Tag: The Liberal Democrats

A Variety Post

A mixed bag of a post, featuring local politics, libraries, autism, science, nature and photography.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this post in three parts. I am going to start by mentioning a local election that took place in my area today and in which I voted, then I will be mentioning an event that will be taking place at Gaywood Library (one of four such establishments in Norfolk that I visit at least semi-regularly) and I will finish up with some links to do with nature which will lead naturally to some of my photographs.

A FORCED BY-ELECTION

The election in which I voted today happened due to the laziness and arrogance of the incumbent councillor, who in spite of living just across the road from the Town Hall never attended meetings.

Four candidates were in the contest, in alphabetical order:

Rob Archer of the Green Party
Francis Bone of the Labour Party
Helen Russell-Johnson of the Liberal Democrats
Mike Taylor of the Conservative Party

In the ordinary course of events my inclination, especially given that the displaced councillor had been from the Labour Party would have been to vote for Mr Archer. However, the Liberal Democrat candidate happens to be my aunt. Therefore I voted for her.

I have started this post by covering this election for two reasons:

  1. I want to make it clear to the Liberal Democrats that I voted for my aunt IN SPITE of the fact that she was representing them not because of it.
  2. Also, just in  case Mr Archer happens to be reading this, I hope he will take it as both explanation and apology for not having voted for him on this occasion.

I conclude this section of the post with a picture of my Political Compass certificate (it is free and does not very long to answer the questions which are used to assign your score):

Political Compass Certificate

THE GAYWOOD LIBRARY EVENT

The event at Gaywood Library is a Business Evening at which I hope it will be possible to raise the subject of the Autism Hour, one of the National Autistic Society’s recent initiatives. I have already confirmed that I will be in attendance. Here are a couple of pictures to end this section:

Personalised SymbolPublic Libraries DisplayPL coinPL stamps

SOME NATURE PIECES

My nature links naturally divide into three segments, with a few photographs of my own forming a fourth. We will start with…

A NEW DINOSAUR FIND

This story courtesy of scienmag.com is about a dinosaur that has been named Albertavenator Curriei (“Currie’s Alberta Hunter”, named in honour of Canadian paleontologist Dr Philip J Currie). Below is a representation of this creature by Oliver Demuth:

IMAGE
Credit: Illustrated by Oliver Demuth. © Oliver Demuth

OPPOSITION TO TROPHY HUNTING

Stan Kroenke, current owner of Arsenal Football Club, has just launched a new TV channel devoted to blood sports. I have two links to share, and some words for Arsenal fans at the end:

  1. A Guardian piece titled “Trophy hunting is vile. Stan Kroenke’s TV channel must be banned” which gives full detail on this.
  2. A change.org petition aimed at the sponsors of Arsenal Football Club asking them to withdraw support and so help force Kroenke out, screenshot below:
    KroenkeOut

For ordinary Arsenal fans my suggestions are simple – boycott all home matches until Kroenke goes, and if you are a season ticket holder return your ticket and demand a full refund, making it clear that you will return if and only if Kroenke is no longer involved with the club.

MORE ON THE FIGHT TO PROTECT TROSA NATURE

This morning I reblogged Part 4 of Anna’s series of “Paradise on Earth” posts highlighting the wildlife that can be seen around Trosa and the Tureholm Peninsula. Since then she has added yet another post to that series, and I include links below:

  1. Part 4, concentrating on birds including the Osprey shown below.
  2. Part 5, also dedicated to birds. I have chosen as my sample image a Linnet.

Finally, to end this section, and the post as a whole we have some of…

SOME OF MY LOCAL NATURE THEMED PICTURES

Mother and childMoorhen3 CormorantsCormorantCormorants at waters edgeCormorants and gullsMoorhen in upper purfleet

Little Egret 1
I close this post by revisiting the Little Egret.

An Open Letter to Tim Farron

I received an email from Tim Farron inviting me to join the Liberal Democrats. This post is my response.

INTRODUCTION

I have today received an email from Tim Farron suggesting that I might be interested in joining his party, the Liberal Democrats. What follows is my response…

THE OPEN LETTER

Dear Mr Farron,

I am responding to your email of this lunchtime inviting me to consider joining your party.

While it is true that I voted Liberal Democrat in the 2010 General Election this was for a very specific reason: The Labour Party candidate had made himself impossible to vote for by making as virtually his opening remark of the campaign a comment about Gordon Brown being Britain’s worst ever Prime Minister – which as a candidate standing on behalf of Mr Brown’s party was clearly unacceptable. I did not believe that anyone other than your party’s candidate had a chance of challenging the sitting MP Mr Bellingham (Con), so I voted Liberal Democrat as a desperate tactical measure.

A lot has happened since that General Election, including five years of your party acting as handmaidens to the Tories. In the General Election of earlier this year I was proud to vote for the Labour Party candidate, Jo Rust, and if she is the candidate again in 2020 I will vote for her again. At the same time of the same day I voted for both the Green Party candidates in the local elections.

DSCN4993

While I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of the Labour Party performance over the Welfare Bill, there has been a new leader elected since then, and I am liking what I see so far. I will refer to two recent happenings here:

On Friday, Mr Corbyn missed a rugby match to which he could have had free tickets because he was busy helping his constituents (a surgery that ended up running for seven hours). As far as I am concerned someone who puts his constituents ahead of a rugby match deserves applause. The second thing I wish to refer to is that Mr Corbyn has now revealed plans to renationalise the railways (these were mentioned in his manifesto in the leadership contest, which I read in detail). I offer you this infographic that I picked up on twitter:

Railways

On the question of how credible Mr Corbyn is: I do not think that the leader of a party who crashed from 62 MPs down to 8 or an ex-MP (Sir Vince Cable) are in the strongest position to raise such a question!

There is one other reason you might have thought I would be willing to join your party, which is that one of the many petitions which I have signed happens to have been created by a Liberal Democrat (it was calling for a worldwide ban on FGM). I signed the petition in question because I am in full agreement with its aims, not because of who created it.

To conclude, not only am I not remotely interested in joining your party, I am unable to see any circumstance in which I will ever again vote for them – reputations are hard earned and easily lost.

Yours sincerely,

Thomas Sutcliffe