In their place will be a unitary system.  Here one single authority will cover all local government responsibilities in an area.

Labour have talked for a long time about devolution.  But their proposal is an oxymoron, as it’s the opposite of devolution!

A simple rule of thumb is that as any group or organisation grows larger, it becomes more amorphous and less accountable.

The government reconsiders this policy because if implemented, it could make people feel even more detached from the political system than they do today.

A county like Hertfordshire – with a population of over 1.2 million – provides a perfect example of how daft the government’s scheme is.

It has large towns like Watford (population 100.000 plus) and small villages like Cuffley, with a population of just over 4,000 people.  Large parts of the county are used for agriculture.

How on earth is one single authority cover all local government responsibilities in a county as diverse of Hertfordshire?

A tinpot dictator in waiting may dream of such a gargantuan authority.  However for ordinary people it’ll be an absolute nightmare.

EVERY SO OFTEN a debate about the future of the House of Lords flares up.  Opinion can be sharply divided.

Some believe that the House of Lords is an anachronism and belongs to an earlier age. Allegations of elitism – especially in respect of hereditary peers – are also commonplace.

Others seem to venerate the Lords. They point to its history & the unique nature of the institution.  They also question what would replace it.

National Liberals are committed to free thought & free speech.  Therefore, any debate relating to the future of the Lords is one that interests us.

Like many people, we’re in favour of a body that can effectively act as a check and balance to the House of Commons. This is particularly so when one party has such a majority that it can literally bulldoze legislation through.

We should point out that National Liberals believe that governments need to be able to act decisively. But some form of checks & balances are essential to prevent – what could be termed – even a ‘benign’ form of dictatorship emerging.

(As an aside, we believe that serious questions must also be asked about the UKs version of ‘democracy’.

One question relates to the status of both government & opposition.

Here, the opposition appears to spend all its time & energy deliberately trying to derail what the government has been elected to do. This is irrespective of whether the government’s proposal is in the national interest or not!

We know that this is an age-old political tactic to make the government look weak and inept. However, it ignores the fact that action is urgently needed to solve the many social & economic problems we face.  Many folks are suffering hardships, so is it right that the opposition seems happy enough to play a game of political point scoring.)

Returning to the status of the House of Lords, we think that the whole question of – to paraphrase The Clash – should it stay, or should it go? requires deep analysis, thought and debate.

However, before we even start to think about the future of the House of Lords, we must examine its past.  We need to know what oversight body preceded it, if any, and when & why the House of Lords came into being.

A truly informed debate can only proceed once we know the constitutional & historical context (in respect of the Lords).  These facts will then shape any future debate.

•  To be continued.

YES, it’s that time of year again – Christmas is coming! But in your haste to do the shopping, don’t forget the local shops and businesses in your area. Give them an early Christmas present by shopping locally today.

The National Liberal Party knows that times are hard, and price considerations are obviously very important, but many small shops depend on their Christmas trade to see them through much of the following year.  And this is particularly true of the money they make in the fortnight just before Christmas itself.

Many shopkeepers recall the recession of the late 2000s – which was brought on by ‘casino capitalism’ – a mixture of greed and mistakes made by the politicians, bankers, ‘fat cats’ and speculators.  To add insult to injury, shopkeepers are also hit hard by high interest rates, the criminal bank debt-system, out-of-town outlet centres and on-line shopping.

The shopkeeper, as a self-employed businessman or woman, plays a vital role in the local economy. (And don’t forget that these small shops collectively employ hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the length and breadth of Britain). Local shops are not only important for the elderly and young mothers but are part of the glue that helps to maintain community spirit – a place to bump into friends, neighbours and relatives.

If we don’t support our local shops and businesses today, we may lose them forever. Then people will have no other choice to travel directly into the nearest city or town centre for the smallest of items. This may be ok if you have your own transport and are fit and healthy. However, the elderly or young mothers wouldn’t really look forward to beating a path through the massive Saturday shopping crowds found in our large towns and cities.

The message is clear. For the community spirit to survive and prosper, we must give local shops as much trade as possible. The National Liberal Party says support your local shops, shopkeepers and shop workers. Shop locally this Christmas!

TODAY is a dark day for Britain.

In a historic vote, the House of Commons has turned its back on the sanctity of life. By 330 votes to 275, MPs have approved draft legislation that allows terminally ill adults, expected to die within six months, to seek help to end their lives.

Palliative care consultant Dr Dominic Whitehouse begged MPs – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4srDS0SmSs – to vote with ‘wisdom and courage’. They did not. A 55-vote majority has declared that life is cheap.

Let us be clear: this is not ‘assisted dying’. That phrase belongs to the noble art of palliative care, which cherishes life even in its final moments. This is assisted suicide—a deliberate act to extinguish life. It is a seismic shift that should alarm anyone who values the moral fabric of our society.

History and modern examples alike offer lessons we are too blind or arrogant to heed. Take Oregon, often cited as a exemplary model for assisted suicide due to its so-called ‘Death with Dignity Act’. Oregon’s journey  – https://spcare.bmj.com/content/14/4/455?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email – should give us pause. In 1998, just 16 assisted deaths were recorded; by 2022, that number had soared to 278. Over time, trends emerged that reveal the cost of this policy, not in pounds but in humanity.

Patients’ funding shifted from predominantly private to mostly state-funded healthcare (65% private in 1998; 79.5% government-supported in 2022). More patients reported feeling like a burden or struggling with financial worries as reasons for choosing death. Relationships between doctors and patients became transactional — shrinking from 18 weeks in 2010 to just five weeks in 2022. Psychiatric evaluations, designed to protect those in vulnerable states, remained astonishingly rare, hovering at just 1%.

What is dignified about this conveyor belt to death?

And Oregon has taken things one step further. It is one of the places in the world where people can opt for aquamation, a chemical process that reduces human remains to liquid and bone fragments, marketed as ‘soil transformation’. Once complete, the liquefied remains can be used as fertiliser. Of course, we all become soil in the end. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But our rituals are sacralised and respectful, they give time not just for the body but for the mourners. This haste is soulless, clinical and dehumanising. And note it is not human transformation but soil transformation. The human is lost — the humanity is lost.

Societies that treat life as disposable are doomed to collapse. We have seen it before. Under the Soviet regime and Mao’s China, life was cheapened to the point of irrelevance. Individuals were sacrificed to ideology; human worth was measured by utility to the state. Millions perished as the machinery of death rolled on.

It is easy to dismiss these as extreme examples, but the seeds of such devaluation are sown when we begin to tamper with the inviolability of life. Legalising assisted suicide in Britain invites us to tread the same path. We assure ourselves it will be different here, that we are more compassionate, more advanced. But compassion twisted into expedience is no longer compassion. It is abandonment.

Today’s vote marks a death knell for civilisation

But the bells have been ringing for decades. Today, they are deafening.

We are a society rotting from within. Girls are told they can become boys, and boys are told they can become girls, as if biological reality is an inconvenience to be rewritten. Pensioners are denied their winter fuel allowance despite knowing that thousands will perish from the cold. In our streets, metropolitan elites wrapped in keffiyas chant for intifada on their own streets while ignoring their own moral hypocrisies. Ours is a culture of contradiction and decay.

We worry about barbarians at the gates, but the real rot is internal. Our civilisation is riddled with maggots. And here’s the uncomfortable truth: we are the maggots, gnawing away at the decaying flesh of our own culture.

‘Assisted dying’ is dressed up in the language of autonomy and choice, but the underlying message is clear: you are not worth saving. Britain is becoming a death cult, which can only happen when life is cheap.

True dignity lies in care, love, and support, even when the path is difficult. True compassion requires us to stand firm in the face of suffering, not to eliminate the sufferer. When we legalise assisted suicide, we do not affirm life — we betray it.

This vote is a tragedy — not just for those who will be affected by the legislation, but for our society as a whole. We are told this is progress, but it is a step into darkness and decay. Legalising assisted suicide doesn’t just end lives; it erodes the very foundations of civilisation.

ISRAEL APPEARS to have begun its long-planned ethnic cleansing (1) of northern Gaza, with the IDF dropping bombs (2), issuing evacuation orders (3) for multiple hospitals, attacking civilians with sniper drones (4), and besieging civilian populations (5) in order to force tens of thousands of people (6) to either move south or die.  Israel has reportedly been dropping leaflets (7) on the Jabalia refugee camp ordering people to leave, and then shooting anyone who tries to (8).

Since the seventh of October last year Israel has committed roughly 100 October sevenths in Gaza; scores of American medical workers who volunteered in the enclave signed an open letter (9) to president Biden estimating the real death toll from Israel’s onslaught at over 118,000. Israel has also committed about two October sevenths in Lebanon during that time, with the majority of the 2,100 Israeli killings (10) in that country coming just in the last few weeks.

As Israeli murderousness ramps up in both Gaza and Lebanon, Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a statement (11) addressed to the Lebanese people telling them that they need to somehow defeat Hezbollah in order to “save Lebanon before it plunges into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

Israeli officials have been saying (12) they’re going to destroy Lebanon like they destroyed Gaza for months. Back in December Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said (13), “Every person in Lebanon can take the map, the aerial photograph of Gaza, place it on an aerial photograph of Beirut, and ask themselves if this is what they want to happen there.” Now Netanyahu himself is saying this.

Notably, Netanyahu’s statement was delivered in English (14), with English subtitles. This wasn’t actually a plea made to the people of Lebanon, it was propaganda made for western consumption. Netanyahu does not actually believe the Lebanese people are going to take up arms against Hezbollah to stop their country from being destroyed, he’s just creating a narrative to justify what he already plans on doing to Lebanon.

And the US is encouraging Israel to move forward. On Tuesday State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller told the press (15) that the Biden administration no longer supports a ceasefire with Hezbollah, saying “We support Israel’s efforts to degrade Hezbollah’s capability” instead. Two weeks ago CNN reported (16) that the administration has also essentially given up on a ceasefire in Gaza.

And we haven’t even talked about Iran yet. NBC News reports (17) that US military officials have been discussing directly joining in Israel’s planned attack on Iran (18), potentially launching their own airstrikes on the Iranian military whenever Israel begins its attack.

Whether the US joins with Israel in its coming attack or not, Iran has already made it clear (19) that it will retaliate against any further aggressions by Israel, and Israel has made it clear that if Iran strikes back it’s going to ramp up its aggressions (20) and perhaps start attacking Iranian energy infrastructure. If this blows up into full-scale war, as looks increasingly likely, it’s inevitable that the US will come to Israel’s defense.

Axios and its Israeli intelligence insider Barak Ravid have a new report (21) out on how super duper frustrated the Biden administration is becoming with Israeli warmongering. In typical Axios fashion the outlet reports that the White House is becoming “increasingly distrustful” of Israel’s planned military operations against Iran and Lebanon, but that, in typical Biden administration fashion, its American sources admit that the US “would very likely help Israel defend itself regardless” of whatever happens.

Whoever wins the US election in November appears to be committed to riding with Israel down this path into the depths of hell.

In an interview with 60 Minutes (22), Vice President Kamala Harris defended the Biden administration’s genocidal support for Israel, saying the weapons it has been giving them “allow Israel to defend itself.” She also named Iran (23) as the number one enemy of the United States.

In an appearance on The View (24), Harris was asked what she would have done differently from President Biden, and she said “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” Then later she added, “You asked me what is the difference between Joe Biden and me, that will be one of the differences: I’m going to have a Republican in my Cabinet.”

And lest you make the mistake of thinking Trump would be any better, last week the former president said (25) that Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, and criticized the Biden administration for not being sufficiently aggressive on this front.

“They asked [Biden], what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran?” Trump said at a campaign event on Friday. “And he goes, ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you want to hit, right? I said I think he’s got that one wrong.”

Anyone who still says Trump is a peacemaker is a damn fool (26).  Statements like this are in full alignment with the absolute worst warmongers in Washington like John Bolton or Lindsey Graham.

Anyway, that’s where we’re at right now. That’s the trajectory the US empire has us on. An active genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the threat of another extermination campaign in Lebanon, and acceleration toward a direct war of unimaginable horror with Iran.

These psychos must be stopped.

(26)  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/both-trumpism-and-anti-trumpism-are