Blackburn with Darwen Council are hosting a Christmas Light Switch on event on Darwen Market Square on Saturday 20^th November. The event is also receiving sponsorship from Darwen Town Council.

This will take place alongside a two day Christmas Market being organised by Crafty Vintage on Saturday 20^th & Sunday 21^st November. The events on both days will start at 11am and will end at 8pm on the Saturday and 4pm on the Sunday. There will be a stage that will be programmed with a range of performances from local dance and music schools, to a professional Christmas Theatre show and a headline act who will switch the lights on and perform afterwards.

The Good Law Project has been pursuing the government through the courts to try and uncover the misuse of public money by the current administration. The government has only released many of the documents because they were ordered to by the judge.

Here is the latest shocking revelations from the Good Law Project

Local Liberal Democrats suffered the sad loss of their colleague and former councillor, Roy Davies. Roy was a councillor for 16 years representing the old Sudell Ward in Darwen. He was a doughty fighter and campaigned tirelessly for the area. He would be seen regularly out and about cleaning the area. Roy campaigned on housing, health and services for young people as well as encouraging people to take a pride in their area.

A document seen by the BBC shows that a failure of the government's Test and Trace system contributed to the recent spike in local Covid19 cases in Blackburn with Darwen, particularly those associated with the "Indian Variant". For 3 weeks in April and May the local authority did not receive full details of those testing positive. This meant they could not be followed up by local officials. In Blackburn with Darwen this involved almost 300 people.

One of the successes of the Liberal Democrats in coalition was the introduction of the Pupil Premium in 2011. Recent research shows that it has had an impact on "levelling up" disadvantaged students.

Here is a quote from their report "After 2010, the segregation of long-term disadvantaged pupils and their peers reduced in Years 1 and 6, and their attainment improved relative to their peers at ages 7 and 11. However, assessments changed after 2014 and this complicates the pattern. A regression model suggests that relative attainment for poor pupils improved markedly in the Pupil Premium era, even in regions like the North of England which have faced criticism for apparently "failing" their poor pupils. We argue for retaining the Pupil Premium policy."

The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced yesterday (Friday 14 May) that the army were to be deployed in local hotspot areas suffering from a rise in COVID 19 infections this includes Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen.

From Tuesday residents and those working or going to school in these postcode areas: BB1 6, BB1 7, BB1 8, and BB2 6 are being urged to take a test.

The Local Elections in Blackburn and Darwen saw long time Liberal Democrat Councillor Roy Davies lose his Darwen East seat to Labour. In a closely fought contest he lost by only 44 votes.

The new make up of the Borough Council is: 35 Labour, 14 Conservatives, 1 Liberal Democrat and 1 Independent.

On Darwen Town Council the Liberal Democrats won 3 of the 4 seats on Darwen East. Roy Davies, Paul Browne and new councillor Mark Davies were elected. In Darwen South Rural that only had one seat Liberal Democrat John East romped home with over 80% of the vote

Liberal Democrat MP and foreign affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran has succeeded in getting the Speaker of the House of Commons to agree to her asking an urgent question on the state of affairs in Palestine. This follows the threatened eviction of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem, attacks on the Al Aqsa mosque by the Israeli police and attacks and counter attacks between Israel and Gaza.

Lessons must be learnt from the mistakes that were made throughout this crisis and the Government must be held to account for their handling of the pandemic. The Prime Minister has today confirmed an inquiry into their actions during the Coronavirus pandemic under the powers of the Inquiries Act 2005.

Boris Johnson's plan set out in the Queen's Speech utterly fails to deliver an ambitious programme to respond to the real challenges people are facing after this terribly difficult year.

We must rebuild as a fairer, greener and more caring country in the aftermath of Covid.

So it is crushingly disappointing that the Government's plans will fail on every account - still failing small businesses and the self-employed, still not rising properly to the climate challenge and still ignoring millions of people caring for loved ones at home.