Tag Archives: political activism

Christine Whelan

Celebrating Progress – Leading with Pride

By Christine Whelan | Mon 9th February 2026 - 1:40 pm

This recent cross-party weekend organised by the Local Government Association brought together councillors from the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Conservative groups from across the country. While it was encouraging to see such a broad geographic spread, it was disappointing that no other parties were represented and that the South of England was noticeably under-represented. Even so, the diversity of experience in the room made for a rich and thoughtful programme.

The theme of the weekend was Leading with Pride — and how that sits alongside both your role as a councillor and your identity as a member of the LGBT+ community. …

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 22 January 2024 – so, about those Presidential primaries…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 22nd January 2024 - 7:45 am

Well, that was unexpected. Ron DeSantis is gone, and has endorsed Donald Trump. And, unless Nikki Haley gets a respectable showing in New Hampshire, it’s surely all over in the absence of any other opponent. Biden versus Trump it is then…

Meanwhile, nearer to home, the Post Office Horizon scandal continues to unfold. For what it’s worth, I do wonder whether or not the various ministers involved were persuaded that there was nothing wrong by the evidently unwise presumption that public officials will tell you the truth when pressed. After all, the Civil Service Code has at its core the values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality and, in my personal experience, most of us live up to that every day – we tend to take a dim view of those that are found to have fallen short. And politicians should be able to take that for granted – they need civil servants to provide them with a picture of what’s going on in their departments and of the impacts of political decisions, both before and after the event, and should be able to rely upon the advice they give, even if they don’t accept it.

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Recent Comments

  • Hywel
    Whatever else you say about *that* fees vote the current Parliamentary party only has 5 MPs who would have taken part. Two were in favour as ministers (Davey a...
  • Owen Driscoll
    So - having wrote the piece - I wanted to spark discussion on the party on not assuming we should seek a similar arrangement to what we had before. It should be...
  • cim
    "how do we maximise our influence without repeating the electoral damage of 2010–15?" A clearer idea of when the damage was done and why might help here. T...
  • George Thomas
    The tuition fee about-turn and pain of austerity may have nipped growing LD momentum in the bud, but that is a long time ago now. I don't think that inciden...
  • Jana
    I like your thinking but I disagree with your statement, “ The central risk of coalition is absorption.” No, the central risks of coalition are: being re...