Tag Archives: edinburgh festival

Want to know who Ed Davey would snog, marry and avoid?

Ed Davey is heading to Edinburgh on Saturday 12th August to take part in the For the Many Podcast with Iain Dale and former Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. Tickets, which cost £17, are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance by snapping them up here.

I hope he knows what he is letting himself in for as these shows can be quite the wild ride with a generous helping of smut and comedy alongside the politics. There’s usually a bit of snog, marry, avoid and in the most recent live show, outgoing Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price was asked which politicians he would like to see on Naked Attraction. There are some questions to which “none” is the only acceptable answer. To be fair, the live shows are usually less lurid than the weekly episodes, the audience providing a reminder that someone else is actually listening.

I reckon our Ed will handle himself pretty well as long as he realises that there are few boundaries. He is, I think, much better at these sorts of informal events than at the big set piece speeches.

For the Many has been going since 2017 and, if my calculations are correct, will hit its 400th episode during its Edinburgh run. I started listening to it by accident just before Christmas last year and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

Since, I’ve gone back to listen to some of the episodes covering Brexit, Covid and the ongoing Tory psychodrama. As you would expect, Lib Dems don’t usually get the credit we deserve in their analysis so I generally fall asleep during the serious bits and wake up in fits of rib-breaking laughter at some of the outrageous filth they come out with.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 1 Comment

LibLink: Christine Jardine: A shadow over the Edinburgh Festival

In an article for the New European, Christine Jardine highlights the threats to our cultural events, most notably the Edinburgh Festival, posed by Brexit:

 

But sadly if our creative industries are not protected world class events like the Festival, Glastonbury, and many others may find that musicians used to touring Europe freely with no issues over EU crew or equipment licenses could find the whole process becomes slower, more expensive and just downright difficult.

They might opt to take up other opportunities on the continent or elsewhere.

Music development organisations and other cultural groups might also find themselves without the vital funding stream previously provided by the EU.

But that is the immediate effect. There could also be collateral damage for one of our other most important industries if they cease to be the cash cows the tourist industry has come to depend on.

And the scale of visitor numbers attracted by the Edinburgh Festival every year demands a huge hospitality sector in which an estimated 50 per cent of the workforce come from other EU states.

Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 1 Comment
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