LibDem Blogs - Archived!

From a press release issued today: Roger Williams, Liberal Democrat MP for Brecon and Radnorshire has signed the petition launched yesterday by the Middle Way Group at the Royal Welsh Show to encourage the Welsh Assembly to bid for the powers in Westminster to modify the Hunting Act 2004. The petition will be presented to the Minister for Environment, Planning and Countryside, Carwyn Jones. Speaking at the Royal Welsh Showground, Roger Williams, said: “This petition will be an important test for the ability of the Welsh Assembly to acquire powers to modify the Hunting Act, which is set to ...

Has Charles Kennedy unilaterally changed Liberal Democrat tax policy? John Hemming MP raised this fear in a blog posting this morning headed "It would be nice to be asked". The confusion arises from a speech delivered by Kennedy yesterday to a meeting of the parliamentary party. The speech was reported in today's Guardian, Independent, Scotsman and assorted Northcliffe local papers (including

The King of Jordan has said that it is the British occupation of Iraq that was behind the suicide bombings in London. When will he wake up and face the reality of what is happening? Whether you agree or disagree with the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, one thing is for certain - the 'insurgents' don't care about the Iraqi people. They are outsiders who want to impose their Islamofascist theocracy on ordinary Iraqis, because ultimately they want to impose their Islamofascist theocracy on all of us. As for those people, such as Michael Moore, who said that there ...

There is a marvellous review of Peter Oborne's book on the Crooked Timber website. It's so good that you hardly feel a need to read the book. Here is a heart-warming chunk of it: The book has villains: not just those mentioned, but others in the cricket establishment. But it has heroes too. The committee at Middleton Cricket Club, where D’Oliveira started, and the people of Middleton themselves, seem to have treated him and his wife with grace and kindness. John Arlott championed his cause, gave kindly advice, lent money, and was the all-round good chap that was John ...

A general trawl through various websites this morning threw up a rather bizarre Plaid Cymru press release. Issued on 29 June the release claimed that Wales could receive a rebate of up to £300 per person because 'the Assembly has voted not to introduce ID cards'. The argument is that as Wales receives a consequential 5.9% Barnett share of any increase in public expenditure on devolved services, then we will also receive a similar share of the cost of introducing ID cards. Plaid reason that as the Assembly has voted not to allow ID cards to be used to access ...

Today I attended a meeting at Birmingham W1 (170 Picadilly) which was to bring people together to promote Birmingham. Five of the Birmingham MPs were there. There are a number of areas in which we are working to lobby central government on behalf of Birmingham. One is to get New Street Station redeveloped and another is on the relocation of civil service jobs to the City Region. The

A little bemused to be on the mailing list for this worthy publication (not all MPs are - I checked) but was even more surprised to find our beloved leader gracing its pages. His picture stood out but I hasten to add that that was because he was one of the few people in it who was fully clothed...

The debate after the "End of Life Care" debate was initiated by Evan Harris on time scales for abortion. This is another difficult issue and I ended up staying to listen and make a few interventions. Complex issue and there was universal support for Evan's suggestion of a Committee of both Houses to look at the problem - apart from the Minister that is. I think that she is wrong. Subjects like

I had been asked to sum up on behalf of the Liberal Democrats on a debate called "End of Life Care" initiated by Frank Field. It was a difficult debate to prepare for as I was not sure whether it would deal with palliative care or some of the thornier issues around physician assisted death. It was actually deeper and more philosophical than that and I was interested to note that Frank Field had

On Sunday afternoon there was a special church service to celebrate 150 years of the school. The school choir were the star turn but it always makes me feel slightly old when I don't know the hymns because they were written after I was born. Event was followed by a "Victorian Tea" on the school playing field but it was really a chance to chat to people and soak up some of the sunshine.

This is a big issue in Mottisfont - where a large number of properties are owned by the National Trust. Tenants have received shock demands for increases ranging from 20-65%. I will admit that it has been a couple of years since the last rent rise but the most peculiar aspect of all this is that some people have improved the properties at their own expense and these people have been faced with

Well, we won and that is all there is to say on the subject really.

John Tyndall, the founder of the BNP who was due to appear in court on Thursday, has died. Perhaps one of those occasions where people would’ve "said it three times"?

I discovered, to my horror, the other day that the government no longer awards Level 6 grades at the SATs sat by 11-year-olds. This bemused me; although I suppose it was faintly embarrassing for the government to have 11-year-olds achieving Level 6 in Maths and English when many 16-year-olds can't achieve the equivalent (grade C) at GCSE. Yet it raises, once again, the point that often the people failed most by our state education system are the truly gifted. The brightest kids in our system will be capable of going beyond Level 5 at Maths and English long before they ...

I’ve not heard a fanfare from The Independent, but according to the website of The New Zealand Herald, the winner of the Indie’s Sudoku Grand Master Championship 2005 was Edward Billig. Edward Billig, 23, the new star in the quiz firmament, is a tall, ursine youth with close-cropped hair and beard, who resembles a Motorhead roadie. [...]

From the most weighty of matters to a minor winge about daily life. I am still tidying up my affairs as an MP running an office with services like telephones. This means getting in touch with people to change details on accounts such as names and payment arrangements. And this means calling companies and navigating their [...]

Ananova’s corrections and clarifications page, including such classics as: On June 12 [2004], we published a story saying that Frank Skinner was part of the ‘Leicester City Three’ who were cleared of rape allegations during a team trip to Spain’s La Manga resort. This should have read Frank Sinclair and we apologise unreservedly to Mr Skinner for [...]

I was very busy yesterday (hence no blog entry). Meetings in Birmingham (and I put a lot of effort into avoiding inefficient meetings) took a lot of time. I then spent the whole of the afternoon in a meeting of the parliamentary party followed by another couple of events. This left little time. I then find in the newspaper today that one of our policies is about to changed. Well, if would be

This is a delayed post on the death of Ted Heath. Like Councillor Gareth Davies I have mixed memories of Heath's premiership. On the one hand I can still vividly recall the three day week and the miners' strike that led to his downfall, on the other it was during this period that I first became politically active, canvassing at the age of 14 in the 1974 elections for the then Liberal Party. Ted Heath was also directly responsible for my first fully fledged political campaign, the 1976 referendum on European Union membership in which I and others fought to ...