LibDem Blogs - Archived!

How do you think young people can be involved more in the democratic life of the Borough, and in the Council in particular? Some of the members of the Kingston Youth Council discussed this with me this evening. They are a very impressive group - responsible, among other things for the outstanding Youth Unlimited magazine. On the one hand, do we encourage them to learn how the Council works, and how to use the system to get their items considered? Or do we go out to them and trawl their opinions where they are? ...

I've just been watching BBC2's obituary documentary for Ted Heath. It's remarkable how much times have changed. For example, they remarked about Heath having his first trip on an aeroplane when he was 13; whilst the first time flying may nowadays be of personal significance, I doubt it would be so remarkable a detail in a biography of Tony Blair, for example, and certainly not by the time my generation grows up. The world is a better place in so many ways. One thing that really shone through, however, was how much Oxford had changed, and how much for the ...

Justin McKeating at Chicken Yoghurt has put together the following page with links to a whole host of opinions regarding the London bombings. It's great stuff, and a very handy resource to a lot of thought-provoking articles, and testament to the strength of the British blogosphere. Go and check it out.

How distant Ted Heath's years as prime minister now seem. I was rather young at the time, but I remember it as an era of crisis. There were terrorist outrages by the IRA - both in Ireland and on the mainland - and also explosions caused by Britain's forgotten, amateur answer to the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Angry Brigade. On the economic side there was union militancy, the miners' strike, power cuts and the three-day week. My strongest memory of the period is of doing homework by candlelight, though that may be a later invention as, thinking about it, I was ...

This is a spectacular week for comedy; Tommorrow (19th of July), I intend to watch Britian's finest stand-up commedian Stuart Lee do his new Edinburgh fringe show at "Downstairs at the Kings Head". Will any of you accompany me? The following day (20th of July), we can see the almost final performance of Richard Herring's [...]

Despite my misgivings about the Rowling oeuvre, it would be churlish not to note this Evening Standard report. One of the Liberal Democrat councillors for the Middle Park and Sutcliffe ward of Greenwich Borough Council is called Harry Potter.

Word of the day: ephebiphobia - the fear of teenagers. Believed to be treatable by (spot the oxymoron) liberal use of ASBOs. (Via.)

Today the Chatham House organisation (a 'think tank') concluded that the war in Iraq has put Britain at an increased risk from terrorist activity. As I said the other day, this should be blindingly obvious to everyone, yet the government is rejecting it. It is easy to see why they might find it advantageous to do [...]

Received a request from Lib Dem activist James Graham to take part and sign up to his : Elect the Lords Campaign: Blog for Victory! I can only help to promote the campaign by encouraging other bloggers to support and sign it.I'm writing to you, as a Lib Dem blogger, to see if you would be interested in taking part in an event the Elect the Lords Campaign is organising. 10 August is the anniversary of the Parliament Act 1911 receiving Royal Assent, which its preamble states was intended as an interim measure prior to replacing the House of Lords ...

I’ve been getting a few hits for people apparently wanting to print out the SoDooku. Always happy to oblige, I’ve made a printable version available at here.

On March 26th, I watched the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who on a big screen in London. Shortly before it began, we saw on the news that former PM Lord Callaghan had died. Last night, BBC3 began repeating the series. Shortly afterwards, the news was reporting the death of former PM Sir [...]

If our lives are defined by the free market economy we live in then the fact that Amazon are selling George Orwell's '1984' at a 20% discount at a time when our liberties are being curtailed as never before and the surveillance society is permeating every aspect of our existence must indicate a worrying indifference on the part of society. Either that or people have stopped reading books not written by J.K. Rowling. George Orwell did not choose the year 1984 at random, though for all intents and purposes he might as well have done. He chose it because he ...

The last month has been a personal and professional challenge- hence the sparce blogging. There has been much to comment on, but few conclusions that could be drawn. Live-8 has come and gone, G-8 has come and gone- as one comedian said on the radio, "I suppose this must be After-8". We have had the European summit ending in acrimony, the sucessful bid by London to host the Olympic Games in 2012, and the appalling events of 7th July. The traditional "silly season" has been anything but. The Cheadle by-election, held as the smoke of the London bombings was ...

Three years ago, in 2002, the Queen gathered all the living Prime Ministers at Downing Street to celebrate her Golden Jubilee. In March this year former Labour PM James Callaghan passed away. Yesterday the previous Ted Heath elected PM in 1970 also went to the green front benches in the sky. His Legacy: First Tory to be voted leader by his fellow MPsHe took the UK into the Common MarketHe

Peter Haine MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and for Wales seems to have a real 'bee in his bonnet' about the Lib Dems.In his article in Labour's Progress Magazine Three's a crowdIndeed, in eight of the 12 seats Labour lost to the Lib Dems, they came third as recently as 1997. Cambridge and Hornsey and Wood Green are stark examples of where the Lib Dems mounted sustained local insurgencies and vaulted over both Labour and the Tories to win. Furthermore, the Lib Dems have clawed their way up from third in eight of the 10 most vulnerable Labour ...

One effect of this year's general election is that it marked the transformation of the Liberal Democrats into an urban party. Which is right and proper. About 85% of the British population inhabits cities, so one cannot win an election without them. Moreover, cities are more (small 'l') liberal places than the countryside - and are therefore more promising electoral territory for the party (see

The hype surrounding the launch of the latest Harry Potter novel has left many book critics and cultural commentators in a quandary, not sure whether to praise a publishing success or disdain the populism. It is a global phenomenon - Saturday evening's French TV news reported the publication of the latest 'Arry Pott-air as a major news item, even though the French translation will not be

Political oratory has gone out of fashion. Most observers attribute this change to the replacement of the public meeting with television. However, playwright David Hare in Saturday's Guardian suggests the culprit is the fashion for the panel discussion. In Britain, we have long lived with the conventions of adversarial politics. The prevailing wisdom is that enlightenment may best be reached