LibDem Blogs - Archived!

This morning's Guardian reports Monday's events at Cooper's Hill near Brockworth in Gloucestershire, where the locals traditionally hurl themselves down a 1 in 2 hill in pursuit of a Double Gloucester cheese. Just the sort of eccentricity we English are known for, you might think. Though not in the class of Hallaton in Leicestershire, where Bottle Kicking and Hare Pie Scrambling take place every Easter Monday. (Yes, really. And you thought I made Lord Bonkers' Diary up.) But not everyone is happy. The Grauniad quotes Yvonne Taylor, chair of the animal rights campaign group Peta, as saying: "It's just not ...

The DTI have appointed "independent" investigators to further investigate what happened with MG Rover. This will be the second "investigation". It will also be the second investigation to omit looking at the involvement of the DTI, The Labour Government and others in the Labour Party. Questions that need to be answered include: a) Did the government and or Labour Party cooperate with others

The major problem with the EU constitution is, as with most things European, due to the fact that there is no way it can capture the popular imagination. It is an unwieldy and forbidding document, and doesn't provide any sort of popular symbol. I argued that one of the biggest problems with the Euro was that the notes had such unimaginative designs (a point picked up on in many European newspapers at the time) - if there is going to be popular support for the EU, there needs to be the creation of European figures. Stresemann, Charlemagne, even Schuman - ...

I'll post more about where I think Europe may go in the future once I have a bit more time (ie, once I've got my exams out of the way, and once the Dutch have voted), but in the meantime James Oates has a thoughtful post about the French rejectionists on his blog: If we follow the logic of the rejectionists, then the European Union should reject the free market altogether. The Social Model becomes for these people, not a sanity check on free market economics, but a replacement for them. There is a country that went down this ...

Over the Weekend I was very sorry to learn of the death of Patsy Calton MP. Patsy joined a Parliamentary trip to Estonia that I helped to organize a couple of years ago. She was a forensic personality whose intelligence was coupled with a considerable personal warmth. Having had a double mastectomy a few years ago, the recurrence of breast cancer was a horrible blow. Throughout her long illness, she handled herself with philosophical determination. I liked Patsy. The description in the newspapers of her trip a week ago to the House of Commons to swear the oath was heartbreaking. ...

So, as expected, the French have rejected the constitutional treaty. A project initiated and largely led by French politicians. It is the beginning of a prolonged period of unexpected change- a crisis. There is more to this result than French attitudes to the European Union. It marks a further stage in the breakdown of trust between the people of France and its narrow elitist leadership. The fact that the previous Presidential election was a run-off between the leader of the neo-Fascist Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jacques Chirac- a man embroiled in a vast number of allegations of corruption- ...

BT have been taking some heat over the issue of rogue diallers (some fair, some not). They have now made available a small program to tell you if your internet is dialling premium or international telephone numbers. As several of these diallers turn off your modem speaker, a useful tool. It can be found on the new www.btmodemprotection.com website. Still won't solve the problem though - surely it is time to require premium rate operators to lodge a sizable bond in advance which they forfeit if caught engaging in practices outside the scope of ...

Yesterday, Whit Monday, we visited Lichfield. We told EM that it is a quiet cathedral town. We'd never been to the Lichfield Bower before! The only quiet spot we found was in the Erasmus Darwin herb garden.

On Sunday we went to Biddulph Grange and Little Moreton Hall. We stopped to admire the view from Mow Cop on the way back.

On Saturday we took EM shopping in Leek in the morning, then spent the afternoon on the Churnet Valley Railway. The line starts at Froghall, passing through the Bolton copper works. There is a big planning application being made, to build an estate and hotel on part of the site. It is also proposed to extend the railway line to Leek. If both go ahead tourists using the hotel, and residents of Froghall, could use the line to visit Leek. There are also proposals for a hotel in Leek close to the terminus of the railway ...

EM came to stay for the weekend. On Friday we took her to Chatsworth, and then had a meal at the Bolaka Spice restaurant in Leek. At Chatsworth I wasn't into seeing the house again, so I wandered around the garden while the other two were viewing. This was the fourth time we have been there, but I would never get bored with the garden. The thing I enjoy the most is the tame birds: pheasants, hens, ducks and even chaffinches. Yesterday it was the chaffinches who stole the show, landing on our table while we were having tea. ...

I'm relieved at the outcome of the French vote on the EU constitution, although perhaps not as triumphalist as some other bloggers. I'm relieved more because it will hopefully save me the pain of having to vote "yes" to a constitution that I fundamentally dislike on many levels, but probably prefer to the status quo. Additionally, we all know that a vote on the EU constitution in Britain would be seen more as a vote on the principle of the EU, rather than on the direct issue of how it should be governed, and I would fear that with a ...

The most fascinating part of my visit to Brussels last week was hearing the different perspectives about the future of the European project. By the time I left the French referendum had still not taken place but everybody, without exception, was expecting a 'No' vote. They were not wrong. Interestingly, I did not come across anybody who believed that a 'Non' will make any difference whatsoever to Europe and the way that it operates. As far as the Eurocrats are concerned it will be business as usual and they will muddle along with the present structures. The event that they ...

From Recess Monkey's column in the free newspaper The London Line: Has Britain finally become a franchise of the USA? This week, Home Secretary Charles Clarke agreed to extradite to the States three City whizz-kids, who are implicated in the Enron accounts-fiddling affair. That is three British people accused of a crime carried out in Britain being sent to face a 35-year jail term in the US if convicted. Perhaps if Condoleezza Rice asks him nicely, Charles Clarke will roll over to have his tummy tickled, too.

Michael White's Guardian obituary of the Liberal Democrat MP for Cheadle, who died on Sunday, can be found here.