May32017

News story: Accelerator face-to-face meetings

HM Government
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An opportunity to book a meeting with the Defence and Security Accelerator team to discuss your research idea.

The Accelerator is holding Enduring Challenge and Autonomous Last Mile Resupply themed challenge face-to-face meetings in London to give you the opportunity to discuss your innovative research idea in private.

The Accelerator focuses on innovations which can provide advantage to defence and national security to protect the UK from its adversaries. It funds the development of suppliers’ innovative ideas and provides support through to potential application. This is through the enduring competition or specific themed competitions.

Before you come to your meeting please prepare by thinking about:

  • what is your research idea?
  • what do you think the benefit is to defence and security?
  • will it save time/costs, improve capability/performance/reliability?
  • why should MOD or the Security Agencies invest in this work?
  • what will your approach be?
  • how will you structure your research?
  • what will you deliver? what evidence will you produce?
  • what will the impact of your research be?
  • how will you demonstrate progress towards the claimed benefit?

The main purpose of this meeting is for you to ask questions, and most importantly, receive advice from the team, so please leave time for this during your session.

Spaces will be on a first-come, first-served basis and an organisation should only register once.

Defence and Security Accelerator Email accelerator@dstl.gov.uk Telephone+44 (0)30 67704236

Please email for the quickest response.

May32017

Liberal Democrats hit highest ever membership on eve of local elections

Liberal Democrats
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The Liberal Democrats have hit their highest ever number of members, eclipsing the high watermark of 101,768 set in 1994.
The landmark comes as Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron heads to Oxford to rally activists for the party’s final push of the local election campaign.

More than 14,000 new members have joined the Liberal Democrats in the two weeks since the General Election was called. More than 50,000 members have joined since last year’s European referendum and nearly 70,000 since the 2015 General Election.

Tim Farron pledged to build the party to 100,000 members by the end of the parliament as a key pledge during his 2015 leadership campaign – but at that point everyone expected the end of the parliament to be 2020.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: “We are going into these local elections bigger than ever before, with a clear message and a growing sense of momentum.

Join the Liberal Democrats

“In many of the counties where these elections are taking place it is the Liberal Democrats who are the main challengers to the Conservatives. Liberal Democrat councillors are the strong opposition to the Conservatives across the country, standing up to them on cuts to schools and elderly care.

“You don’t need to agree with us on everything to agree that Britain needs a strong opposition to fight for you and your communities against Tory cuts to our schools, our NHS and our social care services. In county halls just as in Westminster, Liberal Democrats are that strong opposition that Britain needs.”

 

May32017

The General Election.

John Redwood MP
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The 2017 Parliament needs to see through the twin tasks of economic recovery and the successful negotiation of a new relationship with the EU.

Both these mighty tasks were started before. The task of economic rescue began in 2010.

We have seen through the first long part of the recovery, cutting the deficit and creating conditions for many new jobs to be generated. Today many more people are in work, and more have better paid jobs. We now need to raise our sights, to work smarter so more people can be better paid. We need to continue the good progress to getting more people into work. Once in work we need to help them train, improve, and gain promotion.  We also need to be encouraging of enterprise, making it easier for people to set up their own businesses, and to grow those businesses.

The task of leaving the EU whilst improving our relationship with Europe began last summer after the vote. We now need to bring people together to back a vision of what an independent UK looks like. It can be so much better. We want to be open to the world and a leader of freer world trade. We want to increase our collaborations on research, culture, investment and enterprise with the whole world, not turn our backs on European joint ventures. We do not wish to close our borders, but to welcome students, tourists, people of talent, executives of large global companies and those with the skills we need at home.

The overriding task is to get the law through to complete our exit from the EU, and to negotiate a friendly Agreement on our future trade and relations with the EU that helps them as well as us. The new Parliament will then need to move on to make those changes to our laws we need to make so that our newfound freedom leads to some improvement. The Conservatives have made clear we do not intend to remove any of the employment rights or environmental protections that have come from the EU, but to incorporate them in UK law. There they are safe, unless a party in the future with a majority wants to amend or change them having stated  so in a Manifesto.

We do wish to plan for changes to the current EU laws over fishing and farming. We think we need a fishing policy that is kinder to both our fish and our fishermen than the present policy. We want an agriculture policy that helps UK farmers produce more of our food, and supports landscapes where the farmer has costs to maintain them.

I am conscious that people who voted Remain were worried about possible economic damage. So far the UK economy has continued to grow, to generate more jobs, and to only suffer the same uptick in inflation that Germany and the USA have suffered, mainly owing to oil prices. I will work tirelessly in the new Parliament if elected to see through policies that put continued growth  and prosperity first.

Promoted by Fraser McFarland on behalf of John Redwood, both of 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU