Latest news with #LibDem
BBC News
an hour ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Lord Prescott statue refusal is 'terribly disappointing', says Hull MP
A Labour MP has said it is "terribly disappointing" that plans for a memorial statue in Hull to honour the late Lord John Prescott has been refused by the city Turner, Lord Prescott's successor in the Hull East seat, said he will sign a petition by Hull's Labour councillors that demands the Lib Dem-controlled council reverse their former deputy prime minister, deputy Labour leader, and member of the House of Lords died on 20 November last for a memorial statue in the city were rejected at a meeting on Thursday, following concerns about funding. Councillor Julia Conner raised the motion for the statue, but the plans were rejected after a 26-26 tied vote. Lord Mayor Cheryl Payne cast the deciding said: "The money was going to be a tiny amount of money from the leader's fund, probably £1,000 would have done it. The rest of the money would have come in from donations and good will gestures and charitable giving from members of the public."He added: "I've got businesses who are prepared to put fairly substantial amounts of money in because they think to have a tribute to John Prescott is worth having in this city."John was a legend, always banging the drum for Hull."Council leader Mike Ross had voted against the motion and said such a statue would cost "upward of £150,000". He had questioned whether the public would feel it was "right to spend taxpayers' money on this proposal".Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices
Daily Mirror
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Plan to humiliate Donald Trump during UK visit raises £10,000 in a day
Campaigners plan to plaster Britain with embarrassing posters of Donald Trump - while Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey says he "has a nerve" to come here at all Campaigners planning to plaster Britain with embarrassing posters of Donald Trump in time for his visit to Scotland have raised £10,000 in donations. And Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said the US President 'has a nerve' to come to the UK after his 'hokey cokey' approach to steel tariffs left UK manufacturing in limbo. Trump is set to travel to Scotland on Wednesday, and will visit his two golf courses during the trip. And Keir Starmer is expected to meet with the US President during the visit. 'Trump has nerve coming over to the UK when he's spent the last year playing tariff hokey-cokey with the British economy,' The Lib Dem leader told the Sunday Mirror. 'But in fairness, he can do less damage on a golf course than in the White House. 'His back of the envelope tariff 'plan' is hitting steelworkers hard across the country — and with nothing yet to show for the deal he signed with the Prime Minister, there's no end in sight for their worries.' When Trump last visited the UK in 2019, as many as 250,000 protesters lined the streets jeering and booing as he drove past in his presidential limousine, The Beast. Banners were unfurled by protesters bearing messages including 'No-one Likes You', 'Trump=Wasteman' and 'No Human Is Illegal'. And a giant blimp depicting Trump as a giant baby wearing a nappy floated over London during his visit. And on Thursday a huge poster of Trump with dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein appeared on a bus stop near the US Embassy. It was the work of campaign group Everyone Hates Elon - who intend to plaster the UK with the embarrassing snap during Trump's visit, in what it describes as an 'act of public service.' 'In less than 24 hours we've hit our first target of £10,000 to make sure the photo of trump with Epstein follows him all over the UK, and now we're going to aim higher,' a spokesperson told the Mirror. Organisers say for every £15 raised they'll add another square metre to a huge banner of the image. "The Jeffrey Epstein files are tearing apart Trump's MAGA movement right now with even loyal supporters up in arms. So help us to expose Trump's crimes, while also fuelling the end of his hateful movement. In just a few weeks we can give him a welcome he'll never forget.'
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Controversial four-day week made permanent in UK-council first
The council implemented a four-day work week to help with hiring and keeping staff, as well as to cut down on expenses A controversial four-day working week at a district council has been made permanent following a trial in a UK-first. South Cambridgeshire District Council staff have been doing 100% of their work in 80% of their hours since January 2023. Last night (July 17), 26 councillors voted in favour of making the working pattern permanent, with nine opposing. The district council is believed to be the first council in the UK to introduce a four-day week. Lib Dem leader of the council Cllr Bridget Smith said the move heralded a "very bright future" for the council and represented "smarter" working for the 21st century. However, the Conservative opposition argued it was a "slap in the face" for taxpayers to pay for council staff to have an extra day off every week. The four-day week trial was introduced for desk-based staff at the district council in 2023. Under the trial, staff receive full pay for working 80% of their hours, but are expected to complete all of their work in that time. The council introduced the four-day week to aid staff recruitment and retention and reduce the spending on agency staff. Council services have continued to operate for at least five days a week. A report published ahead of the debate said 21 of the authority's service areas had improved or stayed the same since the four-day week trial began. But ahead of the meeting, the Conservative opposition questioned the report's independence, saying it was "co-authored by a 4-day week activist". The report said nine areas saw a "statistically significant improvement", including in the percentage of calls answered at the contact centre, the percentage of complaints responded to within timescales, and the percentage of emergency housing repairs completed in 24 hours. The council said if performance variations caused by the Covid pandemic were discounted, every service monitored had improved or stayed the same. The authority also said there has been an overall annual net saving of £399,263, which it said was mainly due to filling vacancies permanently, rather than paying for agency workers. However, some areas showed a "statistically significant decline," including the percentage of housing rent collected, the average days taken to re-let all housing stock, and the percentage of tenant satisfaction with responsive repairs. Cllr Smith told councillors at a full council meeting on Thursday (July 17) that the four-day working week worked and had 'exceeded' expectations. She said: "This is not about working less; it is about working smarter. We are living in the 21st century, and this is the way of working for organisations like us: smarter working, not longer working, and that delivers improvements. It is not perfect; where we fall short of residents' expectations, we will work harder to improve, and now we can do that." However, Conservative Cllr Dr Shrobona Bhattacharya said she had received more than 300 emails from people worried about the four-day week. She argued it was an "unfair system," noting that no one was stopping people from working a four-day week but arguing they should receive four days' pay for doing so. Conservative opposition leader Cllr Heather Williams told the meeting that key performance indicators did not cover everything the council does. She pointed out that the report stated that the analysis of services could not prove that the four-day week directly caused the identified results, as other changes had been made. She said: "We have a choice. We can show residents that we support them. It's a slap in the face when people are taking on increased council tax while their money is spent to give people a day off every week. "It's not right, it's not fair, and there is no reliable proof that it works. If this goes ahead, trust between the council and residents could be broken for good. This has got to stop."
Scotsman
2 days ago
- Politics
- Scotsman
No wonder the Liberal Democrat brand colour is yellow
Lib Dem victor Kevin McKay makes his speech after the Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart by-election result was announced How uplifting it was to read the local Liberal Democrat leader Ed Thornley's column in Monday's Evening News, congratulating his party's winning candidate in the Craiglockhart by-election and welcoming the new councillor to 'the best job I've ever had'. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Given that Councillor Thornley's other job is a member of the Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton's staff, his bar might be set rather low, but it is indeed a great privilege and honour to be elected to Edinburgh City Council. But done properly it can come at a cost. Few people would put in the kind of shift required of councillors to get even just the basics of the job right – helping constituents, reading thousands of pages of reports, night and weekend work with no time off in lieu – for the available allowance of just over £25,000 if it meant giving up other better-paid work. Nobody should enter politics for the money, but be motivated by the desire to make things better for the voters who place their trust in you. I know my old business suffered because I needed to spend so much time on council duties, especially at the height of the campaign to save Currie High School. The responsibilities only increase in administration, but that's what everyone who stands for election should be aiming for, because you can achieve an awful lot more in power than in opposition. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But after recent by-elections put Edinburgh's Lib Dem group in position to take control of the city council, they have shown a marked reluctance to express any enthusiasm for so, instead just saying they will take the summer recess to think things over. Cllr Thornley used his column to tell readers how well-known his new colleague Kevin McKay is in Craiglockhart, not how he was looking forward to heading a new administration after the summer as the leader of a 14-strong group. There was nothing about putting Lib Dem priorities, whatever they are, at the top of the council's agenda, as Lib Dem voters are be entitled to expect. Not a word of what he and Cllr McKay are actually going to do. In truth, they seem to be little more than a disparate collection of community activists whose purpose is to prop up a lame duck Labour administration, force Labour to accept some of their local budget ideas, accept no responsibility whatsoever for the subsequent outcomes and sit on the fence whenever possible. A perfect illustration is the treatment of their Edinburgh West MP Christine Jardine, sacked from her front bench position as equalities spokesperson last week because she defied party orders to abstain over a Conservative amendment to reduce some benefits. I would have rather she had not voted against the motion, but at least she had the courage of her convictions and got off the fence. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Unless something changes, they will have conned voters into believing they were voting for a Lib Dem-run council but instead got some shady puppet regime operating under cover of darkness. The electorate expects the winner to take the spoils but to do otherwise, to hand them back to avoid accountability for the difficult decisions authorities must take, is an act of gross political cowardice or cynicism. Neither is a good look. No wonder the Lib Dem brand colour is yellow. Sue Webber is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Lothian
South Wales Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- South Wales Guardian
Embassies should see cars clamped for congestion charge debts
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb said the Government had 'far too much patience' with indebted foreign governments, while Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Lord Purvis of Tweed called for ministers to discuss outstanding fees with US President Donald Trump during his September visit. Responding, Foreign Office minister Baroness Chapman of Darlington described diplomacy as 'an art'. She said the fee for driving in inner London was a 'charge' rather than a tax, which embassies should pay. According to Transport for London, the US embassy based south of the River in Nine Elms owes almost £15.5 million in congestion charge debts. The Japanese mission faces debts of more than £10.6 million, while the Chinese embassy racked up a £10.3 million debt between 2003 and March 31 2025. Lord Purvis referred to a diplomatic reception held at the Foreign Office in central London and asked: 'Should we not start instituting a drop-off and collection fee at King Charles Street just as long as we get our money back?' The Liberal Democrat also said Mr Trump 'would certainly not want a reputation of not paying fines' and said: 'When he comes for the state visit, can we ensure that this is part of the agenda so that there's no congestion in the city of London from the American delegation and they pay us what they owe?' Baroness Chapman replied that there was a 'whole range of measures' open to the Government, and that she would 'take on board' the one which Lord Purvis suggested. 'Others include encouraging the use perhaps of public transport or cycling or walking around our wonderful city, but he suggests that we raise these matters directly with our counterparts, and I can assure him that we do just that,' the minister added. Former London Assembly Labour leader Lord Harris of Haringey asked: 'Would it, for example, be possible to clamp the cars that have done this, because I suspect that might concentrate the minds?' Following him, the Green Party's Baroness Jones said: 'This has been going on ever since the congestion charge first came in. 'They've racked up these debts and I love Lord Harris's idea – we should clamp them all. 'We have a record of which cars have infringed the congestion charge. We clamp them all.' Baroness Chapman told peers: 'All I would say is that diplomacy is an art and it comes more naturally to some than to others perhaps.' She added: 'I think it's right that we don't escalate this issue above some of our very real concerns around security and defence and trade that we seek to work very closely with our counterparts on.' Their exchanges were triggered by a question from Labour peer Lord Faulkner of Worcester, who asked about Government efforts to claw back unpaid business rates, parking fines and London congestion charges in April and May. Baroness Chapman said that the Government had received 31 responses to the exercise earlier this year. 'Some agreed to settle debts, other disputed charges, and some refused to pay the London congestion charge claiming exemption under the Vienna Convention,' the minister said. 'FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) action since April 3 2025 has helped reduce national non-domestic rates debt by £287,142, car parking fines debt by £7,035 and London congestion charge debt by £7,430.' To laughter, Conservative shadow foreign office minister Lord Callanan said: 'I think there is unity across the House on this one. 'I think we're all amused by the prospect of some poor parking warden having to put a ticket on President Trump's limousine and what might happen to him from the actions of the secret service. 'But it is of course that conduct of diplomatic staff is a reflection of important values, respect, dignity and mutual recognition between nations, so following on from the reply that she gave to the Liberal Democrats, will (Baroness Chapman) consider linking future privileges or engagement opportunities to the good standing of diplomatic missions in their civic responsibilities, so as to encourage greater accountability?' The minister said she would keep the situation 'under close consideration'.
