LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Lord Bonkers latest diary has just been posted to his website: High summer in Rutland: hamwee calls to hamwee, and wheway to wheway, across the broad valley of the Welland; Meadowcroft quite disappears amidst his foxgloves and hollyhocks, and I fancy I can hear the faint music of the elves of Rockingham Forest on the honeysuckle-scented breeze. Strolling down to the Bonkers’ Arms, I am accosted by the occupants of an expensive motor that draws up beside me. “We’re looking for a ghastly little place called York. Do you know it?” drawls one voice. “Is one nearly there yet?” ...

One of this blog's favourite television programmes was Adam Curtis's The Power of Nightmares. We wrote about it here, here, here and, indeed, here. And one of our favourite journalists is Nick Cohen who, last Sunday, attacked the series by implication: In my world of liberal London, social success at the dinner table belonged to the man who could simultaneously maintain that we've got it coming but that nothing was going to come; that indiscriminate murder would be Tony Blair's fault but there wouldn't be indiscriminate murder because 'the threat' was a phantom menace invented by Blair to scare ...

Liberator 303 - out now! The latest issue of Liberator magazine has just been mailed to subscribers, and the focus in this edition is on Meeting the Challenge, the controversial Liberal Democrat policy review. Highlights in this issue include: Duncan Brack and Jonathan Hargreaves explaining the policy reviewDavid Boyle suggesting that a radical form of decentralisation may supply the Liberal

I can't help thinking that Sir Clive Woodward missed a trick by not playing Alastair Campbell in the last test. He would have brought some much needed aggression to the pack, and his selection would have meant that at least one Scottish player got a cap. Late news: Campbell sent off after All Black winger makes unkind comment about Robert Maxwell.

Shirley Bassey's rather uncalled for remarks about 'our Charlotte', her binge drinking and her new singing style, have been roundly demolished by the formidable Carolyn Hitt in today's Western Mail.Carolyn starts by identifying what these two Cymric celebrity goddesses have in common:While Shirl and Charl may be separated by almost 50 years, I've always thought they have a lot in common - forceful personalities with genuine charisma and that peculiarly Cardiff brand of feistiness. They share a talent for singing big belters; they're both gay icons and they both had star billing in the 1999 Rugby World Cup ceremonies.But the ...

Romantic visions of the past would have us believe that the British were always a deferent sort - knowing their place, doffing their caps to their olders and betters, and respecting authority. Whether this society ever existed, outside the Victorian romantic novel, the Britain of today is a very different place. By and large, respect [...]

The bridge under the railway line near TGI Fridays (at the back of the Bentall Centre) has been transformed from this ...........................................to this. ...