LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Tony Hatfield's Retired Ramblings remind us of how the Conservatives promoted the Child Support Agency. The white paper Children Come First (Cmnd. 1264), published in October 1990, noted in point 2 of its summary: The present system of maintenance is unnecessarily fragmented, uncertain in its results, slow and ineffective. It is based largely on discretion. The system is operated through the High and County Courts, the Magistrates’ Courts and the offices of the Department of Social Security. The cumulative effect is uncertainty and inconsistent decisions about how much maintenance should be paid. In a great many instances, the maintenance awarded ...

by Peter Stephen Glenn has a rather knockabout post on the voting age on his Linlithgow blog. As people tend to, he has fun with the different ages one can do different things. Certainly some of these are anomalous. But I have never thought it possible to argue that one should actually be considered old enough to do everything at the same age. If the voting age were 17, the Liberal Party would have had one more vote (mine) in 1979. If it were 12, the Liberal Party would have had two more votes (both mine) in 1974. (Other ...

Just a note to say I will be doing the SportBlog roundup again this time next week. All posts that relate to sport in some way shape or form are eligible - email them to me at sportblog at googlemail dot com

Ok I've done Celebdaq, I've traded on Sportdaq now from the lijnks to this site I've found that the latest trading game appears to be Blogshares. I have no idea how I came to be listed, nor have I nay idea how it works. If I did I might be accused of insider dealer trying to increase my value. Although if I read this right (Economics degrees come in handy some times) I'm currently valued above

MPs have rejected Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams' Representation of the People (Reduction of Voting Age) Bill by eithg votes 136 to 128. While you may be old enough to but cigarettes, have sex, get married, join the army and pay income tax. You are not old enough to have you say in any of these things, or so the Labour and Conservative parties say, and vote. Just when do children become aldults, when are they old enough to make adult decisions. Clearly we trust them with their long term health with both smoking and sex. We allow them ...

Well the Christmas Tree Festival weekend is over and once again it was the largest and longest running tree festival in the country. I'm proud to be on the organising committee. Here's my tree.

Tony Blair has today has announced a now "feverish rethinking" of energy policy in a speech to business leaders, leading the way for the UK to return to nuclear power. Greenpeace protesters delayed the start of the speech for an hour by climbing to the roof of the CBI conference and unfurling a "Nuclear: Wrong Answer".

Been here around 3 weeks and its really tiring, very exciting, walking past Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square but it is really tiring me out.

This is the chart of long term storage. The real problems arise whenever either of the safety monitors is breached. Short term storage (LNG mainly) allows the handling of peaks in demand. It can run at about 47 mcm/d for about 3 days. Medium term can run at 28 mcm/d for (now) 15 days and long term can run (now) for 70 days at 45 mcm/d. The safety monitors exist at 22% of LTS, 13% of MTS and

The Home Office claim that their automated systems can recognise a 4 year old from photographs of that 4 year old with their mouth closed and eyes open when they were 2 weeks old. I accept the argument that babies should have passports (although we coped for centuries with children travelling on their parents' passports). However, I cannot believe that it is necessary to be as picky about the

So the reports were true and the opposition parties and the government finally came up with a deal on the budget today that will put millions of pounds into key public services. In all the new budget provides: Council tax – £100 for pensioner households in 2006/7 whose homes have risen by more than one council tax band due to revaluation. A further £10m will be made available over two years for pensioners to provide home energy schemes to cut household bills and for improved security on their properties. Higher education funding – an extra £5mn in the first ...

Lord May retired as president of the Royal Society, and signed off with a magnificent broadside reported in Sunday's Observer. Caught in the roundshot were bureaucrats, religious fundamentalists and the American head of climate research, who May labelled 'a looney'. The first four paras are worth repeating: Britain's most senior scientist warned last week that UK research is being stifled by an

Gas Production/Supplies Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will assess the merits of stipulating a requirement for gas wholesalers to contract for a minimum supply percentage from outside the UK's own resources to guarantee supply levels through interconnectors and liquid natural gas shipments. (John Hemming) A:The regulatory/commercial framework for the gas supply

I'm not going to be posting anything to this blog for the next few days. The ReadMyDay project is transferring to a new platform, but once it has all been sorted out you should see a greatly improved interface.

As a member of the Liberal Democrats on the 'modernising' wing, regular readers of this blog will have spotted that there are several areas of Liberal Democrat policy with which I disagree. However, in the case of foreign policy it is not disagreement which generates my ire - it is that I am not exactly sure what Liberal Democrat foreign policy is, especially with regard to Iraq, and - more to the point - I am not sure how it is generated. Or, put another way, I am not sure that the values of liberal democracy underpin the Party's attitude ...

I'm a mite puzzled (and yes, I know, there are those of you out there who are convinced that this is my semi-permanent state). I tendered my resignation as Regional Secretary on Thursday. Today I get an e-mail regarding a future meeting and a request to gather certain information from the very person I tendered my resignation to. Hang on a moment, I think, haven't I resigned? Doesn't that mean