Duke of Rutland is urged to sell 'trashed' grouse moor to the people of Sheffield

The campaign group Reclaim Our Moors wants the Duke of Rutland to to sell Moscar Moor near Sheffield for £1 because they think it is in such poor condition, reports the Sheffield Star:

Members say they walked across part of the 6,000-acre estate, between Stanage Edge and the A57, and found "almost no insect life, few birds and no grouse".

They claim it has been "trashed" by the duke, "who sets it on fire - sending smoke into people’s homes, worsening flood risk downstream and releasing carbon that adds to the climate crisis."

They also state it has been “scoured of wildlife by gamekeepers who kill anything that could affect gamebird numbers.”

The report goes on to say that in October 2023 deliberate fires on the moor blanketed Sheffield in smoke and caused a city-wide pollution incident. Heather is burnt to encourage the growth of green shoots that grouse can feed on.

It also says Moscar has received an average annual subsidy of £175,400 since 2012 under a Natural England stewardship scheme.

The Duke declined an invitation to comment.

Lord Bonkers is, of course, chuckling at this story. I get the impression he finds grouse shooting rather ungentlemanly:

"Shoot at a Rutland partridge and it will take cover and fire back. Now that's what I call sport!"

Anyway, there is more about Reclaim Our Moors online.

Searching for what was once Dinting Railway Centre

Dinting is a station on the Glossop line from Manchester Piccadilly and was also on the Great Central's Woodhead route from Manchester to Sheffield¹ before that closed in 1981. Between 1968 and 1990 a nearby locomotive shed was home to the Dinting Railway Centre, where you could often find famous locomotives like Blue Peter and the Flying Scotsman visiting.

The LeiceExplore YouTube channel has rebranded as What Once Was, but offers the same high-quality nosehs around industrial and historic sites. Subscribe and like away.

Here the two Steves discover the site of the railway centre and Dinting viaduct, before exploring the station, part of which has been disused since the closure of the line to Sheffield.

Notes

1. The Woodhead route is the longest lost railway that I travelled on, ahead of March to Spalding and Market Harborough to Northampton.

New Statesman: Lib Dems cheered and baffled by Kemi Badenoch

Embed from Getty Images

The Liberal Democrats have two strategic objectives in this parliament. 

One is to be a better opposition than the Conservatives by focusing on issues of substance, like social care reform, rather than ones of style or personality.

The second is to embed our new MPs as local champions, so that even voters profoundly disillusioned with Westminster will welcome their achievements in their communities.

That's according to George Eaton writing on the New Statesman website.

He goes on to say:

From an electoral perspective, the Lib Dems’ aim is to "finish the job” in the Blue Wall. Of their 30 notional target seats, all but four are held by the Tories. That Kemi Badenoch has displayed little interest in defending – or reclaiming – such territory has cheered (and baffled) the Lib Dems.

But Davey’s team also believe they have opportunities against Labour. “We want a Liberal voice back in the cities,” an aide told me. Early targets include Nick Clegg’s former seat of Sheffield Hallam (Labour majority: 8,189) and Simon Hughes’s former seat of Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Labour majority: 7,787).

Elsewhere in the article, I was surprised to read that it was Paddy Ashdown who pioneered "pavement politics".

This approach, under the grander name "community politics" was developed in the previous decade by the Association of Liberal Councillors and graduates of the Young Liberals' radical era.

At that time Paddy was still... Well, if I told you what he was doing in those days, I'd have to shoot you.

Woodhead railway tunnels to Hadfield today

I first saw the Woodhead route - the lost railway from Sheffield to Manchester - in the summer of 1978. In those days Sheffield to Huddersfield trains used it to reach Penistone, running through the derelict Sheffield Victoria station on the way and also taking sweeping curves about the valley of the Don.

At Penistone you could watch a constant stream of goods trains taking coal from the South Yorkshire coalfield to a power station at Widnes or returning empty.

The class 76 locomotives were unique to this line and you could tell they had been designed in the 1930s, before the war put a temporary stop to electrification.

And I did manage to ride on the whole route shortly before it closed. In the winter of 1980/1 the Hope Valley line, the alternative way to Manchester that all Sheffield trains now use, closed for engineering works on Sundays and passenger services were diverted via Woodhead. I can still remember coasting past the reservoirs you see in the video on the way down to Manchester.

This is an excellent video from Trekking Exploration, showing the remains of the line between Woodhead and Hadfield today as well as some archive footage and photos of its last days.

What lies beneath Sheffield Station? Welcome to The Megatron

Martin Zero says on YouTube:

Join me for an exploration of the Victorian tunnels and culverts that run underneath Sheffield Station. These tunnels were built to divert watercourses in the area, so they could build the station on top. Also known as The Megatron. 

The Porter Brook, one of the rivers that flows beneath the station, has given its name to Porterbrook Leasing, one of the Rosco's - rolling stock companies - created when the railways were privatised.

Leeds Station was also built on arches above a river, but the Dark Arches there are easier to explore on foot.

Exploring what remains of Sheffield Victoria

I don't remember Sheffield Victoria being open, but I do remember when Sheffield to Huddersfield trains ran via Penistone and passed through the closed station.

Paul from Wobbly Runner Exploring is your guide to what remains of it today.

Sheffield Victoria was a mainline station opened in 1851 by the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway, which later became the Great Central Railway. The station closed in 1970, when passenger services over the Woodhead route to Manchester ceased.

For the first time in 37 years a new parliament will meet without a member of the cast of The Railway Children

Whatever happens in the general election, the new parliament will be the first without a member of the cast of The Railway Children for 37 years.

For an explanation, listen carefully to Bernard Cribbins in the film's most famous scene.

I hope I cut that short in time. I didn't? I'm sorry. Please help yourself to a tissue.

What I hope you heard was Bernard Cribbins saying "Right away, Mr Cryer" as he dispatched the train.

Mr Cryer was Bob Cryer, a moving force behind the preservation of the Keighley and Worth Valley line. He was also instrumental in convincing the people behind The Railway Children that it was the perfect place for them to film.

When the man who had played the guard through most of the filming ran out of holiday and had to return to his day job, Bob Cryer stepped in. So that's why he's in the scene above.

In February 1974, Bob Cryer was elected as the Labour MP for Keighley. If you are surprised to hear of a Labour left-winger being involved in the railway preservation movement, a guest post on the blog by Joseph Boughey on the uncertain politics of railway preservation may interest you.

Bob Cryer held the seat in two general elections before losing to the Conservatives in 1983. He then served as MEP for Sheffield between 1984 and 1989, before returning to the Commons as MP for Bradford South in 1987.

He held his new seat in 1992, but died in a road traffic accident in 1994 to widespread dismay. You can read an obituary by Tam Dalyell from the Independent.

His widow Ann Cryer was returned for Bob's old seat of Keighley in Labour's 1997 landslide, and held it until she retired in 2010. 

And Ann had also been an extra in The Railway Children too.

But there was a Cryer in parliament after the 2010 election: Ann and Bob's son John had been elected as Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead, a seat he has held ever since.

He was also an extra - a young one - in The Railway Children. That's him and his sister Jane in the photo.

Today John Cryer announced that he will not be standing at the general election. So for the first time since 1987 - that's 37 years - a new parliament will meet without a member of the cast of The Railway Children.

Forget abandoned railways: this is an abandoned Sheffield road

Another outing with Trekking Exploration - find out how to support this channel.

Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire preserved lengths of the Great Central Railway to be reunited this weekend

Exciting news from the Great Central Railway:

Join us for this spectacular weekend as we reunify the Great Central Railway and the Great Central Railway Nottingham for a celebration of the 125th opening of the GCR London Extension. 

Our Rail Replacement Bus Service will reunify the two halves of our railway with a service between Quorn and Woodhouse Station and Ruddington Station to allow you to explore all of our attractions with one inclusive ticket that is valid for entry to all sites and includes train travel and the reunification bus service. Kids go for a Quid (aged 3-15 inclusive)

The weekend in question is 16-17 March, when the 125th anniversary of the Great Central will be celebrated.

The Great Central Railway was the last main line to be built, sending trains from Marylebone out to through Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield to Manchester.

Great Central Railway and Great Central Railway Nottingham are separated by a missing bridge and length of embankment at Loughborough. The video above gives you the latest news on the project to reunify the two lines.

Incidentally, the Great Central Railway Nottingham was originally constructed by the contractors Logan & Hemingway. That's Logan as in this blog's hero J.W. Logan, Liberal MP for Harborough 1891-1904 and 1910-1916.

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"There’s not even the tiniest attempt to explain how globalists and socialists and Islamists can all be running Britain. The only coherence is the idea that whoever is running things, and whoever is responsible, it isn’t the Conservative Brexiters. And this idea is impervious to the observation that Conservative Brexiters have been running the country for years, since its proponents insist that those in charge were not 'true' Conservatives and Brexit was not ‘real’ Brexit." Chris Grey explains why nothing will ever be the Brexiters' fault.

Caitlin Doherty says attacks on social media are discouraging women from standing for parliament: "[Labour MP Julie] Elliott said that it is hard to prepare somebody for the onslaught they may face on social media when they step forward for election. 'You can explain until you’re blue in the face, but until you’ve encountered it and the really personal aggression, I don’t know how you prepare people to cope with that.'"

"The language (and the idea) of the mob paints a false picture of crowds, of crowd violence and of violence in society more generally. The gathering of people in protest does not indicate the imminent outbreak of violence and excess. It cannot, in and of itself, be taken as evidence of intimidation. It is not a threat to our democracy." Stephen Reicher argues that politicians' fear of 'mob violence' is misplaced.

Ben Zimmer examines the antisemitic roots of the term 'globalist'.

"Britpop was a reaction to grunge. What was the reaction to Britpop? Well, if Britpop was associated with easy, fun music then let’s make it as dark as possible. Everyone wanted to react against everything else going on around them." Jane Savidge talks about Pulp and their album This is Hardcore.

Martin Dawes on the strange story of a man who devoted his life to tending a memorial to the crew of a World War II US bomber that crashed in a Sheffield park. Only he didn't.

The blasphemous story of XTC and Dear God

This is a good video on XTC, the tensions within the band and the genesis and extraordinary success of their song Dear God.

I love the story (at 13:50) that British Steel countered the song Making Plans for Nigel by rounding up Sheffield steelworkers called Nigel so they could tell the press how great their jobs were.

But another of the stories is not right - this one is at 15.45. Andy Partridge was not prescribed Valium as a boy because of hyperactivity. 

As he once told the Guardian:

He had been attempting to get off the Valium he had been prescribed aged 12 after his mother was temporarily placed in a mental hospital. 

"It was the 60s," he says, summing up the attitude of the time: "'Poor kid’s upset, his mum’s loopy, why not stick him on Valium?' I became addicted."

Anyway, enjoy the video.

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"Animal factories are amongst the worst atrocities ever perpetrated by humanity. Animal factories are inherently cruel and create massive suffering for billions of animals, destroy the environment and even undermine our health." Jane Goodall and Koen Margodt make the case for adopting a plant-based diet.

Iain Sharpe (Mr Dorothy Thornhill) reflects on how elected politicians can hold experts to account in the light of the Post Office Horizon scandal: "Among the reasons for my dear wife's longevity as Elected Mayor of Watford was a willingness to keep asking questions until she got an answer she understood and a sixth sense for when someone's story wasn't stacking up, the latter skill perhaps deriving from her previous career as a schoolteacher." 

"Giving control to Network Rail would lead to the railway being run to suit its needs, rather than those of the passengers. Trying to get Network Rail to change its spots is unrealistic. The railways must be run in a customer-focused way, and that must be at the heart of any structure the Labour Party devises." Christian Wolmar gives his ideas about how a Labour government should reform the railways.

Oliver Wainwright celebrates the survival of the brutalist Park Hill estate in Sheffield: "The current state of the place – still completely derelict at one end, spruced up at the other – reads as a surreal diagram of how attitudes to postwar architecture have shifted over the years, and how an estate can be scrubbed up for sale in different ways".

Kyle Chaka explains why every coffee shop looks the same - it's the tyranny of the algorithm.

"In 1968 Schulz noticed the Civil Rights movement, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and read a letter from Los Angeles schoolteacher Harriet Glickman. She had a question for Schulz: would he include a black child in the Peanuts gang?" Flashbak explains how Charlie Brown acquired a black friend.

GUEST POST Councillor defections: The scores on the doors at the end of 2023

Augustus Carp with an end-of-year update on the number of councillors who have left the party under whose flag they were elected.

The end of the year is probably as good a time as any to consider recent changes of political allegiances amongst our elected councillors. For divers reasons, numerous individuals have decided to re-align themselves away from the political party whose views they espoused when elected.  

What this might mean is for you to decide – maybe it’s irrelevant, perhaps it’s just the manifestation of personal vanity, or it might be evidence of impending political change, either locally or nationally.  

In any event, I would suggest that any councillor jumping ship means the loss of a formerly dedicated party worker (and perhaps some of their family and friends) on whom their erstwhile parties might have been relying for the impending General Election. Have the parties kept centralised canvassing records, or will they disappear with the resigning councillor? Who will deliver the leaflets in that ward now? Who will run the poling stations on election day?

In headline terms, the net change in councillor defections since the last council elections in May 2023 is Conservatives down 48, the Lib Dems down 15 and the Nationalists down 12, with the Greens flat. The Labour tally of 100 defections elegantly mirrors the Conservative figure when I wrote my first guest post on this subject in February.  

Without a doubt, the biggest surprise of the year has been the series of mass defections from Labour, caused by events in Palestine. 

It’s difficult to ensure absolute accuracy, because a number of factors might have been in play, but over 60 Labour councillors have said that they have resigned because of these events; there have also been a handful of suspensions for the same reason.  

Mass resignations in Burnley (12 councillors) Oxford (11) Blackburn (10) and Walsall (9) have led to changes in the running of the council. Other mass resignations in Sheffield (8) and Hastings (10) do not appear to have the same cause, but it might be a factor in the latter case.  

It will be interesting to see if the Labour Party nationally is able to devise a face-saving mechanism to entice most of the defectors back into the fold, but perhaps the damage is done.  

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have lost on average 1.4 councillors every week. Let’s see what happens in 2024 when the local elections will be largely a replay of 2021, when the Conservatives made significant gains. It could be that, rather than defect or resign, more Conservative Councillors will retire early, in order for the vacancies to fit in with the May timetable.    

Postscript: Probably in an attempt to confuse my arithmetic, the Liberal Democrats have just announced half a defection to them – the Leader of Shetland Council has joined the Party, but will continue to sit as an Independent councillor.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Why is the UK failing so badly at infrastructure?

Our obsolete political system and a lack of knowledge and experience in the civil service have made Britain an also-ran in infrastructure investment, argues James Oates.

On the face of it, we are in something of a golden era for investment British infrastructure. The Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) in London, was just opened on 21 May 2023, and at the same time the full-scale construction of the HS2 high speed rail line between London and Birmingham is now underway, with a projected completion date of between 2029 and 2033. The Thames Tideway super sewer is also now on course to be completed by 2025. 

Over the course of the last decade, 400 miles of UK Motorway have been turned into 'smart motorways'. A programme of junction improvements across the country is another significant investment in the national road network. 

Yet, the slightest comparison shows that the UK is in deep trouble. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which reviews major projects on behalf of the government now believes that at least one in ten of current major infrastructure projects cannot now be achieved, including HS2.

Much of what is being built is drastically behind schedule. Crossrail was first proposed in 1941, and in the time the UK has built two through lines in London, namely Crossrail and Thameslink, France has built five, all significantly longer. 

As for High-speed rail lines, France has built over 2800 km of such lines, while HS1 is 109km and even if completed, HS2 will only be 225km in length. Much of the British railway infrastructure runs along the equivalent of cobbled streets, which explains our low standing in the Global Economy ranking of the quality of nations' railway infrastructure - and we do little better in their ranking of roads.

More to the point, the French have been able to build these projects for far cheaper as well as far quicker than the UK. The construction of the LGV from Paris to Bordeaux, 302km of new built lines, which was completed in 2017, had a total project cost of €9bn (£7.7bn at current exchange). 

The scheduled project cost of HS2 is already over budget at £44 billion, and this is only for Phase 1, London to Birmingham and Phase 2a, Birmingham to Crewe. There is no current budget to complete phase 2b of the project to Manchester, and the Eastern alignment to Sheffield may be abandoned altogether. 

How come the UK is going to spend well over ten times the amount that France spent on the LGV Sud Ouest and end up with a project that delivers little or even nothing?

Many suggest that there is a question of geography: that South East England is extremely crowded and that land costs are much higher than is France. This is true, but only a small part of the story: the NAO estimates that the cost of purchases for phase one of the project (including c.£900m of compulsory purchases) was a total of around €3bn. 

So, given that the purchases have now largely been completed, the costs are high, but not insane. Nor are the specific geological problems for construction much different in France versus Southern England, so how come the build costs are so massively higher in the UK versus France?

One suggestion as to why UK costs are so high is that contractors are not kept under constant control by the build customer. That each large infrastructure project requires individual delivery authorities, and that there is a churn between these authorities and the contractors. 

This is certainly anecdotally true, but the costs are reviewed by central ministries and ultimately by the National Audit Office. In theory then, any questions of bid irregularities should be at least kept under control, if not eliminated entirely.

In practice, however, things may not be properly reviewed at all. The benchmark for contractors is that bid prices reflect the prevailing market conditions and this generally means therefore that the lowest bids are accepted. The risk of the open bidding process being subverted by insider knowledge is clear, and equally, though hard to prove, it appears to be widespread.

The problem for infrastructure investment, as with so much in the UK government system is that the central civil service no longer has a body of experience and knowledge that allows it to evaluate design and build issues from a position of control.  Delivery authorities are not beholden to the civil service, given that the longer-term career interests for those who serve with them are more likely to be aligned with the private sector, once the project is complete. 

The costs of engaging consultants to provide the necessary expertise is extremely high, and again, interests may not be fully aligned.  In any event the issues with both the delivery authorities and the consultants are too short term to work efficiently for the longer-term issues that large scale infrastructure is likely to involve.

Some would argue that the whole process should be nationalised, and that the IPA takes executive powers or a new body could be created. My own view is that, while such planning could certainly benefit from a more coherent policy approach, the issue is to create a skill set and culture within the UK civil service that can adequately supervise the delivery authorities, and that if there is a clear career path for those involved in the delivery authorities, it should be within the public sector as much as the private.

The UK, for environmental, social, and economic reasons needs to modernise its infrastructure. The combination of the obsolete political system and underinvested, poorly structured and badly motivated civil service is making Britain the also-ran in global infrastructure investment and undermining our whole future. 

We talk a lot about policy. We do not talk enough about administration and delivery, and while this is true in much of the British public sector, it is now critical in the way we build our infrastructure in the coming few years. Civil service training and incentives will be at the heart of the coming debate.

Are we ready?

James Oates blogs at Cicero's Songs and you can follow him on Twitter.

Meta will launch Threads, its rival to Twitter, on Thursday

With Elon Musk have exhausted everyone's goodwill, the news that Meta is launching an alternative to Twitter is welcome. 

And BBC News reports that it will be available from Thursday.

Eyebrows have been raised at the name for the new platform. It's Threads, which was also the title of a famously bleak 1984 television drama.

Written by Barry Hines, it showed the effects of a nuclear attack on Britain - and on Sheffield in particular.

If only Meta had a senior executive who used to be one of the MPs for that city. Then they would have been saved from making this unfortunate choice.

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A report from Chatham House deconstructs 16 myths and misconceptions that shape contemporary Western thinking on Russia: "Crimea has been in Russian hands for only a fraction of its history. If unchallenged, the Kremlin’s fiction that Crimea willingly and legitimately 'rejoined' Russia risks further undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity and encouraging other expansionist powers."

"This system of control is replicated across the main parties in local government and, increasingly, in the selection procedure for parliamentary candidates: both the Conservatives and Labour are trying to ensure that any new MP will already be whip compliant. A dearth of ideas, diversity, discussion, innovation and local accountability is the inevitable result." Tabitha Troughton on the whipping system in British politics.

Alison Teal says the Sheffield street tree scandal is what happens when a dominant group asserts such absolute power that listening to alternate views is considered weakness

 Jon recalls being subject to electroconvulsive therapy without his consent.

"There are already rumours of the fact that people can only tell Putin what he wants to hear. So, they, the military, presented him with this case in advance that the war would be a very quick thing, that the people in Ukraine would rise up... And that's what happens when you spread fear and terror, which is what The Death of Stalin is about, really." Armando Iannucci talks to Radio Free Europe.

Simon Matthews looks at the life and death of British Lion Films, the UK’s nationalised film company.

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"Thatcher, like her contemporaries in all parties, thought the job of politicians was not so much to sheepishly follow public opinion as to shape it. In her 1975 speech opposing the EU referendum, she approvingly cited a letter to the Evening Standard pointing out that if it had been left to the will of the people, 'we would have no Race Relations Act, immigration would have been stopped, abortions would still be illegal and hanging still be in force'." Chris Dillow on politicians who appeal to 'the will of the people'.

Michael Rosen counters Nick Gibb, the Conservative education minister, and his claim to have "won the phonics war and got England reading".

"For reasons that are a little bit unclear - declining religiosity, the rise of social media, maybe - for a long time now, Americans have been reporting more time spent alone, smaller social networks, and fewer people they can confide in. Isolation is not a trivial thing, but a serious threat to survival, coming with increased stress, insomnia, suicide risk, and hypertension." Angie Schmitt asks what urban planning can do to counter an epidemic of loneliness.

Cal Newport wonders if a four-day week is a radical enough solution to the problem of burn-out in office workers.

Neil Drysdale celebrates the 40th birthday of Bill Forsyth's film Local Hero.

"On a peaceful hillside thousands of Sheffield’s citizens lie at rest, some with graves marked by grand memorials, others unseen beneath the trees and undergrowth. After a period of post-war neglect and uncertainty, the Sheffield General Cemetery is now a celebrated part of the city’s heritage." Caroline from Flickering Lamps shows us around.

The tunnel under the Peak District that brings water to Sheffield

Extraordinary landscape and extraordinary engineering. The Rivelin Tunnel takes water from Ladybower Reservoir in the Derwent Valley and delivers it to the reservoirs on the River Rivelin that supply Sheffield.

This video crosses the hills in between to trace its route and on the way relates the history of its construction.

You can support these Trekking Exploration videos via their Patreon page.

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"Yes it’s been applied all across Europe but it’s as British as a stick of Blackpool rock or a carefully constructed Chris Tavaré half-century. If you hate Britain, if you hate what Britain stands for and what makes Britain special, if you hate what other Britons value then you probably hate the National Trust, the NHS and the BBC. You’ll also hate the European Convention on Human Rights because a swivel-eyed libertarian Think Thank told you so." Matthew Pennell identifies the six British heroes who gave us the ECHR.

"The two-year study, conducted 2018-2020 in the Netherlands with students aged 5 to 13, monitored carbon dioxide levels in classrooms and collected data on student test scores. The results were clear: the higher the CO2 levels, the lower the scores on standardized tests." Want to increase children's test scores? It could be as easy as opening the window, argues Brandon Kochkodin.

Samir Jeraj asks if it's last orders for British curry houses: "The £4.2bn industry as a whole is in labour crisis. In recent decades, the children and grandchildren of pioneering Bengali restaurateurs have opted not to join the family business, going instead into professional jobs supported by access to university."

Sophie Atkinson discovers why George Orwell hated Sheffield.

"Kind words from US celebrity critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert also proved helpful.'It's one of the rare movies that has the courage to admit that some teenagers can be immature and insecure,' enthused the latter. 'It remembers adolescence, it observes it lovingly with sympathy and good humour and, with what teenage boys probably need most, compassion.'" Richard Luck celebrates the unlikely triumph of Gregory's Girl.

James Wright descends the West Mine under Alderley Edge in search of locations from The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.

Labour will target NO Liberal Democrat seats as the next election

The Daily Mail has a story today...

OK, let's get this bit over with...

The Daily Mail has a story today under, at least on its website, the headline:

Labour will target just TWO Liberal Democrat seats to win the next election in anti-Tory manoeuvre

But when you read the story those two seats turn out to be Sheffield Hallam and somewhere unspecified in Scotland.

Sheffield Hallam, of course, is a Labour seat. And there is no Liberal Democrat seat in Scotland where Labour are within a mile of being anywhere near having a chance of running us close.

It may be that Labour is worried about the Lib Dems eyeing Edinburgh South, which used to be a target for us, but it's hard to think they have much to worry about there at the moment.

Anyway, it follow from this that the Mail should have headlined its story:

Labour will target NO Liberal Democrat seats to win the next election in anti-Tory manoeuvre