LibDem Blogs - Archived!

An interesting story about David Hicks, an Australian being held in Guantanamo. Hicks, whose mother is British, will now apply for a British passport as part of an attempt to evade military tribunal. Hicks' lawyer discovered his British connection when discussing the English victory in the Ashes series. Australian reaction to Hicks' plight can be read here and here. It will be interesting to see

The egov monitor site has an interview with Lib Dem blogger and Kingston councillor Mary Reid. She gives her views on e-democracy: One word of warning – it is all too easy to try to control citizen participation through top-down government-led activities. Whilst I believe it is very important for councils to offer a number of communication channels, in the end what really matters is whether they listen to people and respond. Governments cannot control grassroots activity, but they can provide fertile ground in which it can flourish.Next week, a councillor from Yorkshire on ee-democracy.

Local income tax took a battering at the last election. It was poorly explained by many people in the party, notably the leader Charles Kennedy. Now it is being reviewed. The missed opportunity was to establish that the concept of a local income tax is good, while the concept of the council tax is bad. Why is council tax bad? It is bad because it puts the level the public pay to local

by Peter I might easily be mistaken, but Jim Devine's latest outburst brought on a sense of déjà vu. In the Sunday Mail the "would-be MP" is calling for a national register of drug-dealers. This idea is not to help you find one in a hurry (calm down), it is to allow potential employers to spot them before they sign them up to work as lollipop ladies or whatever. This seems such a obvious idea that one wonders why some suitably populist politician hasn´t already thought of it. And it seems they have. The Criminal Records Bureau was set up ...

All has gone very quiet around here for some time. This is not due to excessively elaborate celebrations of the England Ashes victory and a correspondingly lengthy recovery period. No, far more seriously than that, I have got a job. As in full time paid employment that necessitates plenty of attention and [...]

Finally cleared all the stuff from conference, lots of goodies to Kat, I lost the raffle prize for DW so got it in the neck :( Sorted out all the jobs I have to do then left them at home so please be patient if said I will contact you. Saturday was spent sleeping and fixing Kat's and my bike. We went on the Historic Churches Bike Ride 2 weeks ago and the bikes suffered a bit. I suffered as well, 14 churches in 6 hours and I hadn't riden for years. Sunday was spent sleeping (spot the pattern) and ...

Cleaning out an old website today, I came across some extra information to add to my Gig List. Despite being unable to remember anything about their set at all, I apparently saw Echobelly at V97. It also turns out I saw tall comedian Marcus Brigstocke do standup in December 1997. No memory of it whatsoever. Tags: gigs, [...]

Saturday 24th September 2005 - At the National Association of Local Councils conference and dinner in Eastbourne on Saturday Halewood Town Council was again recognised by its peers. As well as being shortlisted for Council of the Year and Website of the Year, we were commended for our Annual Town Council Report and Town Manager John Green was nominated as Runner Up in the Clerk of the Year

Having spent the week in Blackpool, me and Heather shot straight to Presthaven Sands in Prestatyn, North Wales to meet my brother. We spent Thursday and Friday there. The sand dunes were lovely and it was a chance to catch up with our sleep. We also managed a trip to Chester. Then on Saturday morning we headed of to my Mum's with Luke in the car, to go to Matt and Jane's wedding in Dunstable and

I'm flabbergasted or more crudely put gobsmacked - just seen my blog mentioned again on this weeks review of blogs on the web by Tim Worstall - Carnival of the Britblog Roundup # 32 He's referring to my posting The man behind the mask. Seems Lib Dems Online (LDO)'s fringe meeting, Successful Lib Dem blogging being dubbed the most entertaining Lib Dem conference fringe ever attended, has caught the imagination of other bloggers. Somebody somewhere out there nominated me.Tim saysGet the word out, what every political party has to do. (BTW, can we get Chikky Yoggy onto a similar panel ...

So, Conference is over and we leave Blackpool in the hands of Tory pigs. It was an interesting week. The initial tone was a slightly forced one of celebration, with the ‘presentation of new MPs’ and an upbeat speech from President Hughes. Such public back-slapping does not sit easy with Lib Dems, especially as many felt that we should have even more to rejoice at. It would be folly to pretend that there was not whispering about Kennedy’s leadership, with the feeling that it is his parliamentary colleagues and not the activists who are leading the rumours. Following Nasser Butt’s ...

So just how worried are Labour by the Liberal Democrats threat? Well judging by this picture of Labour AM Leighton Andrews' office door down in the Bay, they are very worried indeed. So much so, in fact, that they are happy to resort to accusing us of being drug dealers on the basis of their distorted and entirely opportunistic critique of the modest and well-argued anti-drugs policy adopted by Liberal Democrats Conference a few years ago. A policy, by the way that the Home Secretary now appears to be in tune with. He has recently been quoted as saying that ...

I have written a letter to the Sunday Times following Michael Portillo's article today arguing we need to continue to occupy Iraq. Michael Portillo's thesis on the continuation of the occupation of Iraq fails to consider perhaps the key issue of the dispute. Iraq is a segmented society. The primary patterns of loyalty are to the tribe and extended family. If a member of the tribe dies as a

How things change. Prior to 1997 coachloads of trade unionists used to travel down to Tory Party Conference to protest against the latest injustice being done to them by the Government of the day. Often these coach parties involved Labour MPs with a constituency or other interest.Now that New Labour are in power such trips have been less frequent, but this year we have workers from the threatened Dara aircraft maintenance works at St Athan making the journey to Brighton to lobby for the future of their workplace. And lo and behold, Tory AM Alun Cairns wants to go along ...

The major theme of the recent Lib Dem conference was not the leadership. But if it was not the leadership, what was it? In my opinion, the real issue was public services, and how they should be delivered. I've been meaning to write something on this for a while, and a few recent posts and articles elsewhere have prompted me to do so. Firstly, at The Liberal, this post makes the point that there is more than one way to address issue of poverty and inequality - the socialist answer isn't the only one. Secondly, ...

I am happy to report that I am now back in the world of broadband, having given up on the 'facilities' at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. Some were blaming the contractors hired to install the internet connections, others the party's conference organiser for failing to check whether things worked properly before the conference started. But given that Blackpool's Winter Gardens is used by various