khong, Ukip's candidate for Harborough on 8 June,

He has featured on this blog a couple of times before.

Dr Khong was on the shortlist of three from which the Conservative candidate for the 2011 Leicester South by-election was chosen, but did not make the cut.

And he was himself the victim of a racist speech by one of his Conservative colleagues on Oadby and Wigston Borough Council in 2015.

I wish him joy in Ukip.

Viewing the remains of Roman Leicester

The excavations of Roman remains off Great Central Street in the centre of Leicester were opened to the public on Saturday and Sunday.

So long were the queues to view them that it was decided to open the site between noon and two every day this week.

I went along today, finding the entrance to the site directly opposite the old Leicester Central station.

Even on a weekday I had to queue for over an hour to get in to view it.

As the Leicester Mercury told us:

Key discoveries include the remains of one of the largest and highest-status Roman mosaic floors ever found in the city, two Roman streets containing a number of buildings and rare evidence of the first Anglo-Saxon migrants to arrive in the city following the demise of Roman Leicester.

This site was formerly occupied by the Stibbe factory, which supplied machinery to the local hosiery trade. That was built in the 1960s and its concrete pillars rather dominate proceedings.

The dig will continue until the late summer before the site is redeveloped as a hotel. The mosaics will be lifted and displayed there of in one of the city's museums.

The sheer bloody uselessness of Jeremy Corbyn

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The problem with Jeremy Corbyn is not his left-wing politics, The problem is that he is no good as a leader.

On the great issue facing the country - Brexit - he has managed to convince Leavers that he supports Remain and convince Remainers that he supports Leave.

We saw that in microcosm today.

This morning he announced that the issue of Brexit is "settled", dismaying those of us who hope Britain will yet escapte this self-inflicted disaster.

This afternoon he refused seven times to say he would definitely take Britain out of the EU, dismaying those who still believe Brexit is the cat's pyjamas.

And then there is the inept way he and his team handle the media. This goes right back to the night he was elected Labour leader and that grim-faced silent walk as journalists tried to interview him.

Today he told Buzzfeed News that he would stay on as Labour leader if he lost the election. Then he denied to the BBC that he had done so and Buzzfeed were banned from Labour events.

Sure enough, Buzzfeed was able to produce a recording of Corbyn saying just what it reported he had.

So don't see Corbyn as a socialist martyr, See him as a bloody useless leader.

Introducting Dr Teck Khong, Ukip's candidate for Harborough

On Sunday Ukip announced they would be standing a candidate in the Harborough constituency as the new Conservative candidate, Neil O'Brien, is a "big Remainer".

Today they named that candidate: Dr Teck Khong.

This came as something of a surprise as he was until today a Conservative member of Oadby and Wigston Borough Council. He also fought Bradford North for the Tories at the 2005 general election and Twitter gossip is that he was disappointed not to be allowed to fight a seat this time.

I don't know if he had his eye on Harborough, but because of the snap election a shortlist of three outside names was imposed on the constituency party by the national Conservative Party.

There is an idiosyncratic biography on his website, but I decided to dig a little deeper.

Dr Khong's attendance record at Oadby and Wigston is not impressive.

More worrying is this article on Tell MAMA from last year:

t has been brought to our attention that the Conservative Councillor, Cllr Dr Teck Khong, has an interesting network of friends on social media. Of particular interest has been the fact that he is a serving councillor on Oadby and Wigston Borough Council in Leicestershire. 

He also lists his profession as a General Practitioner in his register of interests and also is a Board member on the Governing Body of Leicester City’s Clinical Commissioning Group. He also lists an interest in a company called Healthwebwide Limited, which is also listed in his register of interests. 

So far so good. Yet, a look at the social media activity of Cllr Khong leaves much to be desired in the comments that he seems to ‘like’.

And the article goes on to list a number of anti-Muslim tweets that he has liked on Twitter.

People like tweets for all sorts of reasons, but a post on Thoughts of a Leicester Socialist gives more cause for concern.

It says of Dr Khong:

In September 2008 he felt moved to leave positive comments under a bile-filled article titled “How modern Islam has made UK citizens homeless in their own homes.” 

This article warned that Britain was on the way into turning into “some sort of semi-Islamic republic”; and the bigoted author made clear that: “Unlike other valuable and rich cultures and religions that integrate successfully, modern Islam seems steadfast in its principles of war and violence.” 

Sympathising with the general thrust of the article Dr Zhong (sic) commented: 

“What saddens me and many with similar historical backgrounds is the lack of allegiance to the adopted home with newcomers who have been attracted to these shores in the first instance. Even worse is to contemplate the destruction of the very host that offers a haven of hope. ‘When in Rome…’ seems to have slipped into oblivion.”

That article was on Conservative Home and you will find three comments on it from Dr Khong.

The Economic Voice quotes an ecstatic Paul Nuttall:

"That Tech has chosen to support UKIP at this time shows clearly that the scales are beginning to fall from the eyes of Tories about the vacuum where a serious Brexit policy lies in Theresa May's Conservative Party"

But the truth is that today Ukip is attracting people who are prejudiced against Muslims and precious few others.

Tim Farron's hovercraft ride keeps up a Liberal tradition

Exciting times at Burnham-on-Sea today as Tim Farron and Tessa Munt visited the Hovercraft Search and Rescue Centre.

Tim spoke to the workers, media and supporters before taking a ride in one of the things.

Which reminds me of two earlier encounters between Liberal leaders and hovercraft

In 2008 Nick Clegg and Tessa made the same visit to Burnham.

And Rod Liddle once told the story of Jeremy Thorpe's 1974 visit to Sidmouth:

I sat in the bar with a drip feed of genteel alcohol and listened to one of the younger locals — he'd have been in his late seventies, I would guess — talk about the last time there'd been a shipwreck in these parts. 

They all remembered it very well, though it must have been 30 or 40 years ago now. A privately hired hovercraft had, somewhat ill-advisedly, attempted to gain access to Sidmouth harbour. It was not successful in so doing, apparently. Some way out it foundered and began to sink. And yet this terrible wrecking also brought forth bounty of a kind. 

As the craft flapped pointlessly in the surf, many yards from shore, a magisterial figure in a smart suit emerged from within its bowels and waded, with steadfast expression and immense resolve, through the waves, a look of destiny upon his face. 

People looked on in amazement and trepidation. For it was the Right Honourable Jeremy Thorpe MP — and he'd come to do a spot of canvassing.

Hovercraft, incidentally, have proved something of a disappointment. Back in the 1960s hovercraft rides or displays were part of every ambitious fête and we were in no doubt that they were going to be part of the future. Somehow it never quite happened.

Jonathan Meades was right when he said that the future happened briefly in 1969.

Nottingham to Lincoln by water

The British Waterways hotel boat Water Wanderer makes its way from Nottingham to Lincoln via the River Trent and the Roman canal the Fossdyke.

I would guess this dates from around 1970.

The old Hippodrome in Brighton

After my flirtation with restoration at Embassy Court, let's return to derelict Brighton.

The old Hippodrome is tucked in, rather unexpectedly, just behind the seafront.

It was built in 1897 and Wikipedia tells its colourful history:

Shows of all types were staged there, and top-name entertainers such as Sarah Bernhardt, Sammy Davis, Jr., Gracie Fields, Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton, Lillie Langtry and Laurel and Hardy appeared. 

Laurence Olivier played the venue early in his stage career—but fell over on his first entrance on his début. 

One of Charlie Chaplin's first roles was a bit-part in theatre impresario Fred Karno's comedy Saturday to Monday, staged in May 1907; and Vivien Leigh gave an acclaimed performance in George Bernard Shaw's play The Doctor's Dilemma. 

Local stars also featured: Max Miller, the Brighton-born music hall entertainer and comedian, appeared on many occasions during the mid-20th century; and conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, whose vaudeville career began in their home town in 1911 at the age of three, topped the bill with their variety show.

The article goes on to say that 4000 people attended concerts by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in 1964, but that could not help the Hippodrome closing the following year.

It was bought by the Rank Organisation and turned into a Mecca Bingo hall and remained open in that guise until 2007.

Hopes of restoring it remain, those this whole quarter of the city seem run down at present. Our Brighton Hippodrome has the latest news.

The building's glory is its interior, as you will see from the video below.

Ten thoughts on the prospects for a progressive alliance

1. In Scotland, Yes lost the referendum, but the 45 per cent who backed it united behind the SNP and became an unstoppable force in first-past-the-post elections. But it is the 52 per cent who backed Leave who have united after the European referendum - or largely so - and united behind the Conservative Party. That is the problem that has made other parties dream of a progressive alliance.

2. Jeremy Corbyn is electorally toxic, which makes an electoral agreements between Labour and other parties impossible. He would drag them down with him. You may think this unfair, but it is a fact.

3. Prospects for cooperation between the Liberal Democrats and the Greens are limited because, with the exception of Brighton Pavilion, Green targets are Liberal Democrat targets too. And these days the Greens seem closer to Corbynite Labour than anyone else.

4. Two years ago the Liberal Democrats were in a coalition government with the Conservatives. Even with the game-changer of Brexit, it would puzzle the voters if we now announced that keeping them from power was more important than anything.

5. There are many good people in the Labour Party and we should seek to work with them. The comments by Vince Cable of Rupa Haq today were obviously true and not a gaffe.

6. So our line should be 'No coalition with Corbyn' and we should leave open the possibility of cooperation with Labour at some point in the future.

7. If we do have arrangements with the Labour Party they must be agreed locally - as has already happened in a handful seats - and not be imposed from the centre - it may be that the culture of the Labour Party makes this impossible. As a survivor of the Alliance years I remember the effort spent on seat negotiations and how little was gained from them.

8. The best arrangements are probably tacit ones where parties agree not to campaign in each other's target seats. This is more or less what happened between the Liberal Democrats and Labour in 1997 and it was very successful.

9. Remember that parties cannot deliver their voters en bloc to another party.

10. If the voters want to get rid of the Tories, they will organise themselves to do so, as 1997 proved. In more than one Liberal Democrat target seat, Labour came from third place to win.

Llamas delay trains between Hildenborough and Sevenoaks on Southeastern line

Kent Online wins our Headline of the Day Award.

Liberal England adds: Did I ever tell you that I was derailed by cows in Kent?

Readers reply hurriedly: Yes.

Six of the Best 689

"In my first general election the Liberal Party’s policy was that employees and shareholders should have equal rights to share the profits of an enterprise and the determination of a company’s direction. This was no wishy-washy Theresa May proposal to allow one token employee to sit on a Board. This was full blown industrial democracy." Iain Brodie Brown says this is one of the distinctive ideas that Liberal Democrats can bring to a progressive alliance.

Dave Gorman argues that "the ownership of public assets should be transferred from the state to the public".

It doesn't take a dictator to smother a free press say Jakub Dymek and Zsolt Kapelner looking at developments in Hungary and Poland.

"In 2006, David Cameron gave a speech in which he said that Google was democratizing the world, because 'making more information available to more people' was providing 'the power for anyone to hold to account those who in the past might have had a monopoly of power.' Seven years later, Britain’s Conservative Party scrubbed from its Web site ten years’ worth of Tory speeches, including that one." Jill Lepore asks if the internet can be archived.

Peter Kinderman says everyone is crazy but nobody is mentally ill.

Robin Le Mesurier (the son of John Le Mesurier and Hattie Jacques) remembers he was a Womble, talking to Adrian Lee.

David Steel bigs up Tim Farron

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On the New Statesman website, the former Liberal Party leaders praises the current Liberal Democrat leader as "the most under-rated politician in the UK today".

Sir David writes:

I have known and highly regarded him since I first met him as leader of the student Liberals at Newcastle University. 

In 2005 he defeated a right-wing Tory MP by just 250 votes. At the next election in 2010 he jumped to a 12,000 majority, much of which he retained in the debacle in 2015. 

Twice he has persuaded me to address his annual constituency fundraising dinner saying “it is just over the border” – actually more than a 200 mile round trip over Hadrian’s Wall. I was deeply impressed by his hold on the good people of Cumbria. 

Indeed his election as party leader against Norman Lamb, who had been an excellent minister, was partly because party members wanted someone less identified with the post-Coalition disaster. 

He is a committed Christian, which I regard as a plus, and I do not understand the fuss about his alleged views on homosexuality or abortion since we have always accepted that these are matters of conscience for individual MP’s not for party diktat. 

His track record as MP showed him willing to oppose some of the errors of the party, especially the student fees fiasco. He is vehemently anti-Brexit.

I prefer the slightly mischievous David Steel of today to the David Steel who led the Liberal Party when I joined it.