And for dinner, a pie from the excellent Wrightons of Fritwell (butcher, village shop and post office).

A busy afternoon facilitating a round table with parish, district and county councillors and Calum Miller MP to give local input into how we mitigate the effects of five huge speculative development applications on the mid-Cherwell area. Lots of challenging but very useful feedback, cross-party.

What on Earth is this? An "in depth" BBC article about free speech in the UK that only cites examples of right-wing/ 'anti-woke' speech being suppressed. How can you mention Lucy Connolly but completely ignore Palestine Action / Just Stop Oil? Gob-smacking. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Considered it. Concluded that it was a completely stupid idea.

Amazing that even when you schedule a meeting at 8am after the Lib Dem Disco and hold it in a room you’ve never heard of in 20+ years of Bournemouth Conferences, people fill said room when it’s a ‘consultation’ on a deeply illiberal premise #ldconf

Nice to get the message from my mum that I’m on the front page. Pleasantly surprised to find others read it.

Out with @calummillerld.bsky.social talking to Heyford Park residents about the New Town proposal and other local issues

A reasonably balanced article for once. The choice is clear: rail investment or gridlock. A pity the leader of the local Tories won’t back the essential reopening of Ardley station. www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/news/2547419...

The cross-party Commons' Education Selection Committee has today published a strong report into the SEND crisis in English schools. It highlights the catastrophic impact on children and families and the urgent need to fund local authorities. We now need the government to lead a cross-party response.

For those with an interest in the huge change proposed around Ardley, Heyford Park, Fritwell and Bucknell, the chair of Fritwell Parish Council has superimposed the five proposals onto a map. Except…..

"the hard data suggests that the largest of the UK’s very real problems are no more being caused by mass immigration than they are by a group of charity fundraisers rowing past Great Yarmouth" on.ft.com/3IsyVVu @timharford.ft.com with his facts and reasonableness

In #Cymru I see there’s been a 25% reduction in road injuries since the introduction of 20mph limits. This is precisely why we are doing it in Oxfordshire. We would like the police to enforce it better. They aren’t even giving one ticket a day in 20mph zones. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Oxfordshire County Council Parking Schemes and Traffic Orders Team won the Traffic Team Award in the prestigious British Parking Awards 2025 organised by Landor Links – “the Oscars of the UK parking sector”. The competition attracted over 180 entries in 26 categories.

A message for some of my council colleagues….

Here's a Danny Kruger story we all seem to have forgotten. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_poli...

Plans for a new railfreight hub and warehousing site at Ardley, north Oxfordshire, are going out to consultation. The plans envisage an “intermodal rail terminal” between Heyford Airfield (itself proposed as the site of Heyford Park new town) and the Chiltern main line railway.

Bluesky isn’t perfect but at least its owner isn’t demanding violent insurrection in the UK from thousands of miles away

Better sack a few more cleaners now Jim.

The BBC reporting the Robinson rally as organisers describe it - 'Unite the Kingdom' - is a journalistic travesty, parroting the words given them by the far right. They should call it out for what it is: right-wing, bootboy thuggery, driven by hatred and bigotry. The media veneer is shocking.

Ruin a song by adding the word ’literally’ Everything’s Literally AOR

Thanks to @vertigoem.bsky.social for finding Peston’s response to Peter’s appointment at the time. I appreciate that it was very concerning that Mandelson does not golf, but it does feel like there was something missing here.

Ending the week at Police & Crime Panel holding the [Tory] Commissioner to account. We are currently looking at an underwhelming report on police complaints that provides none of the sort of information that would reassure the public.

This is an incredibly important thread, and I wish more "normal" people understood that this is how many minorities are feeling at the minute.

On my way to Health Overview & Scrutiny. Access to GP services is on the agenda as is ophthalmology. Keep Our NHS Public serenaded us on the way in!

I’m very proud of Andrew Gant and my Lib Dem colleagues for piloting this scheme in response to rapidly rising congestion causing particular problems to Oxford bus services. With quite generous local exceptions, this will be hugely beneficial to very many of us around the County.

This is a huge step, with Oxford set to join a small but select number of cities which have implemented a congestion charge.

Anneliese is someone I like on many fronts, but as a cyclist I’m surprised she misses this detail

Andy Mitchell was one of the genuinely inspirational industry leaders I had the pleasure to work with (on Crossrail).

I’d missed this at the time, but it’s well worth a read. Land value tax is touched on in the comments.

Er….. what?

I’ve just asked our lead member about work Oxfordshire County Council is doing on a Local Energy Action Plan. This will encourage communities to be involved with local energy schemes. Good news.

Speed limits are to be cut around junctions on the A4260, the old main road from Oxford to Banbury. Oxfordshire County Council is making the changes as part of its Vision Zero plan to eliminate deaths and serious injuries on the county’s roads.

Typical woke, anti-car.....car companies??

I wonder if it will come up at the parish council?

It’s been frozen since 2011. Unsustainable in every way.

Your biennial reminder that the Lib Dem conference rally is really weird and niche. Come to Glee Club instead. You’d like it there.

A social media clip purporting to show “illegal migrants being given PlayStation 5s on behalf of Oxford City Council” is actually from the US in 2018 and has nothing to do with free PlayStations, says fact-checking charity Full Fact. fullfact.org/immigration/...

He's right, but it's something the Lib Dems have consistently failed to do while he's been party president.

I’ve just been speaking on BBC Radio Oxford about the proposals for a New Town at Heyford Park, and the challenges and opportunities. Others spoke at 1h20 and 2h20 into the programme: I was on just after 2h50. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

If the living legends that are HMHB were to do Eurovision, what song should they play? Starter: Every Time A Bell Rings.

A very important long read.

This looks like good news. Begbroke Station is a great concept, and Ardley as well. OCC is really working to make a difference to North Oxfordshire.

I’m delighted to see the ambition in the Plan for Rail. It’s much needed. The speculative development proposed around Ardley and the Heyfords is of a colossal scale. A new station is the only alternative to gridlock, should any or all of it go ahead. Good to see improved Heyford services in too.

🚨BREAKING Plans for a 10,000-home new town at Heyford Park in North Oxfordshire have been submitted, including proposals for a new railway station and a driverless shuttle bus on a loop around the site. The town would be built on a former RAF airbase.

And we thought Braverman was the enemy of civil liberties….

I challenged the Foreign Secretary to sanction Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sadly he declined to answer

Two massive planning applications in today that will have a huge impact on the villages I represent. There is a third to follow. None of them are allocated in any Local Plan; as such they are all speculative. The communities affected by them are very rural and have little by way of services. [1]

Clearly this should be denounced, including by my own party. Labour seem incapable of understanding that acts of performative cruelty will do nothing to tackle the post-2021 rise in non-EU migration, stop the criminal boat gangs or revive their plummeting poll ratings.

A must-read thread on how the state interferes with humans, and why the current (heavily-bankrolled) culture war hysteria against trans people in the UK is inhuman and deeply wrong.