LibDem Blogs - Archived!

A pair of curlews are nesting near us. They fly over the house several times a day making their weird trilling sound, always together.

The Shropshire Star reports the death of an amateur photographer who "put Wem on the map when he took a sensational snap appearing to show a ghostly figure in a fire at the town hall". A little research turns up a copy of the photograph on the BBC's Shropshire pages here. Spooky.

Emails - Lib Dems circulate the strangest things.......... HE: Can I buy you a drink? SHE: Actually I'd rather have the money. HE : I'm a photographer. I've been looking for a face like yours. SHE: I'm a plastic surgeon. I've been looking for a face like yours. HE: Hi. Didn't we go on a date once? Or was it twice? SHE: Must've been once. I never make the same mistake twice. HE : How did you get to be so beautiful? SHE: I must've been given your share. HE: ...

Had a meeting with the local Primary Care Trust about the future of community hospitals. There has been a lot of speculation about this in the local press following the publication of a draft consultation document which advocated reducing the number of community beds over a wider area. The final consultation paper will be with us in July (if things go according to plan) - it is pointless to

I actually have a phone in my office in London and two of my staff will have passes by about 10am tomorrow. Amazing! It is only about six weeks since I was elected and I have a phone. Everything should now follow, of course. Immediately I was elected, I got a coathanger in the members cloakroom. On that coathanger is a pink ribbon. For my Sword (no not that Sword). A few MPs have indeed

The unholy triumvirate of France, Germany and Luxembourg are at it again. Far from recognising the message that was sent out to the European elite in the French and Dutch referendums, these three nations are determined to push ahead as much as ever with their own plans for Europe. As far as they are concerned, they are right, and if the rest of the continent doesn't agree with them - well, they can go to hell. The French and German political elite obviously have a different reason to see the EU succeed than most of the rest of the continent. ...

A sudden heatwave in UK and everybody starts stripping off revealing all their lumps and bumps - nobody seems to care. It's sure been hot and humid this last couple of days and some funny sights have been walking around. Yesterday I accompanied my friend Baroness Kishwer Falkner (guest speaker) to the Liberal Democrat Muslim Forum (LDMF) held at Walthamstow Town Hall, East London.Waiting for her to pick me up, dashed across the road for my cigs and noticed even the chocolates in the shop have had to be taken off the shelves because they are melting - ...

There's a book "meme" going around the blogosphere as we speak - from what I understand, it's a series of questions on any particular topic that bloggers are asked to fill out and then pass on. A bit like those annoying chain letter e-mails but supposedly more insightful. Anyway, Chris at Stumbling and Mumbling has passed this one on to me. It's the price I pay for being smart, apparently. Here goes... Number of books I own: No idea. Into the hundreds, certainly. My family home is literally full of books, and it's dangerous to let any of my family ...

A bit long - but quite good: http://eclectech.co.uk/clarkeidcards.php !

What a wonderful response from Tom Cruise, when he was fired at by a water pistol earlier. While you have expected a Hollywood temper tantrum, he took in in his stride and delivered an earnest lecture on rudeness to the film crew responsible. Wonderful-- everyone should do this.

The Brussels summit was at least as rancourous as it was billed to be. The fissures between Plan B(lair) and Plan C(hirac) were greater than ever. Yet despite the absurd posturing of the British Media ("Its War with France" was one of the most stupid headlines I have seen since 1978, when the Evening Standard had "Pope Dies Again") and the Luxembourg Prime Minister, who went into a ridiculous sulk, in many ways I feel quite positive. Liberal Democrats do "get" Europe, but we do not get the European Union that we have today. The lack of accountability in the ...

I've been wearing a Make Poverty History whiteband for some time and don't intend to take it off until after the G8 summit. It reminds me of the basic principles of international social justice - debt relief, trade justice and democratic government. I bought mine in Body Shop, but you can also buy them in branches of Co-op or HMV, in Oxfam and Save the Children shops, and also online. (No, that's not my hairy arm in the photo!) It also acts as a constant reminder, as a Christian, to pray for these things. ...

There are times when you just cannot swim against the tide, when the public speaks and no matter how uncomfortable you are with what they say you have to accept that their will is settled and nothing will change it. Thus it is that farmers demonstrating to remove the term "couch potato" from the dictionary because they fear its negative connotations are putting people off buying the vegetable are being rather too ambitious. The reason why they will not succeed with this campaign was outlined by John Simpson, the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, who said the phrase was ...