LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Colin Ross was bemoaning the fact that we are failing to staind candidates in the West Midlands. However, here in Scotland by election fever has carried on. It is six weeks since we had a hat trick with Westminster, Holyrood and Council election by elections on the same day. Although we did not stand a candidate in Dumfries and Galloway last month we again were fighting three elections in

The Oxford Student reports this week that Oxford University officials are seriously worried that tutorials may be affected under new "glorifying terrorism" laws. Apparently, just giving out materials that may be seen to be supporting terrorism, or asking students about their views on controversial pieces, may actually fall foul under the letter of the law. Obviously, this is a great burden upon

No, not Dougal, Florence and co, but a one-stop-shop offering confidential advice and counselling to young people in Kingston on all kinds of matters, including sexual health. I'm very unhappy with the news that the Primary Care Trust has decided to pull the plug on this excellent facility. It has been jointly supported by the Council and the PCT in the past, but the PCT has decided that it will now offer sexual health advice from its clinics. Sadly that does not provide advice across the whole range of issues that affect young people, and the unique ...

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News, written in the expectation that the Commons would agree to 90 days' detention for questioning. Charles Clarke's dodgy poll was all over the blogosphere earlier this week - thanks to whichever blogger it was who first put me on to it. You can read more about the wonderful Orange Alternative in an article from the Situationist magazine Here & Now. Labour astroturfing At Home Office questions on Monday we heard complaints that the police are hampered by red tape. Instead of catching villains they are filling in forms. One ...

Linlithgow's health centre is set to move from its High Street premises under the latest plans from NHS Sotland. One possibility is to move it out of town to he Blackness road. This would further add to the traffic problems which the town is already concerned about. Moving the health centre to the North of the town centre would add more vehicles to the busy High Street as people are less likely

Lewisham Labour councillor Andrew Brown, who has been a great supporter of the ReadMyDay project, has congratulated Mark Morris, the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Lewisham, for taking on the BNP and winning in the High Court. When you have read the full story on the blog of Peter Black, a Welsh Assembly member, I think you will agree.

Yesterday saw two more by-elections in the West Midlands, both in the Borough of Telford and Wrekin in Arleston and College wards. The Liberal Democrats stood in neither of these wards, this means that we have not stood in five by-elections in the West Midlands over the last few weeks. It is simply not good enough, we are letting down ourselves and more importantly the general public.

Gradually Labour have been removing the checks and balances that operate in the constitution. With the gradual nationalisation of the police force we are moving from the historic situation where the home office was responsible for the operation of legal procedures and the rules under which police operated, but did not get involved in operational decisions (apart from in London) to one in which

by Peter There's a good piece by Philip Stephens in todays FT. The argument is that Blair's will be decided in the spring. As it is probably subscription only (I'm reading the print version), I'll quote the conclusion: "My sense of British politics is that among the voters there are many erstwhile supporters of the government looking for a reason to desert it. by the time of the next election, Labour will have been in power for at least 12 years. Many will judge that is enough for any party. time for a change becomes a double-edged sword. Labour may ...

Had a nicely boozy time last night drinking with the Conservative Future top brass, who turned out to be worryingly decent people. The idea was that it would be a cross-party thing, but as it transpired myself, Pete Bancroft, our new Head of Office and a couple of other Lib Dems were totally outnumbered by the Tories. Despite promises, nobody from the Labour Party turned up; presumably sulking. Respect to Caroline Hunt for getting fairly battered and then going on Radio 5 at 2am to argue with Gez.

I spent the two minutes silence in the shadow of Big Ben this morning considering how lucky I was to be alive, healthy and with a job. Makes you think, when soldiers younger than me are being killed in Iraq. I now have a job :-)))))I work in the Cowley Street Conference Office but only temporarily so we'll see what happens.

There are a lot of questions that Labour cannot answer. I asked two of them during the 3rd reading debate yesterday (see link). The Terrorism bill is far from acceptable, but we still need to address how to handle the real situation. I am in the process of making contacts within Birmingham to look at the issue so that we might be able to find a consensual way forwards. There are solutions

Well done to Brenda Link who won the Highfield and St Pauls by-election yesterday.Brenda stood with me back in 2003 where we just came second.A bigger well done to Richard Grayson who has managed to turn Hemel Hemsptead Liberal Democrats around and now has his first councilor.

Congratulations to Lewisham Lib Dems who have taken on the BNP again and won, this time in the Royal Courts of Justice. Tess Culnane, the candidate in a by-election in Nov 2002, sued the Liberal Democrats for defamation over an item in an A3 leaflet. Her action was against Mark Morris, the candidate and Vijay Naidu the agent. The offending article read: Don't be fooled by the BNP The BNP are keen to persuade local residents that they are a respectable political party who will stand up for your interests. Don't be taken in! Since the BNP ...

There has been a lot of discussion about the infamous Blackberrys that were issued to each Assembly member. Shortly, after I used mine to blog from the chamber an edict arrived from the Presiding Officer forbidding such activity. This was despite the fact that the PO himself had been observed referring to his device whilst in the chair the previous day. Dafydd Elis Thomas is fairly computer literate. That is not something that can be said about Mick Bates. Mick is well known for his love of Bob Dylan, his infectious enthusiasm, and for generally being the oldest swinger in ...

Welcome to Pant Watch. Pant Watch exists to chronicle the dying days of the Blair administration. Technically, we are now at P-8, P-1 being the day that Steve Bell published this cartoon showing Blair wearing John Major’s pants of power. To be sure, Bell has portrayed Blair as a pant-wearer before, most [...]