LibDem Blogs - Archived!

No that is not a type there were two guys called daglish on the turf at Almondvale today. Not only was Paul up to his usual good job up front but his old man, better known as Celtic, Liverpool and Scotland's Kenny Daglsih (I know he also managed Blackburn and Newcastle). It was possibly the first time Kenny has been introduced on a football field as the father of his son. But he made the half

So it appears the Conservative party have got themselves a brand new set of clothes thanks for the Cameron bandwagon...

Former Labour MP Jane Griffiths has some definite views on the Lib Dem leadership question that are worth reading: The vultures are circling round Charlie Kennedy. He is a nice bloke seemingly and is an effective leader, though I would say the LibDems have peaked for the foreseeable future, though they might have a more important role in the hung Parliament we are likely to get at the next

The Speaker of the Lower House in India is initiating a Parliamentary debate. Not unusual, you might think, except for the fact that it concerns the selection of the Indian cricket team. He's unhappy about the dropping of Sourav Ganguly from the Indian side, believing it is for political rather than cricketing purposes (questionable, but that is a different issue entirely). I know it is a recurring theme on this blog, but if anyone doubts that sport and politics are intrinsically related, then I hope to set them right! Indian cricket is beset by regional tensions; Test matches are spread ...

A friend recommended The Strategy of Conflict by Thomas Schelling as one of the greatest works of social science that he had ever read. I obtained a copy a couple of weeks ago and am in the process of absorbing its content and its significance for my own research. So far, I am nothing but impressed.By curious coincidence I received an email from a colleague which linked to this website, protesting against the Nobel Prize for Economics that Schelling was awarded this year for his contributions to game-theory (I ought to add that it is no means clear that either ...

I could do with some advice from the more technologically knowledgeable Lib Dem bloggers! The other website I help write , onlinefocus.org , is important to us for communicating with our local residents. I have used 1&1 Internet Ltd for hosting it and have used their own 'website creator' for producing it. It's worked reasonably well but at over 100 pages is definitely cumbersome. I'd like to

With a bit of luck the above image will give the next 7 days weather - at the point at which you look at this blog entry. At the moment it appears to be turning coldish. That is for everyone, not only Charles Kennedy. Obviously the image will change with the GFS forecasts from which it is developed. The good news for the government is that it seems that although December will be slightly

Well, it looks like David Cameron's hasty attempt to cash in on Charles Kennedy's leadership travails have backfired. Not only has he been fairly widely pilloried in the press for being shameless and contradictory, but in lauching the website LibDems for Cameron at a dot.com URL (see my post here), the Tories forgot to register similar domain names, including www.libdems4cameron.co.uk. How confusing.

Well here I am sat in the gym thinking, bugger. Why bugger you ask? Well I came here with the full intention of completing an online application that I started a few days ago (yes I know - but you try living my lifestyle and finding time for pretty much anything!). But you PC's here won't let me access the site! Scratch that - there Wirelees network has just let me access the site (bit slowly though!) So this was going to be a longer post but it's been cut sho...... :-) Sorry - ...

by Peter I passed an anniversary sometime over the last month. Twenty five years have now passed since I joined the Liberal Party. (I would have been a member longer, but in the days before internet if you wanted to join a party you had to find someone to pay the money to - and that took some doing!) When I joined Steel was Leader. He was pretty popular with the electorate, although the Lib-Lab pact had not been. At the end of his period as Leader he was much less popular. The negatives built up as ...

It is not what was supposed to happen but at last the Liberal Democrats have a narrative. After the May General Election, party members and the media were saying the Liberal Democrats needed to find one. When the party failed to find a narrative, the media stepped in and filled the vacuum. The press gave the party a story that has run for a week and will run much longer – Charles Kennedy

I got a letter printed in the Wimbledon, Mitcham & Morden Guardian yesterday. Quite pleased because it had a large headline and was top of page. It was about the proposed city academies and impact on transport.I feel so free today because I finished work for 2005 yesterday. Hooray! So I'm really chilled out and woke up loved up (as always) and humming christmas tunes. Now I'm off work it feels like Christmas is really here. I have a whole 2 weeks and 3 days off which is the longest break I've had for a year.Yesterday was quite a ...

When Gordon Brown gave the Hugo Young Lecture this week he argued for liberty, fairness and responsibility. He quoted two modern liberal thinkers and made a passing reference to Beatrice Webb. He spoke at length about the need for decentralisation. Aside from the cheek of a man who is more centralist than Napoleon Bonaparte, what is Gordon up to? Has he concluded he will never lead the Labour party and decided to make a pitch as leader of the Liberal Democrats?

I found strength this week in the President’s Symbol Of Office. Or rather, from a quote from it. A copy of the Areopagitica (by John Milton) is presented to each LibDem President on taking office. And amongst other things the book talks about how dictatorships can delude themselves over the supposed weaknesses of democratic debate: “The adversary again applauds, and waits the hour: when they have branchedthemselves out, saith he, small enough into parties and partitions, then will be our time. Fool! he sees not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though into branches: ...

My objectivity and judgement on political issues are always called into question (not least by Ken), given my own involevement with the Lib Dems. However, I do hope I raise a serious point in questioning the basis of David Cameron's political gamesmanship so far. He's focused, in the Commons, on emphasising how he agrees with Tony Blair, and will help Blair beat his own smelly, unwashed socialistic backbenchers. Meanwhile, he has exploited Charles Kennedy's woes to emphasise how he is a Lib Dem, and that we should all jump ship to- what would Boris calls - "the most, jiving, happening ...

Well done to LDYS for producing this. But if you want my opinion, their URL should have been LibDems4CameronNil.com (geddit? geddit??!!).

As an Assembly Member I get all sorts of corporate cards, many of them quite original. Although I favour a ban on smoking in the workplace, this card from one of the opponents of that proposition still amused me.

So what is he doing leading the Conservative Party? It would be remiss of me not to post about David Cameron's speech in Hereford yesterday when he described himself as a "Conservative liberal" (what exactly is that? - Ed) and said that the two parties now had similar views on issues ranging from the environment to decentralisation, civil liberties and even Europe.As this is the first time Cameron has mentioned policy then this is news to me and I suspect to many Tories themselves who are opposed to the Euro (unlike the Liberal Democrats), do not want to see green ...

I don't want to comment yet about the Lib Dem leadership. Apart from anything else I'm probably one of the least-informed of any of the bloggers on this issue - I think I've only ever met one of the current Lib Dem MPs, and that was Andrew Stunnel about 15 years in a pub in Somerset (the first Liberal MP I met was Clement Freud in Rayleigh in about 1972!) At the moment I'm taking particular

First they have a large fire which the world's media spends the whole of Sunday and Monday watching, and today they have to put up with John Prescott again. So pleased that I'm in Lincolnshire this weekend.

by Peter First things first: it really is quite poor. I do not intend to say too much about how and why, because I do not wnat to help them improve it. Let us just say that no one with any real interest in policy is going to be convinced. As GDH argues below, if Cameron is to show that the Conservatives have changed, then he will have to to offer a few rightwing policies up, and a few rightwingers to go with it. I can´t see him doing this. But in terms of linking policies, frankly I ...

American actor John Spencer aka Leo McGarry from The West Wing and Tommy Mullaney from LA Law has died from a heart attack at the age of 58. I know many Lib Dems are fans of the West Wing, indeed some of my local party discussed the latest series (only number 6 here in the UK) after our AGM. However, John was also a fan of the Liberal Democrats in fact a signed message of support hangs in Scottish party headquarters. However, with season 7 of the West Wing still in production it means there will have to be a ...

So yesterday I mentioned that this site had immerged as part of a coup to drag a reluctant David Cameron into the Liberal Democrats. Today I mistyped the site to find this and there is also this proving that the Lib Dems are truely the party of the 21st Century and know their way around cyberspace. My hat is off to the people behind both these very rapidly produced rebuttal sites.

Ward: Walcot App.Ref: 05/03849/LBA Registered: 18 November2005 Expiry Date: 13 January 2006 Location: 6a Kensington Place Walcot Bath BA1 6AW Grade II Listed Building City Of Bath Conservation ...

One of the joys of having a SiteMeter counter for this site is seeing some of the Google searches that see people find their way here. Today, there have been two or three hits both looking for precisely the same quote: "No disrespect to Ashley Giles, but what use is he in the side?" Although I blog from time to time about cricket, no search looking for Ashley Giles has wound up here, as far as I can remember. However, today's post brought me my monthly copy of "The Wisden Cricketer", complete with Christmas quiz. Sure enough, one of the ...