LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Had a hard and busy week, and still suffering from lack of a phone line for late night blogging. Still, at least I've been getting more sleep than the House of Lords! To follow on from my last blog post, the Office of National Statistics has released some encouraging news on suicides. Sadly, the North seems to be the worst place for suicide in England. Sane is quite right to highlight the problems of prison suicide and an increase in deliberate self-harm. It is absolutely vital that we get some real attention and progress on ...

Here is today's House Points from Liberal Democrat News. You can find an archive of these columns here. Maintaining liberty I could not make it to Harrogate, but I was there (as vicars say) in a very real sense. I followed the conference in detail thanks to the volume of press coverage. This is something new. Ten years ago there was hardly a journalist in the building. The level of media interest today owes much to the coming election, but is also a mark of how far the Liberal Democrats have come. Meanwhile in Westminster attention is still ...

Funny how a change of routine affects people. There were subtle differences along this office corridor this afternoon. Richard Younger Ross's door had an ostentatious "Do not disturb" sign whilst Michael Fabricant (aka Micky Fabb) seemed to have over indulged in the after shave. His office is next to mine and the smell was overpowering - but I have to say that it was quite a nice smell.

It's all over bar the assenting. As predicted at the parliamentary party meeting the Tories claimed victory on the Sunset clause (but strangely it was us who were talking to the Government this afternoon and my spies tell me the Government and Tories weren't speaking to each other). The Tories did not support us on the burden of proof argument so the result is that we have a Bill that should

After all of the toing and froing, the fate of the Terrorism Bill appears settled. The Government has agreed to introduce new legislation into a new Parliament that will include the scope to repeal the Bill that has been so painfully going through Parliament these last few days. This means ...

With a breakfast I sadly could not attend today and a performance of traditional irish dance and music (in a reception at 4.30pm) St Patrick's Day kicked off today. My own Irish Ancestry comes mainly from Tipperary where I can prove using the 1881 Census (Handsworth, Staffs) that I have an ancestor from Tipperary. I therefore tend to play guitar in the Tipperary County Association group during the parade. The theme song is, of course, "Its a long way to Tipperary", which just to happened to be written by a Londoner. Hopefully it won't be that wet ...

Well, not love exactly but there were a number of interesting looking huddles during the recent votes, following the latest concession by the Home Secretary. Was standing by Labour rebels - some of whom thought it was time to stop voting against their government but Bob Marshall Andrews was heard muttering under his breath, "I don't believe a bloody word he says" Time will tell but it looks as if

As the debate proceeds in the Commons on the latest round of Parliamentary ping-pong, noises are being made which indicate that this could be the last stage of the battle. Charles Clarke is offering some additional concessions in terms of a procedure to review the legislation in the new Parliament. ...

I really could have done without Martin Salter decribing the state of his socks on national TV - some of us have contingency plans for this sort of thing and the place doesn't smell that bad - yet!

I happen to be sitting in the library next to Cheryl Gillan who asked me how I got my blog up and running. I directed her to blogspot and she is setting up "Chiltern Cheryl" as we speak. This is getting rather incestuous as she has just typed the words Sandra Gidley. I won't link straight away as I am not sure when the blog is going live but Cheryl tells me that she has now mastered her

As are we all and the worrying thing is that Sky News seemed rather more informed about the start time this afternoon than the whips office. However, even Sky got it wrong. David Laws clearly thinks we are in for a long wait as he was sitting in the chamber with "The Commission for Africa" report open on page 1. Not quite the parliamentary equivalent of War and Peace but not far off. Made the

The following is an extract from this week's Guardian Backbencher: LOVE ON THE CELTIC FRINGES Little did the Backbencher realise when she started celebrating the best in political hotties that she would be bringing love into the hearts of lonely Liberal Democrats. But it seems she is not alone in finding Jeremy Purvis rather dreamy. Francesca Montemaggi, for one, agrees, having had her employer,

The House of Lords has voted by a pretty good majority to stick to its guns on two issues. The Lib Dems have led on an amendment to ensure that evidence has to be presented to a reasonable standard of proof before a control order can be obtained. ...

The Anti-Terrorism Bill controversy has now hit the Welsh Liberal Democrat Conference. Charles Kennedy has cancelled his appearance at the rally tonight, whilst organisers are anticipating that all of our MPs will be tied up in Westminster on the legislation right up until Sunday night. I have been drafted in as a stand-in for Simon Hughes MP tomorrow, if needed, in a photo-op with the Cardiff

I’m one of the Council’s nominees to the board of CIDA. Its remit is to promote the arts & cultural industries in East London (used just to be Tower Hamlets when it was set up & now has expanded to cover Newham & Hackney). I got up for an 8.30am meeting of the Finance & General Purposes Committee, wondering what on earth I was doing up at that time. When I got there, I remembered what I found so inspiring about CIDA. CIDA has the best management practice of a voluntary sector organisation that I have ...

After my meeting at CIDA, Mhora showed me a Community Empowerment Meeting happening at Oxford House. I popped in, but the meeting wasn’t there! Fortuitously, I met Nizam from the Turin Estate. He’s working on a project linking Turin Youth to the Jesus Green Estate. These are 2 neighbouring Estates who don’t always have very much to do with each other. Turin will shortly be celebrating the opening of an under 5s playground. The opening ceremony will be a ‘Meet the Neighbours’ day, and I was keen that Nizam not only invites Jesus Green ...

This still being Thursday in Parliamentary terms, I make the time somewhere between 33 and 34 O'Clock. We have just finished the latest round of voting with pretty much the same results as before - a Government majority of around 100 in the Commons. The Bill is now due to ...

I’ve talked before about the dedicated teams of 6 police per ward. This was a launch for the scheme. What I hadn’t realised was Tower Hamlets’ place in the great scheme of things. Up to this point, the police have been rolling this initiative out in 100 individual wards across London, to great success. Now we’re about to continue rolling out the police teams to all wards in Tower Hamlets pretty much at the same time. So we are the guinea pigs to see if this approach works. As with most of these events, ...

Then headed over to the park at the top of Columbia Road – Ion Square Gardens. The Environment Trust are doing a feasibility study on it which has been commissioned by the Local Area Partnership & we should have money to carry out some works on it in the coming financial year. Although I’d arranged the meeting a few days previously for the local councillors, several residents showed up, angry that they hadn’t received notice of the consultation. It was just as well they did show up because they had far more input to make than me ...

The crick in my neck tells me that I must have slept for a couple of hours in the chair in my office. We are now about to vote again on the Terrorism Bill, the Lords having stood firm on their amendments at around 5am (they are currently "adjourned ...

I had lunch with Carol Yarde, the Neighbourhood Manager today as she is leaving Tower Hamlets. Having worked for the borough for 23 years, it’s time for a change. Carol was responsible for bringing in learning forums to Social Services which worked well & has been very effective in cajoling Council departments into working together (what a novel idea!) We have made a good double act at times – I’m sure neither of us individually would have persuaded David Saunders to concentrate on Brick Lane markets. Carol – you were smashing & you will be missed! ...

Green Friends of Weavers Fields meeting was followed quickly by North Brick Lane Residents Association in a parks-related evening. At the first meeting we discussed how to co-ordinate action against tall buildings around Weavers Fields, at the second how to ensure that the work done on the playground in Shacklewell Street goes from strength to strength. I then glammed up & went to Oxford House International Womens Day celebrations and danced to The Electric Landladies’ renditions of Simply the Best, Born to be Wild, Take Your Momma Out and other rock classics (drew the line at It’s Raining ...

Am I admitting to ambition by saying that I went to the Leadership Academy course this weekend? Why is that so hard to do for women? (admitting ambition, going on courses is 2nd nature) The ambition that I am comfortable with admitting is that I want to become better at what I do and according to the Government that means that as a Councillor I am supposed to be a Community Leader. And truthfully, I don’t know about the rest. I look around and see that I may be one of the more able Councillors locally, ...

A busy weekend ahead as the Welsh Liberal Democrats stage their spring conference in Cardiff. To add to the strain I have decided to commute rather than stay over for two nights. Blogging will therefore be light, though I am not expecting it to dry up. The talking point already, ten and a half hours before proceedings commence, is whether Charles Kennedy will make it in time for the rally and his

Nearly 2am and I am in the House of Commons listening to the ongoing debate on the Terrorism Bill. The debate now sounds like an "old-fashioned" Parliamentary debate and MPs are to be heard welcoming the return of the "good old days" of lively late night activity. Listening to ...

As I start writing this at half past midnight there is a sense of inevitability about the Prevention of Terrorism Bill. None of the earlier votes in the House of Commons was remotely close and their Lordships show every sign of wanting to see this through to the bitter end. Resistance is not exactly futile but clearly the Labour whips have been hard at work on some of the earlier rebels. Some of