UK News
Vote Lib Dem or ‘regret it’ living under a Reform council, Davey tells voters | Liberal Democrats
Voters in the home counties will “regret it for a long time” if they do not back the Liberal Democrats and wake up to a Reform-led council, Ed Davey has said.
The Lib Dems leader has identified five councils – East Surrey, West Surrey, Hampshire, West Sussex and Huntingdonshire – where his party could win overall control, as well as swathes of the former “blue wall” where Davey said it was a “straight fight” between his party and Reform at the English local elections.
More than 5,000 councillors will be elected on Thursday, with more than half of these being in either London or the south-east. Some projections show the Lib Dems gaining 500 seats, with Labour losing as many as 1,800. The Greens are also expected to gain hundreds of seats, with top projections putting the figure at 1,700. The pollsters More In Common expect the Lib Dems to take the newly created East and West Surrey councils.
“If we are going to stop Reform, we are the party most capable of doing that, it is on a knife edge in some of these areas,” Davey said. “People could vote Labour or Green and then we will get narrowly beaten by Reform and people will regret it for a long time.”
Unlike previous elections, Labour and the Conservatives have a fractured voter base, putting many seats up for grabs for the Greens, Liberal Democrats and Reform.
Davey said the Lib Dems were a better bet than the Greens, adding: “We are finding that when people realise the choice is us or Reform, lots of people who were even thinking of voting Conservative were coming to us, certainly Labour and Green are coming to us. Tactical voting will be key, Reform is working really hard, spending lots of their money, meaning results will be on a knife edge.”
He said that in parts of the north of England polling showed a straight fight between the Lib Dems and Reform, including Stockport and Hull, and that areas such as Portsmouth in the south should consider voting Green to stop Reform. “I am determined we stop them now,” he said.
A lack of opposition to Donald Trump and weakness over the war in Iran had hurt the chances of Reform and the Conservatives, he said, adding that it was a mistake for the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, to have tacked so hard to the right.
“When you talk to that traditional one-nation, pro-Europe liberal Tory, they are pretty upset with Kemi Badenoch; they feel the Conservative party has left them,” he said. “They look at us and see us standing up for Britain against Trump’s bullying, they like what we are saying on the economy and defence, and they feel more comfortable with us.”
The Lib Dems were well placed to take these areas because, he said, unlike Labour and the Greens, they could convince disillusioned Tories to give them their vote. “There is a big difference between us and the Greens,” he said. “The Greens are basically taking votes from Labour. We are taking votes off the Tories to stop Farage. I don’t think the Greens are going to play much role in stopping Reform, whereas we are literally central.”
He said his party had been fighting hard on local issues, including fly tipping, potholes and sewage pollution in rivers. Davey also plans to campaign to reduce the price of a pint after it was reported that it had hit £10 in some parts of London.
“I like a pint like everyone else and the idea of £10 a pint should make people think twice,” he said. As well as proposing to cut national insurance tax for employers if the Lib Dems were elected to government, “we would look at cutting VAT for hospitality as well”.
But more broadly, he said he had noticed the US president come up in conversations on the doorstep. “He is coming up all over the place, people will talk about potholes and then they will go on to Trump in the same conversation. The vast majority of people detest Donald Trump and they associate Nigel Farage as being Trump’s champion; he recently referred to Trump as the ‘boss in Mar-a-Lago’.”
Davey reiterated that people who do not want “Trump-style policies” should vote tactically, including voting Liberal Democrat in areas where they were polling second behind Reform.
“The fact Farage was cheerleading for Donald Trump and calling for us to get into the war has angered many,” he said. “Progressive voters obviously can’t stand Trump, but even Tory voters and some Reform voters [can’t either] if they have seen that Farage wants to bring Trump-style policies to the UK.”
UK News
David Guetta and Sia’s song Titanium got me through my fertility treatment | Dance music
At the end of 2011, party season was under way but I was in no mood for festivities. Two years into fertility treatment, my body was pumped full of synthetic hormones and felt like a pin cushion, while my head was filled with both the fragile hope of having a baby, and the exhaustion of failed clinical attempts to do so.
I was in my late 20s. I met my husband when I was 22; we got married when I was 25. “I want to have kids young,” I’d told him. It was a feeling I’d harboured since my teenage years. But I’d also had the nagging sense that it might not come easily to me. As it turned out, my intuition was right. Approaching 28, I was a regular on the infertility merry-go-round.
I was recovering from my second miscarriage that year when I heard Sia’s raspy voice on the car radio belting out words that sounded emotionally weighty for an electronic dance number – her David Guetta collaboration, Titanium.
It’s not a song I would have necessarily rated or listened to again – I’m more likely to play 00s R&B and hip-hop – but it came at the perfect time in my life. I had forgotten how days felt before fertility drugs and the diarised cycles of administering them. I’d been constantly wearing a brave face and cramming in hospital appointments before and after work, going about my job through a fog of longing and hormones. It had left me in a “cry on the bedroom floor” kind of a heap. I needed something to drag the hope back into me.
I turned the radio up and listened to the lyrics: “I’m bulletproof, nothing to lose / Fire away, fire away.” It felt as if it was talking to and about me, issuing a riposte to all those shots of disappointment that had been fired our way. As Sia’s vocals ascended through the chorus with Guetta’s soaring synths – “Ricochet, you take your aim” – I cried, but I felt myself gaining power with her, too. “You shoot me down, but I won’t fall / I am titanium.” Those were the words I needed to hear.
I felt like a puppet pulled upright again. I streamed it on repeat in the days that followed. I might not have been able to face the work Christmas party but I wasn’t going to languish on the bedroom floor any more.
Over the next months, I spent a lot of time in my car, travelling to work and to fertility appointments to get my blood tested, hormones measured or insides scanned. Listening to Titanium became routine. Each time, its cinematic surge had the same empowering effect and I’d turn up the volume, wind down the windows and defiantly sing along in my terrible voice so it could wash over me.
The following May, when my husband and I headed to the clinic for another IVF embryo transfer, I let it motivate me; when we drove back from scans confirming we were six weeks, then 12 weeks pregnant, I celebrated with it. As I nervously made my way through my pregnancy, I turned to it when I needed the boost.
In January 2013, our first son was born. Today, he is the eldest of three: his brother arrived 15 months later, via IVF too (the last of our fertilised embryos) and four years later, another brother, without fertility treatment. We consider ourselves unspeakably lucky; for many, the outcome is not the same.
In our family, everyone knows Titanium is my fight song. It’s the only big commercial dance hit on my playlists, and a marker of something I overcame.
My kids call me in whenever it streams or plays on TV. When I made my husband a playlist for our 15th wedding anniversary, it’s the song that represented our 2011. And the other week, when he was out with friends, he sent me a voice note from the bar: he’d recorded it playing in the background.
There’s something all-consuming about fertility treatment: you view life only through the filter of your efforts to get pregnant. If you’re lucky, the filter lifts. It did for me, but the fight song remained. So, now, elsewhere in life, when I need a shot of strength and find myself alone in the car, down goes the window and on it goes.
UK News
Parents 'facing uncertainty' as SEN children left without school places
Amy Gibney says she is one of eight families at her child’s school to find out that they don’t have a place for next year.
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UK News
Edinburgh airport reopens after security alert but passengers warned of ‘knock on’ effect | Scotland
Edinburgh airport reopened on Saturday morning after parts of the terminal building were evacuated on Friday night because of a security alert.
An explosive ordnance disposal team was sent to the airport to investigate what Police Scotland described as a “potentially suspicious package” discovered at about 6.50pm on Friday.
An evacuation was ordered and a police cordon was set up, with roads closed.
Passengers faced disruption as result of the operation and the airport warned that schedules would continue to be affected on Saturday.
In a statement at about 3am on Saturday, the airport confirmed it had reopened and would work to restore normal services as quickly as possible.
“Following investigations by specialist teams, the airport has now reopened.
“This incident will have knock-on impacts throughout today and staff are working hard to address these and support passengers.
“Operational teams are continuing to work to restore normal services as quickly as possible.
“Please check with your airline for the latest information on your flight.”
The statement did not provide an update about the examination of the suspicious package.
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