Michael Crick and Andrew Neil on Conservative election expenses
"Something has to be done by the beginning of June" @MichaelLCrick tells @afneil on possible #battlebus prosecutions https://t.co/qmwyu9R6Kz— DailySunday Politics (@daily_politics) April 21, 2016
Following the new revelations on Channel 4 News last night, Michael Crick appeared on today's Daily Politics.Undeclared Conservative spending in Liberal Democrat seats
This Michael Crick report, giving the latest revelations in the growing scandal over Conservative spending at the last election, was broadcast by Channel 4 News earlier this evening.Read more on the Channel 4 website.
Stewart Lee gives a talk on comedy and writing
Stewart Lee discusses the fantasy that stand-up comedy is spontaneous rather than written, and describes the evolution of stand-up over the last few decades.
His talk, given at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, takes in a wide range of subjects from the first app he ever came across to a discussion of the value of culture in society.
Great Central Railway - Nottingham
As I blogged a couple of months ago:
At present the Great Central Railway - Nottingham is a bit of a mystery to those of us in Leicestershire. Rather like the Eastern Roman Empire.To help dispel that mystery, here is a video shot on that line.
It will be a great day when the bridge over the Midland main line is reinstated at Loughborough and the two halves of the line are joined.
Six of the Best 590
The House of Lords by-election to replace Eric Avebury is ludicrous and should be boycotted, say John Lubbock and Seth Thévoz.
"There will be no incumbents, and few of the ex-MEPs are expected to run ... So, there is every possibility that new names may emerge and end up as Liberal Democrat MEPs." Mark Valladares says the forthcoming selections for Liberal Democrat Euro candidates will be the most open yet.
Kyra Hanson on guerrilla gardening and the battle against concrete paving and private development in London.
"Verification and fact-checking are regularly falling prey to the pressure to bring in the numbers, and if the only result of being caught out is another chance to bring in the clicks, that looks unlikely to change." Kevin Rawlinson on the new plague of fake news stories.
Flickering Lamps visits Brompton Cemetery and returns with tales of soldiers and adventurers - and rumours of a time machine.
Leicester Oral History Trail 3: Simpkin & James
Simpkin & James, a grocers rather than a department store, closed in 1971. There were a number of branches around the county, including Oadby and Stoneygate. They closed the same year.
You can read more about Simpkin & James in an old number of the Leicestershire Historian.
Leicester's Mayor sacks the man supposed to scrutinise him - again
The Leicester Mercury reports:
A number of Labour councillors who have clashed with Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby have lost key posts within the city council's ruling Labour group.
The party has held its annual general meeting and elections for a series of positions this week including those heading committees that scrutinise the policies of Sir Peter and his team of assistant mayors.
Former city council leader Ross Willmott is one of the casualties.This story has a familiar ring. Sure enough, when searching the archives of this blog I find that much the same thing happened in 2012.
So let me repeat what I wrote then:
And who did the ousting? Step forward the dominant figure in the Leicester Labour Party, Sir Peter Soulsby.
If an elected mayor can remove the chair of the committee meant to keep an eye on him, then the mayoral system become farcical.
The enjoyable personal animosity between Willmott and Soulsby has been just about the only thing keeping democracy alive in a city with a Labour elected Mayor and 52 out of 54 Labour councillors. As a Labour insider quoted by the Mercury says:
"Ross has been a thorn in the side of the city's leadership for the past year. His efforts were partly fuelled by their mutual dislike and the fact that Ross really wanted the mayor's job. Nonetheless, his efforts were good for democracy."
Quite. And his removal is bad for democracy.
As I have long argued, the situation in Leicester shows that if we are to have elected city mayors then the councils must be elected by a proportional system to prevented their being dominated by the mayor's own party.
At the very least councils must be barred from holding the mayoral and all-out elections at the same time, as happened in Leicester last May.The last time I made this argument, Sir Peter Soulsby's deputy told me on Twitter that is was absurd even to think of changing the electoral system.
But I stand by what I wrote in 2012.
Dayflower: Heart-shaped Tambourines
Dayflower, says an old article on Leicestershire Press, describe their music as "honey-drenched pop melodies over a collage of fuzzed-up synths, lo-fi beats, and jangly guitars".
