Samuel Danks Waddy

It has taken a while to get all the judges together, but we can now award Name of the 19th Century. And the winner is...

Samuel Danks Waddy.

Anna Raccoon, to whom this blog will be eternally grateful, has rediscovered him.

Wikipedia will tell you a little more about his career:

He was elected as the Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnstaple, Devon on 3 February 1874 but resigned this seat in December 1879 to stand in a by-election in the Sheffield constituency, taking the seat on 21 December 1879. However he held the Sheffield seat for less than four months, being voted out by just 40 votes on 3 April 1880.

He was elected as MP for Edinburgh in 1882, and when that seat was abolished, he contested, but lost, the new Hallam seat at the 1885 general election.

On 7 July 1886, at the 1886 general election, he was elected as MP for the Brigg constituency in Lincolnshire. He held the seat until 1894 when he was appointed Recorder of Sheffield.

Britblog Roundup 231

...has the Redemption Blues.

Johnny Cash: Folsom Prison Blues

Today I have mostly been to prison.

My mother has been a probation volunteer at Gartree Prison near Market Harborough for many years. Today I went with her to Stocken Prison in Rutland to meet one of her old boys.

I can't recommend prison life, but we did have a tour of Bonkers country on the way.

And the experience has inspired today's music choice. I have always loved the primitive guitar break in this.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Ricky Ponting meets the Rutland alligator

Another week at Bonkers Hall draws to its close.

Sunday

In Leicester this afternoon I come upon a party of disconsolate young men sporting hats with corks dangling from the brim. They turn out to be the Australian cricket team, at a loose end after being ejected from that dreadful “Twenty20” cricket tournament. I point them to the library and art gallery and, when those suggestions fail to please, suggest they come back to the Hall for a cup of tea and some practice.

I am unable to raise an XI at such short notice, but am happy to have Meadowcroft erect some nets for them. It happens that the Queen’s Own Rutland Highlanders are training with live ammunition in the field next door and that the Rutland alligators are in playful mood. The last I see of the Australian captain, he is running into the distance with two of them gripping the seat of his trousers in their jaws.

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

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses

Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born
Wednesday: The Corby trouser press

Thursday: The inkwells of Rutland
Friday: Rutland's nuclear deterrent

Saturday: A two-tier service?

The Northampton & Lamport Railway

Pitsford and Brampton my arse. This is Little Bowden Crossing signal box.

It used to stand at the end of my road and, although it had gone by the time it had moved here, the rails were still in the road where the level crossing had been. I can still hear the noise cars made rattling over them in my mind's ear.

This afternoon I visited the Northampton & Lamport Railway, where the box has been relocated and renamed. They have a mile or so of track to the south of Brixworth and, as their name suggests, plans to extend it along the route of the former Market Harborough to Northampton line.

To my surprise it was not open to the public on a Saturday in July, but it does open on Sundays and there are a couple of weekend events coming up. A Vintage Gathering on 25/26 July and Ivor the Engine on 1/2 August.

And perhaps the absence of trains in steam and volunteers made things easier for the inquisitive photographer? The Lamport & Northampton has a pleasing selection of steam and diesel locomotives and rolling stock.


As I wrote last week, the route of this old railway is now the occupied by the Brampton Valley Way - a footpath and cycle path. But the railway seems to coexist amicably with it - a lesson to people who oppose railway reopenings elsewhere when the trackbed is now a cycle path.


The old stationmaster's house at Pitsford and Brampton has been converted into a pub called the Brampton Halt. I found it surprisingly charmless and headed for the Spencer Arms up the road at Chapel Brampton.

That is Spencer as in Lady Di - the family seat of Althorp (even the Spencers have now given up pronouncing it All-trup) is only a couple of miles away.

When I came out there was a trap with two grooms trotting past. I assumed they were on their way to a wedding, but maybe life in Spencer country is always like this?

Win James Robertson Justice

...or at least his biography, in the latest Liberal England quiz.

James Robertson Justice (1907-75; henceforth JRJ) was a British film actor, famous for his portrayal of the fearsome Sir Lancelot Spratt in the Doctor films of the 1950s and 60s. He was much else besides: a professional racing driver, a soldier in the Spanish civil war, a Labour parliamentary candidate, falconry tutor to the young Prince Charles.

To win James Hogg's biography of JRJ (only one prize this time, I am afraid) just identify these five films in which he appeared.

1. A story of British heroism with a celebrated score by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

2. In this Ealing Comedy JRJ, spoke the great line: "It's a well-known medical fact that some men are born two drinks below par."

3. This lesser-known Ealing Comedy starred a small boy called William Fox who grew up to be James Fox - and Billie Piper's father in law. (JRJ appeared under the pseudonym Seamus Mòr na Feusag.)

4. In this film JRJ asked "You - what's the bleeding time" and Dirk Bogarde replied "Ten past ten, sir."

5. A classic family musical that also featured Stanley Unwin, Max Wall and Benny Hill.

Please e-mail me your answers. The quiz closes at 23:59 on Monday 27 July 2009.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: A two-tier service?

The latest dispatch from the nation's most celebrated fictional peer. Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Saturday

Do you remember Phil Willis’s delightful daughter? She was the young lady in the advertisement who had the internet projected on to her white dress. I thought that was a splendid idea and am sorry that it subsequently lost ground to the flat plasma screen.

Anyway, I learn today that Willis is in the soup for claiming for a flat where the young lady lived. I fear he is the author of his own misfortune as I put a perfectly serviceable solution to him some years ago. “Willis,” I said, “why don’t you get bunk beds? That way, your daughter can sleep in the lower bunk when she is there alone but move to the upper bunk when you are in Westminster on parliamentary business.”

Willis replied rather sniffily that it would be wrong to offer his daughter a two-tier service.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses
Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born

Wednesday: The Corby trouser press
Thursday: The inkwells of Rutland

Friday: Rutland's nuclear deterrent

Everyday life in Rutland

Isn't that Lord Bonkers at the back?

Coming soon: A James Robertson Justice quiz

Liberal England is about to have another of its internationally famous prize quizzes.

This time, as a change from all that boring politics, I shall be offering you a chance to win James Hogg's biography of the British film actor James Robertson Justice.

I hope to post the questions here some time tomorrow, so please come back and try your luck then.

House Points: What are British troops doing in Afghanistan?

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.

Afghan recap

House Points has been going for so long that, while writing a column, I sometimes have the feeling that I have written it before. I’m sure you often have that feeling when you read them. But then there are a lot of subjects on which this government has made little progress over the past 10 years.

Take Afghanistan. Back in March 2006, just as Ming Campbell was being elected Liberal Democrat leader, I questioned what exactly our troops were doing there. The then defence secretary John Reid, I reported, had described their task as “establishing democracy, ending terrorism, achieving security in the south of Afghanistan, helping the Afghan economy and dealing with poppy destruction”.

He didn’t, I pointed out with mordant sarcasm, say what they would be doing after lunch.

Three and a half years on, the confusion over the purpose of the British presence remains. As Nick Clegg put it in the Commons on Monday, “For the past eight years, the Government have been sending mixed signals about the nature and purpose of the deployment. In the past week we have had the Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary giving different justifications for the war.”

Perhaps we now hear less about our hopes of establishing a Western liberal democracy in Afghanistan – ministers used to make the British Army sound like the Islington Labour Party under arms – and more of the claim that our troops out there are defending Britain.

But it is that claim right? What Islamist terror we have seen in Britain has been homegrown – almost homemade, in fact, though no less deadly for that – and it is arguable that our entanglements abroad in recent years have made us more vulnerable, not safer.

Nick Clegg’s remark that the Government’s strategy has been over-ambitious in aim and under-resourced in practice was widely reported. Paddy Ashdown used the same line in the Lords on Monday, but went on say more.

Paddy said we have learnt that through bitter experience that unless the international community can act to a single plan and speak with a single voice, we will not succeed somewhere like Afghanistan.

Unless everyone learns that lesson, I fear someone will be writing a column very like this one years from now.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Rutland's nuclear deterrent

Today Lord Bonkers shares some insights on subatomic physics.

Friday

Clegg, I read in the Manchester Guardian, has declared that a Liberal Democrat government (and it can be only a matter of months before we have one) will not renew Trident.

Good for him. I have long believed that Britain simply cannot afford an independent nuclear deterrent; it costs so much that we may as well drop flaming bales of £50 notes upon our enemies.

Here in Rutland we have, of course, never had nuclear weapons (we did try splitting atoms but found them terribly fiddly), but have on occasion found it useful to give the impression that we do. At times of international crisis, the Rutland Water Monster is asked to wear a cardboard conning tower so that she resembles a submarine. The effect is strikingly realistic and quite enough to fool any passing Zeppelin.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses

Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born
Wednesday: The Corby trouser press

Thursday: The inkwells of Rutland

Chandila Fernando attacks Tories over race

In light of the decision of Chamali and Chandila Fernando to join the Conservative Party, it is worth repeating what Chandila said about the Tories only last year.

Interviewed on Liberal Democrat Voice during his campaign to be elected as president of the Liberal Democrats he said:

I left the Tories for a number of reasons, but mainly because of their position on race and immigration. As the son of an immigrant myself, I am appalled by the way the Right often takes an extreme, populist and dangerous stance on these sensitive and explosive issues. I am a true liberal and feel at home in the Lib Dems. David Cameron may have given the Conservatives a new-look, but he has not fundamentally changed his party.

Chandila Fernando was also director of Liberal Vision when he stood for the Lib Dem presidency, but you wouldn't know it from that organisation's comment on this story.

Vote for your 10 favourite blogs

The magazine Total Politics is again running its poll for Britain's top political blogs. To quote the magazine's website, the rules are simple:

You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and ranks them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).

Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted.

You MUST include ten blogs. If you include fewer than ten your vote will not count.

Email your vote to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com.

Only vote once.

Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents are eligible or based on UK politics are eligible.

Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name.

All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2009. Any votes received after that date will not count.

If you have your own blog, please do encourage your readers to take part. Last year, more than 80 blogs did so. We hope this year it will be far more than that. BUT, DO NOT list ten blogs you think your readers should vote for. Any duplicate voting of this nature will be disallowed.

In the past the poll has chiefly been promoted and advertised by Iain Dale's Diary. Those of us who are not Tories have grumbled about this but still taken part - not least because it gave us a ready-made excuse for not doing better in the voting.

This year - quite rightly - the poll is being jointly promoted and sponsored by LabourList and LibDemVoice, as well as by Iain.

So do vote for your favourite 10 blogs - and if you can see your way to including Liberal England amongst them... thank you very much.

Incidentally, although Total Politics talks about "your 10 favourite blogs", it is clear that they have only political blogs in mind. If you look at my blogroll, you will see that some of my favourites are not political at all.

Perhaps the organisers need to think about this?

Pennbury "eco town" plans abandoned

The Leicester Mercury reports:

Leicestershire's proposed eco-town has been rejected, the Government announced today.

Pennbury, a 15,000-home development for land between Oadby, Great Glen and Stoughton, failed to make the shortlist of preferred sites for the flagship homes developments.

More significantly, the site at Stoughton is not mentioned in the "second wave" of developments that need more work before the government considers them again.

They'll be dancing in the lanes of High Leicestershire tonight. I made my own opposition to the plans for a new town at Stoughton clear in an article for Comment is Free a year ago.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The inkwells of Rutland

Another visit to Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer.

Thursday

Rutland’s ink industry has long been the foundation of its prosperity. I am fortunate enough to own several inkwells myself – some supplying blue ink and some black – as well as a plant where the two varieties are mixed to form blue-black ink. In recent weeks, we have been shipping countless barrels of Rutland Extra Black to Westminster and today I discover why.

The Commons publishes its members’ expense returns and they are simply dripping with the stuff. “Redacting” they call it. If I had covered my work with that amount of ink, my schoolmasters would have called it something very different and impressed their opinion upon me in no uncertain manner.

Ink extraction, incidentally, is not without its dangers and we live in fear of one of the men falling in. We keep to hand a supply of industrial strength blotting paper for such emergencies, as that is the only thing that could save him.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses
Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born

Wednesday: The Corby trouser press

Iain Dale and Nich Starling on the Norwich North by-election

The By-Elections blog will take you to a recording of their joint interview on Radio 5 Live from Tuesday.

Labour turncoats on Gary McKinnon

Tomorrow's Daily Mail tells us:

Eighty-two Labour MPs signed three Parliamentary motions, dating back to 2005, opposing the Extradition Act and sending Gary McKinnon to the U.S. for trial.

But only eight of them had the integrity to back the Tory Opposition Day call for an 'immediate review' of the one-sided treaty. Of the other 74 Labour backbenchers, 59 displayed rank hypocrisy by supporting the Government. Another 15 abstained.

And the paper's website helpfully goes on to list them all.

Phipps NBC: A Northamptonshire brewer

This brewing company's website says:

Phipps NBC are dedicated to creating quality beers based on the original Phipps NBC products sadly lost when the brewery closed in the early 1970's.

Part of Northamptonshire's history going back to 1801 (Pickering Phipps started brewing in Towcester) was almost lost and our aim was and shall remain to celebrate the past whilst looking forward to the future.

Working with several retired brewers and past employees to develop our premium traditional beers we now have a strong demand for Phipps once again across the East Midlands and beyond.

The site also has numerous old photographs of pubs from the original brewer's heyday. The photo above shows the now-closed Sun Inn at Braybrooke - down a by-road from Market Harborough - in 1940.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Corby trouser press

Our week at Bonkers Hall gathers pace.

Wednesday

I shall not pretend that I was delighted back in the 1930s when a steel works was built beside the pretty little Northamptonshire village of Corby: I had Meadowcroft (or perhaps it was his grandfather?) plant a spinney lest it spoil the view from the South Terrace here at Bonkers Hall. My foresight was rewarded over the following decades as Corby grew into a large town of quite preternatural ugliness.

Nevertheless, when the works closed in the 1980s I did what I could to help the town’s inhabitants by encouraging the establishment of new industries. I struck gold with the Corby trouser press. This ingenious device allows one to crease one’s trousers smartly if one is away from home and one’s valet, and can also be used to keep the eggs and b warm if one is having breakfast in bed.

I have always urged my Liberal Democrat colleagues at Westminster to buy the things; thus I fear I must shoulder some of the blame for Huhne getting into hot water after claiming for one on his expenses.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses

Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born

Britblog Roundup 229

On The Wardman Wire.