LibDem Blogs - Archived!

For some obscure reason, my beloved Local Party elected me as Chair for 2005, and this remarkably coincided with our best General Election result in living memory (and our Honorary President has a very long memory...). This encouraged them to re-elect me for 2006 and, as a result, I found myself in a very trendy bar in East Dulwich this evening, meeting some of our members for our regular monthly

http://www.labour4guildford.com/LabBoro0.htm The turnout was 29.3%. Two-thirds of potential voters clearly thought that the election was not sufficiently interesting or important enough to bother with. Maybe they couldn't see much difference between voting Tory and Lib Dem. They obviously don't care about who represents them. Perhaps they recognize that often, major initiatives in the council are carried out only to comply with the Labour Government's policies. Looks like Guildford Labour Party have a bee in their bonnet on the recent byelection result in Friary and St Nicholas. Not content with the notion that they carry absolutely no weight ...

In response to threats from the right-wing radical pressure group “Christian Voice”, Sainsbury’s and Woolworth’s have decided not to stock the DVD of “Jerry Springer The Opera”. According to Haringey MP Lynne Featherstone, the supermarkets decided not to stock the DVD after only ten letters of complaint. I’ve decided to do absolutely none of my [...]

My train home today is on a line that always gets packed, especially around the rush hour - going through Birmingham, and being a cross-country service means that it is pretty much a utility connection service. As such, if you haven't got a seat reservation, the only guaranteed accommodation is in the corridors. However, I was interested to hear of Virgin's method of making sure all seats were free. "Any items of luggage on seats will be charged the full single fare to their destination". How will they enforce payment, I wonder?

Just two day's after Carol Thatcher was crowned Queen of the Jungle in the fifth series and the day after David Cameron becomes the fifth sucessor to her mother, Maggie Thatcher has been take to hospital after feeling faint. A number of tests have been carried out and she is being detained at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital overnight as a precausion.

It's awf'lly bad luck on Diana,Her ponies have swallowed their bits;She fished down their throats with a spannerAnd frightened them all into fits.John Betjeman, "Hunter Trials"No, I was never a great lover of pony stories, but it was hard not to feel nostalgic coming across the Telegraph obituary of Christine Pullein-Thompson.As regular readers of Liberal England will know, I grew up on the children's adventure stories of Malcolm Saville. In those days Armada paperbacks had striking two-tone covers - one day I would like to fill a shelf with them just for the effect - and advertisements for other books ...

Chris Black, who writes Moonlight Over Essex, points us towards a fascinating blog. Janestheone is written by Jane Griffiths, who was Labour MP for Reading West between 1997 and 2005. She was deselected before the last general election, when the Tories regained the seat. Her blog is likely to make entertaining reading, not least when it touches upon her feud with Martin Salter, who is still Labour MP for Reading East. One to bookmark and revisit. Chris credits Iain Dale for the link.

It is the last week that the Assembly is sitting before Christmas and we are still talking about trains. This time the opposition has decided that it wants a task and finish committee to look at rail infrastructure and improved passenger services. After much worthy debate about services. largely centred on constituency issues, the North Wales members finally got to the nub of the problem, graphically describing the nightmare they have to face each week to get to Cardiff Bay: Brynle Williams: ...When it is quicker to travel from Holyhead to London than from Holyhead to Cardiff, there ...

Well how did my selection of the Fantasy Shadow Cabinet get on now that the major positions have been filled. Well I got the leader right young David, who clearly benefited from the long campaign to win over the Conservative party members how he will do in the country we have yet to see. I was right on bringing William Hague back to a prominet role, although I had him as Shadow Home not Shadow

Charles Kennedy asked Tony Blair at today's Prime Minister's Questions what he knew and when he knew about the US's policy of 'Extraordinary Rendition', the flights and the torture. Blair denied knowledge, which either means the Prime Minister of the UK was never asked or told, and even after seeing reports did not question the US Government or more likely he lied!

Today was David Cameron's first outing at leader of the Tory Party. He has placed his agenda fairly and squarely in the middle of the privatise everything camp. There is a political debate to be had as to what the best way of managing things is. We are having an experiment within the Health service of pushing it in the direction of a market economy. At the same time many in the private sector

So how will Cameron deal with the packaging and content of the Tories? On content he clearly hopes to show breaks with the past. As an example people who travel by train still remember Mrs Thatchers apparent siderodromophobia (allegedly the word for neurotic fear of train travel) and so still associate the Tories with these out of touch attitudes. Policy chages Cameron, may believe, will give a sense of a real world involved in his policies and thus a break with the past. But it is in the field of really basic aversions that things become interesting. Psychological ...

File under cynical hack… Legal doubt on 28 days detention An influential parliamentary group claims there is not enough evidence to justify extending the time a terrorist suspect can be held from 14 to 28 days. Last month Tony Blair suffered his first ever defeat when MPs threw out plans to allow police to hold suspects for up [...]

Evidence has been dribbling in that Sure Start is not merely failing to help but is actually hindering the most vulnerable families in deprived areas. This is a difficult one, and Lisa Harker is correct to say that it is too early to make any pronouncements on the scheme’s relative success or failure. However, Tim [...]

Many of my fellow bloggers have mentioned that Woolworths and Sainsbury’s have banned the Jerry Springer: The Opera DVD from their shelves. Some are blaming Christians for the limited outcry over this issue, as a Liberal Democrat, a Christian and a dramatist here is my take on this issue. Most of the Christians who are upset about this DVD have never seen the show, or at least I think have not

Recess monkey exposes the egg on Labour’s typeface (at least, I hope that’s egg).

Habitual Residence TestQ: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the answer of 30 November 2005, Official Report, column 613W on the habitual residence test, whether someone who has paid sufficient national insurance contributions to qualify for contributory benefits is subject to the habitual residence test for non-contributory benefits. (John Hemming)A:Yes; all claims for income-related benefits are subject to the habitual residence test. (James Plaskitt, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions)

We're thinking about changing to something like this. Let us know if you prefer it, prefer the Serious Black design, or what like something comepletely different!

Rhodri Morgan expressed surprise yesterday that he has not yet been 'no-confidenced by the combined votes of the opposition. Quite why he should hold this view is in itself surprising.The First Minister is clearly somebody who values the office he holds. He seems to believe that holding that office should be the objective of every party leader and I suspect that he is right in that assumption. However, the value of the office lies not in holding it but the terms on which you exercise the power that comes with it. That is why an alternative government has not and ...