LibDem Blogs - Archived!

The Western Mail reports that an unnamed big hitter is being dispatched to Blaenau Gwent to help Labour candidate, Maggie Jones, fight off the threat of Peter Law. Speculation is that it could be David Blunkett. Let us hope that he treats the regional press better than his former colleague, John Prescott.Update: The BBC report that it is indeed David Blunkett who is visiting Blaenau Gwent. On his visit he urged Welsh Assembly Member, Peter Law, to drop out of the race to become an MP in the Labour stronghold. 'Mr Blunkett said Mr Law had "made his point" by ...

Apologies for all the initials, but click here.

The lovely Shirley Williams has a little bit of a reputation for being late so the County Council candidates who were meeting her were not too worried about punctuality so at one stage we were panicking that there would be no one there to greet her but alls well that ends well. She was being ferried around in a customized people mover - more of a skirmish bus than a battle bus but it all looked

Why are some politicians so obsessed with race and immigration? A report in today's Guardian may supply the answer.Charles Kennedy gave a unique insight into his personal habits during the ad break of ITV's Ask The Leader. Jonathan Dimbleby recalled Enoch Powell had said that his performances were given a lift if he stopped himself going to the loo. Mr Kennedy replied: "The last thing I always do before a public performance is visit the you-know-what."Kennedy's confession can be safely filed in the box labelled 'too much information'.But at least we now know what we had previously only suspected, that ...

As you have probably heard by now, the Guardian has published part of the Attorney General's advice to the Prime Minister over the legality of the war against Iraq. (I would have posted this news earlier, but Blogger was behaving strangely.) Now the Guardian has published some analysis by Jonathan Freedland: So what will be the political effect? It could make those angriest about the Iraq adventure angry all over again. That's bad news for Labour, which has spent much of this year trying to soothe the ire of its supporters, persuading them to "move on". Since the Iraqi elections ...

A day of showers- a nuisance when trying to canvass, but what a glorious evening! The air fresh and scrubbed. The light was so clear and crisp as the sun began to set. As I was driving I was listening to the Scottish group, Capercaillie, a band that I have followed since my student days. The lead singer, Karen Matheson, Sean Connery once described as "having a throat that has surely been touched by God". Her voice really is stunning, and one song, An Ribhinn Donn- The Brown Haired Girl- perfectly captured the slightly melancholic sunset feeling. The beautiful Gaelic ...

The BBC reports: Prime Minister Tony Blair's election campaign plane has been struck by lightning during a flight.

The Guardian has just published what it claims to be the text of the Attorney General's advice to the government, regarding the legality of an attack on Iraq.Blair's justification is looking more threadbare, although any legal text such as this is open to interpretation and you can bet New Labour will continue to split hairs.This revelation won't be sufficient to stop Blair winning the election but it will make him look increasingly like shop-soiled goods.

The received wisdom in campaigning for one of the two big parties is that if you ignore the Lib Dems, you reinforce the impression that they are not electorally significant. So traditionally, Labour and Tories attack each other's record and try to score points off one another. So I was particularly gratified last night when the Tory PPB took the time to attack the Lib Dems. Tories know that there is a head of steam for those who would protest against Blair, but by voting Lib Dem it won't save the Tories from oblivion. They are sufficiently worried by this ...

The other day, in the course of a posting on Tory education policy, I mentioned the Ladybird Keywords reading scheme. A search has turned up a New Statesman article on this series of books by Malcolm Clark. Clark, thank goodness, gives short shrift to the argument that the books should be burnt because they are too middle class and dated (all those white faces and short trousers). When I was little I had a much loved copy of Little Black Sambo and I grew up to write half a dozen articles for the Guardian, so there is a limit to ...

The latest online edition of the film magazine Screen has been posted on the British Film Institute website. It includes an essay by Mark Duguid on the director Michael Powell and his "constant, almost spiritual fascination with British landscape". Powell was clearly a reader of the Shropshire Star: Gone to Earth populated its raw Shropshire countryside with an almost fairytale cast of innocent young maidens, malevolent lusty squires and well-meaning but foolish vicars. There are also articles about the rediscovered films of Mitchell & Kenyon, the late Sir John Mills and George Cole.

Although there remain votes that are misdirected and there still appear to be 22 voters who are getting two postal votes, the final lists of postal votes have now been issued. The total across the city is only 57,000. This is in fact about 13,000 fewer than last year's European and Local Elections. Having superficially reviewed the postal votes it appears that mass postal vote fraud will not be part of these elections in Birmingham. That does not mean that there will be no fraud. However, it does mean that the fraud will be less. That also ...

Big anti-climax in Plenary yesterday as an expected confrontation failed to come off. Rumours had been rife all day that Peter Law was to make an appearance to deliver a personal statement on why he left Labour. Sure enough, there he was, as large as life, sitting in his new seat on the opposition benches. However, when he stood to speak the fireworks did not happen. Instead we had a restrained and very much truncated statement that was, nevertheless, watched in silence by stoney-faced Labour AMs. I now sit here representing the people of Blaenau Gwent as an ...

I mean, how hard is it to keep a hospital clean? Too difficult for Michael Howard, apparently.Today's Guardian reports:Michael Howard suffered every politician's nightmare yesterday. Having staged a press conference to denounce two pernicious superbugs - Tony Blair and MRSA in hospitals - he visited a London hospital and broke a basic hygiene rule, forgetting to wash his hands before greeting a patient. He later said he was "mortified".Ooh Matron!

I have commented before that it is no accident that private polls are leaked from Labour Headquarters, especially if they will help to reinforce the message being propagated by Ministers that the election is not in the bag after all. I notice, however, that they have now dropped all pretence of polls being leaked and are just releasing them to the media as a matter of course. In doing so they continue to release only those polls that will reinforce their message. This latest poll is quite intriquing as it indicates that in key marginal seats Labour are struggling ...

... that the last entry wasn't saved properly. Sorry about that. Basically it was saying that I was feeling better after a day off work last friday, and am now back into campaigning properly. Went onto campus this morning to speak on LCR. I noticed that my erstwhile Conservative candidate was on before me. Heard them talking about Iraq. It might just be me, but I'm irritated by the way

The Pope is working in his office in Rome. A cardinal rushes in. "Holy Father! Holy Father! Christ has come back to Earth and he is riding up to the Vatican on a donkey. Whatever shall we do?" The Pope thinks for a moment and says: "Look busy."

In reaction to this:

As I hear the Conservatives and Labour attempt to raise the temperature in the campaign, I am depressed. I do not know, for sure, if the Prime Minister exactly lied about Iraq. I do know, for sure, that the Conservatives had the same information as the Liberal Democrats when it came to the vote on the war but they voted for it and the Liberal Democrats voted against. Are these increasingly hysterical statements from Michael Howard signs, perhaps, of a guilty conscience? If the Tories and Labour continue to scream at each other in this childish manner, all I can ...

The domain name northyorkshirecountycouncilsocialservicesareshit.com has not been bought. But unless they sort out their latest balls-up, it will be.See:Britain 2004Unsocial servicesLife in Blair's BritainMore great care for the most vulneralbleIn harness

The betting market for individual target constituencies is firming up, with more constituencies declaring one way or the other and fewer at evens. Where are the punters currently predicting gains or losses?As reported last Friday, 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 online, please go through the links on the Political Betting site – doing so earns a commission that helps pay for the running of that very useful site).As we get closer to polling day, people ...

Agent wondered if vote might be eroding in the villages so was sent to Broughton to canvass. If anything it seemed better than last time round and a small number of people actually stopped their cars to wish me well and one nice lady gave me a flower!

I have now had to produce a one minute manifesto, a two minute manifesto and a three minute manifesto for radio. Sometimes ask myself if it is really worth it to make an hour long round trip for such a short interview but on balance am likely to reach more people over the radio than knocking on doors so the answer is yes.