Liberal England

Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year 2014

"Well written, funny and wistful" - Paul Linford; "He is indeed the Lib Dem blogfather" - Stephen Tall
"Jonathan Calder holds his end up well in the competitive world of the blogosphere" - New Statesman
"A prominent Liberal Democrat blogger" - BBC Radio 4 Today; "One of my favourite blogs" - Stumbling
and Mumbling; "Charming and younger than I expected" - Wartime Housewife

Sunday, November 16, 2025

Northampton Labour councillor joins the Liberal Democrats

A Labour member of West Northamptonshire Council has crossed to the Liberal Democrats after becoming increasingly concerned”= with the party...

The Joy of Six 1436

"One minister described the chaos as 'probably fatal'. It was, said another source, a 'tipping point' and 'the week...

The Standells: Try It

The first time I featured Patience and Prudence here they led me to a record about Prudence's other half – Signed D.C. by Love . Patien...

Saturday, November 15, 2025

Pollution from Shropshire lead mines still reaches the Severn

This information from an Environment Agency page will come as no surprise to regular readers: There is evidence of lead mining in the Minst...

Chris Dillow explains our incompetent political culture

When the centenary of Margaret Thatcher's birth was marked last month, the consensus view on Bluesky was that she had made everything in...

Friday, November 14, 2025

Asquith: The Movie

This television play, screened in 1983 as part of the ITV series Number 10, deals with Asquith's battle with the House of Lords to secur...

Thames Water tries to force Lib Dem MP to pay ruinous legal costs

The supreme court this week rejected Thames Water’s arguments that Charlie Maynard, the Liberal Democrat MP for Witney, should pay its legal...

The Joy of Six 1435

"The real scandal here is the behaviour of the board. As Patrick Barwise and Peter York detailed in their 2020 book The War on the BBC,...

Trivia dump: Woman wakes to find she's bought an emu egg

A BBC News story was shortlisted for Headline of the Day – Woman fulfils childhood dream of rearing an emu – but lost out to a demonic jump...

"Demonic" Wind in the Willows jumper banned from Westminster Abbey

Today's Headline of the Day Award, which is sponsored by the Great God Pan, goes to the Guardian . Photo by Linsey Teggert, whose jumper...

Thursday, November 13, 2025

A conspiracy theory from Neal Lawson: Keir Starmer was never meant to be prime minister

Embed from Getty Images Their influence on the far right means I don't enjoy conspiracy theories as much as I used to, but let's gi...

A refusal to mourn the demise of police and crime commissioners

Home secretary Shabana Mahmood announced today that police and crime commissioners will be abolished in 2028 when their current terms expire...

The way we talk about and portray children in care really matters

Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash In the report of his inquiry into the death of Dennis O'Neill in 1945, Sir Walter Monckton wrote: I...

Wednesday, November 12, 2025

V.S. Pritchett reviews the Sword in the Stone in 1938

V.S. Pritchett (1900-97) was still reviewing for the New Statesman in his late seventies when I started buying it in the sixth form. Here he...

The Joy of Six 1434

GB News's new show broadcast live from the US features non-stop praise for Donald Trump and the channel’s co-owner Paul Marshall begging...

Eurythmics: When the Day Goes Down

When the Day Goes Down, performed live here on the David Letterman Show, is my favourite Eurythmics song. As the recent evening devoted to ...

Reform-run Leicestershire could pay £30m to consultancy firm

Last week I wrote that Leicestershire County Council, which is run by a Reform UK minority administration, is to pay £1.3m to consultants. T...

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

Hilary Mantel on the finding of Richard III

Here's Hilary Mantel , writing in the London Review of Books, 21 February 2013: Royal bodies do change after death, and not just as a co...

Ed Davey speaks up for the BBC: Why won't Keir Starmer?

The BBC is under attack as never before. Donald Trump and his cronies have it squarely in their sights – and there are no prizes for guessin...

Monday, November 10, 2025

Jago Hazzard celebrates the gothic history of St Pancras

Jago Hazzard posted this, his thousandth video, a couple of weeks ago. And he found a fitting subject for it. Iain Sinclair once referred to...

View web version

Powered by Blogger.