LibDem Blogs - Archived!

British TV news is taking an increasing interest in the forthcoming French referendum on the EU constitution.What few people in Britain realise is that most of Europe has another vote on its mind. Yes, tonight was the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, an elimination round in which the British have no interest (other than morbid curiosity) because the UK song has pre-qualified for Saturday's final.Back in March, I posted on this contest and the baleful influence it has on British perceptions of Europe. British Euroscepticism was reinforced this week with the news that a team of mathematicians at Oxford ...

There is an interesting article by Craig O'Malley on the Spiked website: The rise of crime and antisocial behaviour to the top of the political agenda is a relatively recent phenomenon. For much of the twentieth century crime had a minor place in political life. Take the manifestos of the big three political parties - Conservative/ Unionist, Labour and Liberal - during the first half of the twentieth century. Of the 35 manifestos issued during the 11 elections between 1900 and 1935, there is only one brief reference to law and order. Despite acute political discord and, in ...

There was an odd article on Uzbekistan in today's Guardian. John Laughland wrote: Take the source of Friday's atrocity reports from Andijan: one "opposition journalist" from the website ferghana.ru, which seems to be a shop window for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. IWPR, which has since provided the bulk of reports in the western press, is overwhelmingly funded by western governments and private foundations close to them: the US state department, USAid, the National Endowment for Democracy, the US Institute for Peace, George Soros's Open Society Foundation, the British Foreign Office, the European commission, the OSCE, Unesco, and ...

Regular readers will know that I sent an open letter to the PM asking for a clarification of his current attitude to electoral reform. I also pledged to share any reply in this column. Well, I have had a first response from Downing Street: Dear Mr Guy The Prime Minister has asked me to thank you for your recent letter. Mr Blair would like to reply personally, but as you will appreciate he receives many thousands of letters each week and this is not possible. The matter you raise is the responsibility of the Department for Constitutional Affairs, therefore ...

One of the unwritten rules of parliament is that you are supposed to do a "maiden speech" before asking questions, writing amendments, Early Day motions or going into the ballot for a private members bill (which is next week). I did my maiden speech today along with 3 other Lib Dems (David Howarth - Cambridge, Julia Goldsworthy - Falmouth and Camborne and Danny Alexander - Inverness, Nairn, something and other). I promised to put a copy of the Birmingham version of Monopoly in the House of Commons Library which I did after the debate. Rob Flello (Stoke on ...

Thought I ought to put in some "duty time" on the green benches and when I realised that we had four new Members hoping to make maiden speeches in a sparsely populated chamber it seemed as good a time as any. David Howarth was the first to rise to his feet and delivered a confident speech which seemed to have the right balance of politics and constituency interest. You learn something every day

Off to the Community Care Live event to speak on the above subject. Hadn't appreciated the scale of the event and the fact that there were a number of competing sessions so expected to be talking to three men and a dog so was pleasantly surprised that there was quite a large audience. Was quite pleased that "the experts" from the Mental Health Alliance and Help the Aged and myself were broadly in

I am struck by the contrast between the three parties in this immediate aftermath of the election. The Government seem already to be tired, with yet another fairly botched reshuffle. The legislative programme that they are offering the British people is full of activity, and bereft of any guiding principles. It will prove most contentious to the Labour Party itself. In this hour of triumph, with Labour embarking on their third consecutive term, there is little enthusiasm, even amongst Labour's own ranks- the air is full of recrimination and bitterness. Amongst the Conservatives the position is, if anything even worse! ...

This article on the possibility of a pre-election pact between the parties of the centre left at the next Assembly elections is actually quite confusing. That is because the journalist seems to treat election pacts and coalitions as interchangeable terms. They are, of course, completely different animals.Lembit Opik is quite right to rule out an election pact in 2007. The Welsh Liberal Democrats have a distinctive message and growing support across the Country and it is only right that we continue to build on that and allow people the opportunity to vote for us. There is no ...

Continuing from yesterday's theme of how to get home after a night on the town it seems that the new tradition of using stretched Limos are under threat as well.Police operation staged an operation in Swansea in which 12 limousines were stopped and examined. Only half passed safety and licensing checks. Four vehicles were found to have such serious defects they were immediately taken off the road and two others were issued with delayed prohibitions subject to work being carried out. The vehicles failed on various grounds, including sub-standard manoeuvrability and using non-approved tyres.I always wondered about these vehicles. Let ...