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

Tuesday, May 19, 2026

St George finishes behind Robin Hood and King Arthur – and I'm not surprised

Fortean Times reports the findings of the 2026 National Folklore Survey for England and it's bad news for St George as he only gets th...

When the United States worried about migrants in small boats

Here's a short passage from Roger Greaves's book Reading Madeleine that describes one of the British writer Robert Henrey's adv...

Scooch, Engelbert and other Great British Eurovision disasters

Embed from Getty Images The Guardian has a survey of recent United Kingdom Eurovision disasters. It leads you to conclude that the reason w...

Monday, May 18, 2026

East Brixton: A once and future station?

Opened in 1866, East Brixton was a station on the South London line – now part of the London Overground's Windrush Line – served by trai...

The Lib Dems made a net loss of council seats outside the Westminster constituencies they hold

In this month's local elections the Liberal Democrats made a net gain of 175 seats where they hold the parliamentary constituency and a ...

Farewell to M.J.K. Smith, the Harborough District's England captain

The former England cricket captain M.J.K. "Mike" Smith died yesterday at the age of 92. He was a middle-order batsman with Leicest...

The Joy of Six 1520

"I saw a man wearing what seemed to be a hybrid of Hell’s Angels and Crusader outfit, with horns protruding from his shoulders, but I c...

Penile implant specialist with history of far-right comments led hantavirus presser

CNN wins our Headline of the Day Award. The judges chose this one because of the clear picture it paints of the Trump administration: Befor...

Sunday, May 17, 2026

The poor Lambeth church providing choristers for cathedrals

So many areas of our national life are now dominated by the products of private schools, from journalism via county cricket to film and thea...

Dickens was never a slog for the Victorians: Are we reading him the wrong way?

That Guardian list of the 100 best novels of all time has given the anti-Dickens tendency fresh legs. They tried him at school and hated h...

Patrick Duff: Foolish People

Stranglelove were my favourite slightly obscure Nineties band, so they have featured here three times: Time For the Rest of Your Life , Elin...

Saturday, May 16, 2026

The Joy of Six 1519

Roderick Lynch says the Liberal Democrats have a serious problem in urban Britain and pretending otherwise will only make it worse. "A...

Friday, May 15, 2026

Is The UK heading for divorce? An interview with James Hawes

I referred to James Hawes's The Shortest History of Ireland the other day, and I've just sent Liberator a review of the book by fa...

Southport Liberal Democrats are on the way back

Amid the concern at what this month's local elections revealed about the concentration of the Liberal Democrat vote in the prosperous So...

More improvements planned for the River Welland through Welland Park, Market Harborough

The East Mercia Rivers Trust (EMRT) is to carry out improvement work on the River Welland where it flows through Welland Park in Market Harb...

Thursday, May 14, 2026

The Joy of Six 1518

Alexandra Hall Hall writes the big reset speech she wishes Keir Starmer had made after Labour’s local elections defeats: "I know that ...

Zack Polanski in a Yes to AV campaign video

I remember very little of the Alternative Vote referendum campaign except that it turned out to be a referendum on Nick Clegg instead. The o...

"The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate"

Embed from Getty Images James Hawse's The Shortest History of Ireland reveals that the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful, with its n...

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Leicestershire and Rutland's holy wells

Bob Trubshaw is our guide. He says in his YouTube blurb: As with all areas of Britain there are certain wells in Leicestershire and Rutland ...

There's more than one Reform politician who believes in UFOs

This video has received a lot of attention today, but don't mock Councillor Kieran Lay too hard. Because he's not the only Reform p...

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