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Really sad news from the North East today. Chris Abbott, long-term Liberal Democrat Councillor from Redcar, has died suddenly.

The photo of him here is taken from his Twitter profile.

From Gazette Live:

A prominent figure in local Liberal Democrat politics for more than 40 years, he represented Newcomen ward, inRedcar, where he lived.

The 66-year-old lifelong Leeds fan and electrician was also chairman of Yorkshire Ridings Society.

Paying tribute, Josh Mason, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Liberal Democrat group, said: Chris was a bastion of local democracy and a lifelong liberal, whose knowledge, passion and dedicated community work, have been an inspiration to us all.

Redcar and Cleveland Council will be a lesser place without his principled values, commitment and tireless efforts for local people.

On behalf of Redcar Liberal Democrats, I offer sincere condolences to Chris family and to all who knew him, as we mourn together, the loss of a dear friend

Chris was one of the stalwarts of the early online Lib Dem Conferencing system, Cix and his blog was a brilliant mix of local news and commentary.

Its been ages since Ive done one of these and Ive decided to change it slightly so that I put in some of my favourite articles, videos and interviews from various media outlets, not just the Sunday papers.

First up this week exactly the sort of confident, bold setting out of the liberal values our society so desperately needs. Dutch liberal Marietje Schaake talks to CNNs Christine Amanpour about the benefits of liberalism:

Dutch liberals face a challenging election later this year with right wing populists headed by Geert Wilders in a strong position.

In the pages of the Express, you tend to find Liberal Democrats being lampooned. However, this is a quite charming article where Paddy Ashdown describes his favourite photograph his wedding photograph from 54 years ago. He talks about their first meeting at a Christmas ball:

Vince Cable is fundamentally wrong to suggest that there is no great argument of liberal principle for free movement and his case for ending free movement is weak. He ought to revise his views to be in more in keeping with liberal values which, in the face of rising and fierce anti-migrant rhetoric, are sorely needed.

His assertion that British opposition to immigration is mainly colour-blind is simply not true.

Fears and prejudices were purposefully stoked during the referendum with explicit scapegoating, disingenuous scaremongering about Turkish migrants and in particular Farages appalling blatantly non-colour-blind Breaking Point poster campaign.

Hate crime has soared since the referendum. The vast majority of the targets of xenophobic incidents and abuse have been EU migrants in particular citizens from Eastern European countries.

Islamophobia and associated crimes have also risen exponentially. Note the 25 serious incidents of anti-muslim hate crimes recorded in the three days after the Brexit vote. People are explicitly abusing muslims in the streets because we voted out, shouting shouldnt you be on a plane back to Pakistan? We voted you out!

The EU referendum vote has unleashed an ugly force of racism where those who hold prejudiced views feel emboldened to shout, abuse and attack people in the street, post excrement through peoples letter boxes and rip off peoples hijabs in public.

There are few things in life more irritating than the Daily Fail crowing. It is doing just that this morning after International Development Minister Priti Patel announced that funding for what the Fail called the Ethiopian equivalent of the Spice Girls was being cut from our international aid budget. In the same way as they pepper words like bogus around when talking about asylum seekers, or make it sound like every second person claiming benefits is doing so fraudulently (when the figure is less than 1%), they are trying to make it sound like all the money that we send overseas is being frittered away on frivolity.

What they dont tell you is that the group Yegna is a brilliant, innovative and creative way of getting an important message about womens and girls rights through to both men and women. It tells girls that they dont have to put up with being beaten by their parents. It changes minds. Just look at this poster from the Girl Effect, who manage this project.

Id particularly want to draw your attention to the changes in knowledge, attitudes and behaviours section. Almost all boys who were exposed to Yegnas work would be moved to report it if they were aware of a girl being forced into marriage compared with just over half who were not. 59% of girls beaten by their parents who had listened to Yegna would agree that it should be reported to the authorities compared with less than a third who had not. 25% more girls who had listened to Yegna realised that it was wrong for men to hit their wives.

I am frequently told that, as a Remoaner I must respect the result of the referendum. It seems to me that I am not being asked to respect it so much as to fetishise it.

Actually, I do respect it. I respect it for what it was an advisory vote won by a wafer thin majority based on a mountain of lies.

Then, because I say that, I am criticised (virulently quite often) for being undemocratic and for not respecting the will of the people. And many people who did not vote Leave, and do not want to leave, seem to have accepted the line that the vote has happened and they must respect it.

But democracy is so much more than a single vote.

Generally speaking electoral votes stand, even if the majority is unsatisfactory. But that is premised on two conditions. The first is that the voters get a chance regularly to change their minds. The second is that the voters were at least relatively well informed about the subject of their vote. All sides make their offers clear, and the media do a proper job of examining their claims.

It feels like 5 minutes since Nick Clegg and I were relative political youngsters in the East Midlands so it seems very strange indeed that all of a sudden he is celebrating his 50th birthday today.

When I was growing up, 50 seemed totally ancient. A hundred years ago, 50 was getting to the top range of life expectancy. But now it seems like its only barely into middle age. People start new careers in their 50s. Sadly, Barack Obama is going to be doing just that in a fortnight at the age of 55.

In the time Ive known him, Nick has gone from being enthusiastic candidate seeking selection to MEP to party leader to Deputy Prime Minister. It has been quite the roller-coaster ride.

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Liberal Democrat Voice