Market Harborough buses under threat from Conservative chaos

Some bus routes serving Market Harborough could be scrapped because of the the budget crisis facing Leicestershire County Council.

HFM News, with a clip from an interview with Liberal Democrat councillor Simon Galton, reports:

The authority has warned its financial outlook is ‘dire’ and ahead of budget proposals being made public next week, some details have been shared with councillors.

Cuts could be made to bus services subsidised by the authority, which include the number 33 town service in Market Harborough and route 44, which links the town with Foxton and Fleckney.

Conservatives are now a complete shambles. Only last year the government announced a £3bn scheme to improve bus services outside London.

We were promised hundreds of miles of new bus lanes, fares with daily price caps so people can use the bus as many times a day as they need, more services in the evenings and at weekends, integration with train tickets and that all buses would accept contactless payments.

The Guardian caught the rapturous tone of the announcement:

The DfT said it expected to see local authorities and operators working together to deliver bus services so frequent that passengers could just "turn up and go" - no longer needing to rely on a traditional timetable and no longer having to wait more than a few minutes.

Boris Johnson said: "Just as they did in London, our reforms will make buses the transport of choice, reducing the number of car journeys and improving quality of life for millions."

Leicestershire County Council did put in a £58m for more government funding for bus services earlier this year, apparently because it "lacked ambition".

How things have turned out is a classic illustration of Boris Johnson's ability to identify issues that matter to voters and his inability to be arsed to do anything about them, and also of the damage done by too many changes at 10 and 11 Downing Street.

Because Market Harborough is not alone in facing cuts to its bus services. 

Back in July, the Guardian reported that at least 135 bus routes across England were due to be cut or scrapped altogether.

And in case you thought "levelling up" would save the North of England from cuts, 25 routes in Liverpool and 40 across the North East were affected.

But that's the modern Conservative Party for you. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing, and you can be sure that, if it ever finds out, it will do its best to stop it.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Marxist Groupuscules XI

And it happened again this week! Don't tell me now that the old boy wasn't on to something. I, for one. shan't feel confidence of the permanence of Bazball until progress is made on the issue he identifies here.

Incidentally, as I recall, Doug Walters was always caught in the gully when he played in England.

Thursday

I can hardly bring myself to write I am so angry. Our new King was visiting York today – birthplace, it happens, of our own Vince “High Voltage” Cable – and a member of the assembled crowd launched several eggs at him. 

It’s not that I’m outraged at, you understand: for much of their reign, the first four Georges couldn’t venture out of the palace gates without being pelted with rotten cabbages – and quite right too! 

No, what angers me is that Every Single One of those eggs missed its target. 

What has happened to English cricket? I can remember the days when an Anarcho-Syndicalist XI could take on and beat first-class counties and the touring Australians would count their fixture against the Marxist Groupuscules XI as among the hardest they faced – I remember poor Doug Walters being comprehensively yorked by a Molatov cocktail at the Griff and Coton Ground, Nuneaton. If the Marxists could have agreed on who their captain was, they would have been stronger still. 

But this is a time for action not for reminiscing: I am off to supervise fielding practice at the village school.

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

Earlier this week...

• No camel could have sacrificed his penis in a finer cause
• "A mulligatawny is pleasantly warming at this time of year"
• "What about the Young People?"

Jona Lewie: Stop the Cavalry

This, says Jona Lewie, was not written to be a Christmas hit: it's an anti-war protest song. But a mention of the festival and a burst of tubular bells works wonders.

In the event, Stop the Cavalry was kept from the top of the charts at the end of 1980 only by the newly murdered John Lennon. 

Me? I like knowing that Lewie wrote and played on the 1972 hit Seaside Shuffle. That was credited to Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs, but the band had long played together under the name Brett Marvin and the Thunderbolts.

And I like the way the song reminds me of Christmas shopping in York when I was a student.

The Long Man of Wilmington

The Long Man of Wilmington is a hill figure on Windover Hill near Wilmington in East Sussex.

Here Professor Martin Bell, President of the Sussex Archaeological Society, discusses with Chris Hare the possible origin and meaning of the Long Man. They also talk about the significance of the surrounding archaeological features, including long barrows and round barrows.

Something to visit next time there is a Liberal Democrat Conference in Eastbourne.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: "What about the Young People?"

Lord Bonkers' grasp of history may not be exactly secure: I have read that Saxon England was just as dominated by the aristocracy as Norman England was to be. 

But, as so often, he's right about present-day British politics.

Wednesday

Who should I meet in Westminster but our own Ed Davey? He is full of a new policy he has announced: "You know how we’re targeting middle-class voters in affluent seats in the South of England?" he asks. "Well, I’ve decided to step that up. In future, if I come across someone who owns a house in Guildford or Wimbledon then I shall hand them a plump cheque to go towards the cost of their mortgage." 

I fear I am rather short with him: "What about the Young People and the rents they have to pay? Are you going to give them cheques too?" 

However, I save my strongest point till last. “What about people who have no mortgage costs because an ancestor had the good sense to come over with the Conqueror and extort a vast estate of prime East Midland agricultural land from the Saxon peasantry? Why should they be penalised?” 

I flatter myself that I leave him with plenty to chew on.

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

Earlier this week...

• No camel could have sacrificed his penis in a finer cause
• "A mulligatawny is pleasantly warming at this time of year"

Tenebrae: In the Bleak Midwinter

The words are an 1872 poem by Christina Rossetti, and the setting by Gustav Holst dates from 1906.

Together they give you the feeling that the Nativity took place, not in the Holy Land, but in an English village.

John Masefield and Traffic at Aston Tirrold

Now we're well into Advent it's high time I posted the opening titles of The Box of Delights.

Job done.

In order to qualify as a regular reader of Liberal England, you have to know that the cottage where the band Traffic got it together in the country in 1967 was near the Berkshire village of Aston Tirrold.

Years ago, I got excited because John Masefield's first book about Kay Harker sees him setting out to discover what became of a fortune stolen from his great grandfather Aston Tirrold Harker.

But Masefield's connection with the village is closer than that. The Astons website reveals that he lived at Lollington Farm, Aston Tirrold, between 1914 and 1917.

And Battlelines Redrawn, a website devoted to war artists, has a quote from Masefield (though it doesn't say where it is taken from):

In the first week of July, 1914, I was in an old house in Berkshire, a house built eight centuries ago before by the monks as a place of rest and contemplation and beauty. 

I had never seen England so beautiful as then, and a little company of lovely friends was there. Rupert Brooke was one of them, and we read poems in that old haunt of beauty, and wandered on the Downs. 

I remember saying that the Austro-Serbian business might cause a European War, in which we might be involved, but the others did not think this likely; they laughed.

Lollington Farm and Traffic's cottage aren't next door to each other, but both are out of the village on its southern side.

A brutal casting decision in Innocent Sinners

I looked up Innocent Sinners, my latest childreDalkieth Advertisern and bombsites film, in the British Newspaper Archive and came across this story from the Dalkieth Advertiser:

A Tale of Two Sisters

It was to have been a great day for 10-year-old Helen Archer. She was due to have a test for a top part in the Rank Organisation film Innocent Sinners. Her mother could not go with her to Pinewood for the test so her 14-year-old sister June took her along instead. 

Everything was set for the test scene. Then director Philip Leacock found he wanted an extra girl. He asked June if she thought she could learn the lines as a stand-in. 

She told him, "Yes, I know all the children's parts in the script. I learnt them while I was helping Helen with her lines." 

To prove it she ran through the test piece without one prompt. And did it so well that Leacock asked her to do it again. This time she was - says Leacock - superb. 

So superb there was only one thing he could do. He gave the film role to June.

It's a shit business, but June Archer's excellence as Lovejoy is a large part of the film's success.

The only similar story I can remember comes from Time Bandits. Terry Gilliam was casting the role of the boy Kevin and saw Grant Warnock, a child star of the day.

His parents had brought their younger son along for child-care reasons, and Gilliam took a shine to him and cast him instead of his brother.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: “A mulligatawny is pleasantly warming at this time of year”

Freddie and Fiona's metamorphosis into Julian and Sandy continues apace: now I've even given them a weak punchline.

And I didn't know Lord B. drinks Monster either. Maybe it's cheaper than that cordial sold by the Elves of Rockingham Forest?

Tuesday

Popping into the supermarket for a can of Monster – that puts hair on a fellow’s chest! – I come across Freddie and Fiona busily comparing tines in the soup aisle. “A mulligatawny is pleasantly warming at this time of year,” I offer. 

It transpires that they are not planning to drink the stuff so much as pour it over the works of the Old Masters in our public art galleries to protest about the burning of fossil fuels. "I wouldn’t pick on those artist fellows," I advise. "They can be jolly temperamental at the best of times. Did you know the celebrated Dutch painter Van Morrison bit one of my forefathers while painting his portrait? He didn’t get much of a tip, I assure you." 

They will not, however, be diverted from their chosen course. When I ask why they are so determined to soup the work of the great artists, I am told: “That’s simple: they painted in oil.”

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

Earlier this week...

• No camel could have sacrificed his penis in a finer cause

The Ronettes: Sleigh Ride

Phil Spector released his album A Christmas Gift for You in 1963. It contained a collection of secular Christmas standards reworked in his unique 'wall of sound' style.

The tune for Sleigh Ride was composed by Leroy Anderson in 1948, with the lyrics added two years later by Mitchell Paris.

The Ronettes were a Manhattan girl group, led by Veronica Veronica Bennett who began an affair with Spector around the time this track was recorded. She married him in 1968, only to flee four years later.

In 2008 Spector was convicted of the murder of the actress Lana Clarkson, He died in prison last year.

Merry Christmas!

Colin Martin on Britain's centralised approach to devolution

Colin Martin, the Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for South East Cornwall, has a good article in the Cornish Times.

He writes about how centralised government is in Britain - so much so that even moves towards more devolution are tightly controlled:

For most of this year, Cornwall Councillors have been told that the Government might give us some new powers, but only if we replace the Leader of the Council with a directly elected Mayor.

We have been kept in the dark about what these new powers might be. Most Councillors feel that the public should have the final say about whether to make such a big change, but we don’t even have the power to ask the question without permission from Government!

He also takes the right line on the situation in Scotland:

Last week the Supreme Court in London ruled that the Scottish Government did not have the power to hold a Referendum on Scottish Independence.

So although we pay lip-service to the idea of self-determination, the people of Scotland have to ask permission from the UK Government to be allowed to express their opinion.

Some people North of the border are asking whether they are members of a "voluntary union", or captives being held against their will.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: No camel could have sacrificed his penis in a finer cause

The new Liberator has dropped, as the young people put it, so it's time to spend another week with Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer.

Monday

Eventually, even the humiliation of one’s enemies palls, and I am no longer watching that extraordinary new series of Hancock’s Half Hour set in the jungle. (Besides, have you seen the price of telephone calls these days?) 

Nevertheless, I still maintain that no camel could have sacrificed his penis in a finer cause than making Matt Hancock feel thoroughly sick. Did you know the man has left a wife and three children, one of them adopted? 

That’s why I would never allow one of the Well-Behaved Orphans to be taken into the household of a Conservative Cabinet minister. However, if you are not a Tory bigwig then you are welcome to email your enquiry to sales@homeforwellbehavedorphans.rut.

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

Mike Oldfield: In Dulci Jubilo

Mike Oldfield reminds us that carols were originally dance tunes. In Dulci Jubilo originated in medieval Germany and became popular in Britain early in the 19th century.

This version reached number 4 in the UK singles chart in time for Christmas 1975. And - believe me - there were many worse singles around that year.

Download the new issue of Liberator now

The new issue of Liberator (issue 415, December 2022) has just been posted on the magazine's website. You can download it from there free of charge.

I'll start posting Lord Bonkers' latest diary tomorrow, but first let's have a look at Radical Bulletin, the section that tells you what is really going on in the Liberal Democrats.

Here are the headlines and first paragraphs from the opening three items:

A day in court
It is without known precedent for a Lib Dem member as prominent as Jo Hayes to be expelled, and with the party establishment refusing to give a clear explanation as to why it can hardly complain that conspiracy theories have taken hold...

A little advice
When barrister Anthony Hook’s investigation into the Lib Dem complaints system and  alleged unfair sacking of a senior adjudicator reported in the summer (Liberator 413) it  became essential for the party to get legal advice on whether its definition of transphobia was lawful...

Staying away in droves
The turnout in the Lib Dem presidential election was frankly pathetic and those for the party committees are likely to have been even worse...

Now read on.

Choir of King's College, Cambridge: God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen

This is a carol I always enjoyed singing, but we need to get a couple of grammatical points straight. Because look at that comma: there are no "merry gentlemen" here.

Wikipedia says:

The historic meaning of the phrase "God rest you merry" is "may God grant you peace and happiness".

And if you see the title printed as "God rest ye..." then it's phoney archaism.

Wikipedia again:

"Ye" would never have been correct, because "ye" is a subjective (nominative) pronoun only, never an objective (accusative) pronoun.

Glad we've sorted that. It's what Christmas is all about.

The Joy of Six 1094

"Its lasting value is in its revelation that the institutions of the Conservative Party and the British government are so decrepit that they can be hacked by someone like Liz Truss, as if they were merely Oxford student societies writ large." Lewis Baston reads Harry Cole and James Heale's biography of Liz Truss.

"A memory of Churchill only as an icon of anti-appeasement is a caricature, even if it was a caricature the man himself was complicit in creating. It reduces a man of many parts, and of many bargains, into a lovable bulldog." We need to save Churchill from his present-day admirers, argues Patrick Porter.

Nigel Warburton on why we need libraries: "Community libraries ... are, among other things, a democratic resource providing free access to information for all, including guided access to the internet for those who might otherwise be excluded."

Geoff Barton says we should listen to young people's views on education.

Richard Lester’s 1974 film Juggernaut trembled on the edge of being a political allegory for Britain in that decade, finds Simon Matthews: "There was something deeply ironic about Richard Lester – one of the key ringmasters of Swinging London – portraying the state of the nation in the 1970s. Doubly so, given the cast includes David Hemmings, he of Blow-Up and much else, expended here halfway through the film. How times change."

John Thomas takes us through this year's work on the remarkable Roman villa found beneath the fields of Rutland.

Dartmoor village could be home to one of 'world's most radioactive toilets'

Thanks to a nomination from a Liberal England reader, the Plymouth Herald wins our Headline of the Day Award.

As so often, things become less amusing when you read the story below.

Steve Winwood: Christmas is Now Drawing Near at Hand

In his best John Barleycorn Must Die voice, Steve Winwood casts a bit of a damper on proceedings. Like John Barleycorn, this song can be found on the Watersons' LP Frost and Fire.

Winwood's version appeared on A Very Special Christmas 3, a charity album produced in aid of the Special Olympics.

Mainly Norfolk tells us:

In the Journal of the Folk-Song Society for 1914 you will find a number of versions of Christmas Now Is Drawing Near At Hand, collected by Vaughan Williams and Sharp in various locations, but particularly in the West Midlands and counties adjoining Wales.

GUEST POST The Secret Diary of Charles Dickens aged 13¾

An exclusive extract from The Secret Diary of Charles Dickens aged 13¾ by Lee Jackson. 

Living in Johnson Street, Camden Town, young Charles yearns to make his way in the world. But he is constantly thwarted by his less-than-respectable family, particularly his endearing but spendthrift father...

Saturday 7th January
Mama going on and on about old Mrs Hathersage across the road, like some squawking parrot in petticoats. ‘Someone ought to go and befriend the poor old dear and perhaps her pretty little niece would also like the company …’ &c &c. Mama is possessed of a romantic humour and suspects that the old lady is a member of the aristocracy fallen upon hard times. I remarked that, in any case, I doubted that the niece was pretty or little – none of us have actually seen her – most likely she had great bulging eyes and a fat hairy chin. 

‘Putting eyes and chins to one side –’ said Fanny – 

‘I hope no-one is to be mutilated on my account,’ I interjected (v. droll!) –

‘I am,’ continued Fanny, regardless, ‘far too busy practising for my examination.’ 

Mama merely tutted and looked back at me.

I hurriedly replied – I confess, I do not quite know why – that I was also too busy because I was writing a play. 

Fanny laughed out loud, but Mama, after a moment’s reflection, was rather taken with the idea and very encouraging. She remarked that my Uncle John knows shorthand and her second cousin was a sign-writer, so perhaps literature runs in the family.

9 o’clock p.m.
I shall write a play. It cannot be that difficult.

Half past 9 o’clock p.m.
What shall I call it?

A quarter to 10 o’clock.
Mrs Fitzharris has appeared at our door ‘for a chin-wag’ (at this hour – it is hardly proper!). Papa is out but Mrs Fitzharris and Mama are now sitting in the drawing-room, all very snug and comfortable, drinking gin from our best little glasses. This will not end well. Mrs Fitzharris has a rather inflamed and flushed appearance at the best of times, and – if I am not very much mistaken – was quite merry before she crossed the threshold. She is now giggling uncontrollably and, by the sounds of it, bumping into our furniture. It is most unseemly in a female of her years and making it very difficult to start my play at all, which I am now thinking of entitling The Washer Women; or A Pickle in the Parlour.

11 o’clock p.m.
Have not started a play. Too late now.

Went downstairs. Mrs Fitzharris still talking very loudly to Mama about MEN who are CHEATS and KNAVES and LIARS, and listing ALL THE MEN SHE WOULD HAPPILY SEE HANGED.

I think that she has been disappointed in love. 

Quarter past 11 o’clock p.m.
Went back downstairs again, out of pure curiosity. Mrs Fitzharris slurring her words together – Mama, I will swear, was only pretending to understand her – and positively rolling around the room, like a skittle on the deck of a steamboat. It was a proper sight! Mama, however, looking rather fearful and timid.

Midnight
Awful scenes. Papa has come home quite as merry as Mrs Fitzharris. They are now finishing the gin together. Mama has retreated to her bed. 

I went into the drawing-room and complained about the noise. I said that I expected that Shakespeare and Sheridan got a decent night’s sleep when they were starting out in life. Papa did not understand and made me tell them the joke about the empty vessel and the foolish Dutchman. Then neither of them laughed.

Two o’clock in the morning (!)
Mrs Fitzharris has finally stumbled off home. Papa is lying all crumpled and angular on the stairs, like a broken accordion. 

I think that I shall call my play The Neglectful Parents; or The Wages of Sin is Death.

The Secret Diary of Charles Dickens aged 13¾ is available on Kindle in the UK and the US.

You can find Lee Jackson online at The Dictionary of Victorian London.

Stunning victory for Lib Dems in Jeremy Hunt's constituency

Waverley is one of those local authorities whose whereabouts defeats me - I tend to confuse it with Waveney and think it's in East Anglia.

In fact, it is in Surrey and Godalming and Farnham are its largest towns. Much of it falls into the South West Surrey constituency, currently represented in parliament by the chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

Last night there was a by-election in what has traditionally been a save Conservative ward - see Andrew Teale's preview for the figures going back 20 years - of Waverley Borough Council, Chiddingfold and Dunsfold.

And the contest resulted in a stunning Liberal Democrat gain, with the party receiving two-thirds of the votes cast. Congratulations to David Busby and his team.

South West Surrey, currently was briefly in Lib Dem sights as a target after Sue Doughty won neighbouring Guildford in 2001. Looking at David's result, it may be again.

This morning came news of a second Lib Dem local by-election gain yesterday - this one really is in East Anglia.

Davis Sayers took the Gaywood North and Central ward of Norfolk County Council from the Conservatives. Congratulations to all concerned.