LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Excellent meeting arranged by the local youth council last night and lots of questions to the panel (three politicians a doctor and a policeman - chaired by a PE teacher). There was a noticeable group at the back who I quickly identified as having Conservative views but I was struggling to work out which of the local schools they were from. A couple of them came up to me afterwards and very nicely

Here is today's Election Points column from the estimable Liberal Democrat News. Gone to the blogs When Labour supporters run out of arguments why you should support their party, there is one they fall back on. Put crudely, it runs “Vote Lib Dem, get Tory”. It has cropped up in recent columns by Johann Hari, Polly Toynbee and Nick Cohen. As a website I saw the other day said, it is the equivalent of Squealer in Animal Farm telling everyone that if they did not support Comrade Napoleon they would have Farmer Jones back. Thanks to a posting ...

TORY CHIEFS TELL CANDIDATES: DON'T PANIC Tory election chief's desperate plea as polls send morale through floor By Oonagh Blackman Political Editor DESPERATE Tory chiefs pleaded with their fed-up candidates 'Don't believe the polls' in a bid to shore up plummeting morale. Election strategist Lynton Crosby was forced to write a letter warning of a 'difficult period'. The Mirror has obtained a copy of the letter, which reveals the panic inside Tory HQ. A senior aide to Michael Howard admitted that Conservatives were being told not to give up but to ignore poll figures."

The Daily Mail sums up a half-hearted list of possible election victims David Davis - possible Jack Straw - unlikely Tony Blair!? - Are they quite mad? Oh yeah, it's the Daily Mail innit.

Conservative slogan has been used previously on - Australian Childrens TV - BBC 1's Hustle - A Winnie the Pooh Toy BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Weblog | Pooh bare

Apart from ordinary campaigning I also attended two Birmingham Hustings sessions today. At both of them the issue of scrapping tuition fees came up. There was also the question of how we obtain better skills. I take a slightly unorthodox position on the matter of tertiary education. For example I have great difficulty understanding why someone should have a Batchelor of Science degree to be a pastry chef. This comes to the link. The course is: International Culinary Arts (Pastry) BSc (Hons) "This course prepares you for a career in the international hospitality industry ...

Schools falling apart? - blame the immigrants Council Tax rising? - blame the immigrants MRSA? - blame the immigrants Tory candidates in marginal seats stir up storm by playing race card Conservative lose the next election? - they'll probably blame the immigrants.

There may be a repeat of the petrol crisis of 2000. But that took a few days to get teeth in - this time they'll start on 3rd and hope it cripples the country on the 5th. Isn't it interesting how many people have spoken up about being annoyed with Blair?

Crikey, for the first time in living memory someone has commented on one of my blogs... Biscit (http://scmj.blogspot.com/) is another LibDem in this safe Tory seat, well they can count on two votes then :-) He asks "Have you been bothered by Labour canvasssers? Or any canvassers at all?" I've not seen a single person wanting my vote, either through knocking on my door, putting a poster . In fact, the most I've seen electioneering is the A frame for the Craven Herald talking about the Fifth Candidate (more on him later). In Keighley it's ...

The Conservatives have so many problems. They can not decide whether they should stand for a small state, and abandon the Health Service, or just try to run a bigger state "better". The economic numbers that they have put before the British people are utterly unrealistic, and the manner of making policy decisions "on the hoof"- no matter what U-turns they imply- is naked opportunism, and frankly unprincipled. The one area where people seem to think that the Conservatives might have a point is immigration. There have been numerous scare stories about the numbers. One Tory Candidate says immigrants "will ...

After politics and cats my next favourite subject is the wonderful West Wales town of Laugharne. The Western Mail this morning carries a full page article on how tourists are flocking there not to pay homage to Dylan Thomas but to seek out Neil Morrissey. It is true that Mr. Morrissey owns three interesting venues in the town, namely Hirst House, the Three Mariners and Brown's Hotel, but there is a large number of other places to visit as well including the castle, the boat house, the beautiful coastline and quite a few top class restaurants, shops, pubs and a ...

Last night we were canvassing along the West Wycombe Road. Good returns and a friendly reception on the doorstep. Lots of ex-Labour supporters- one of whom takes a poster. Splendidly his window is directly opposite the Conservative campaign HQ. All along we have said that the Labour vote was soft, and it really appears to be fading now. We have seen a flurry of Labour posters, but they seem well down on last time. As far as the Conservatives are concerned- I have seen more UKIP posters than Tory- we must assume that they have not mounted their campaign yet. ...

The Labour campaign to hold onto Cardiff Central is fading away with its candidate, Jon Owen Jones, effectively being left to his own devices by headquarters the Western Mail reports today. They state that Labour insiders privately admit that they have all but written off Mr Owen Jones' chances of hanging on, and he is largely running his own campaign, which would not be happening if the party thought he had a realistic chance of holding the seat.That does not seem to deter Mr. Owen Jones, who has come out fighting this morning with a stream of consciousness rant filled ...

In political terms a black hole is a constituency where a party has very few members, little, if any activity and even less chance of winning. For the Institute of Fiscal Studies black holes are what they find in the cost of delivering the various manifestos. Today's Guardian cites the latest IFS report in which they find an £11 billion tax black hole in Labour's plans. 'A new Labour government would need to raise taxes or cut spending by £11bn in the next parliament to restore the public finances to a healthy state,' they say. The Tories are ...

The odds are moving in the Liberal Democrats' favour in many of the betting markets for individual target constituencies. Where are the punters currently predicting gains or losses? As I reported in Monday's posting, this betting portal on the Political Betting website enables you to compare odds for each of the individual constituencies where a betting market has opened up. (If you do bet