LibDem Blogs - Archived!

That is how I shall be voting unless something unexpected happens during the campaign.

I didn't manage to find a Sky television to watch the debate on, but bloggers have been offering their summaries. The headline is that nobody had a knockout punch or suicidal gaffe. Will Howells confirms this: There was no clear winner in the debate, and subtle policy differences only between the candidates. Campbell held his ground, although dodged a question on private involvement in the NHS. Given that Huhne should, by conventional wisdom, have been miles behind the other three and gave a strong performance, he was the candidate with whom I was most impressed. The liberati ...

The BBC reports that the leader of the Liberal Democrats wants to make polygamy legal and will be moving an amendment in the spring parliamentary session to introduce it. But it's the typical sort of publicity seeking behaviour that I expect from this man. If the circumstances weren't so tragic it would be funny.

The fifth candidate revealed

Monday 16th January 2006 - I have just visited the campaign web site of Sir Menzies Campbell which so far as I can tell is the only one of the four candidates' sites up and running right now. In keeping with his Olympic sprint credentials it looks like Ming has once again got off to a flying start!! Looking forward to see what the others look like when they go live and to read what they have to

read it and weep. A good but grim account of the state of medical services in Iraq, a depressing look behind the suicide bomber headlines:: "It is now more than a year later, and the only up-to-date information available is anecdotal. The intrepid Dahr Jamail reports that in the region of most active combat, particularly al-Anbar province, U.S. forces continue to raid, disrupt and damage

The BBC reports: A student who called a mounted policeman's horse "gay" will not be prosecuted, it has been revealed. But police have stood by their decision to take Sam Brown to court for making "homophobic comments" despite the Crown Prosecution Service dropping the case.

Our 2005 general election candidate (who just about doubled our vote) came back from the Meeting the Challenge conference abuzz, saying things like it reminded her why she was a Liberal. She said that Simon Hughes impressed the most: not having Sky I'm waiting for the Any Questions head to head. What's the betting Simon Hughes won't make it to the venue in time and will deliver half his answers

I don't have Sky. No doubt I could have improvised something with a wok and a wire coathanger, but instead I prefer to rely on my fellow Lib Dem bloggers. Stephen Glenn gives a full account of the proceedings and Will Howells scores it as follows: There was no clear winner in the debate, and subtle policy differences only between the candidates. Campbell held his ground, although dodged a question on private involvement in the NHS. Given that Huhne should, by conventional wisdom, have been miles behind the other three and gave a strong performance, he was the candidate ...

The 4 leadeship candidates took part in a debate earlier this evening on Sky News and for me I found it very interesting. Whilst it re-affirmed my backing for Simon Hughes, it did leave me unsure as to where my second preference vote will go to. I was extremely impressed with all 4 candidates. [...]

As the Liberal Democrat leadership race gathers pace, much is being written on the subject of what Liberalism is. It was encouraging to hear J.S. Mill being quoted by at least one of the candidates. Even more encouraging to hear the beginning of a sensible argument. The key for Liberal Democrats will be to articulate the point that there is a strict limit as to where the boundaries of government should lie. All Liberal Democrats deprecate the intrusion on our civil liberties that the so-called "war on terror" is creating. The constant slew of regulation and legislation being passed at ...

To begin, I have to make this complaint: I fail to see why Sky News decided to run a "leadership debate" with the four candidates when less than half of the programme was taken up by actual debate. Much of the first half was taken up by an entirely pointless introductory film (you can watch it here), which provided us with the amazing insight that party image is actually important. When the candidates got talking, some serious points were made. All four seemed eager and enthusiastic and, although they agreed on most points, they were not afraid to ...

Simon Hughes made the following statement this evening: Over the past 18 months I've been coming to terms with and seeking to cope with a disorganisation problem, and I've come to learn through that process that a disorganisation problem is a serious problem indeed. It's serious for yourself and it's serious for those around you. I've sought professional help and I believe today that this issue is essentially resolved. People close to me know that this has been a struggle and that for extended periods I have not been disorganised at all. As a matter of fact I've not ...

Very brief, but in order of performance… 1st, Chris: good interventions, best on policy. Absolutely creamed Oaten on his attempts to claim the Liberal crown. Delighted to hear him critical of road user charging (preferring higher fuel duties) and his general candidness about environmental policy. Also, by far the strongest on public sector [...]

It’s been reported that Menzies Campbell intends to make age less of an issue in the leadership election by surrounding himself with younger people. He did so on TV this evening. Unfortuantely, the younger people in question were the three other candidates as Sky News hosted the first debate between the Campbell, Simon Hughes, Mark [...]

Well the first debate between all the candidates has taken place on Sky News. Before it got under way there was a debate about the branding of the Liberal Democrats the whole way through this they had a bearded sandal wearing walking through the suited and booted of London. So much for Sky having a balanced debate on that issue then! One of the first questions was what future Charles Kennedy

A few Lib Dem bloggers have referred to Andrew Rawnsley’s 'article' in yesterday’s Observer He warns that ‘When so much is in flux, the third party should be very wary of suddenly lunging to the left or lurching to the right.’ This is particularly apposite with regard to the programme of Chris Huhne who is in many ways the brightest and the most powerful intellect of the leadership contenders. Huhne has been calling for a switch towards more environmental forms of taxation, including an increase in fuel duty. I don’t disagree, transport being one of the areas where I ...

Should the security services be able to wire tap MPs’ phones? The Cabinet are in deep reflection, which does not inspire confidence. You’d think they would reflect on Watergate. John Reid: I know that neither the Prime Minister nor my Cabinet colleagues would take such a change lightly, but the important thing is the idea does not originate with us, it is a recommendation of Sir Swinton Thomas.Sir Swinton Thomas is the “Interception of Communications Commissioner”. So, an unelected official has advised that his powers be increased. This is something that has been seen and acted on before. In this ...

Chris Huhne wrote the Thunderer column in the Times today, where he turned once again to the topic of environmental liberalism. I know that the format of the column is weak to begin with; it is far too short to develop sustained argument on the level that we should expect from politicians. Nevertheless, it seemed to me to get the principles the wrong way round, and contained a number of things that worried me. His basic point is that taxes will need to be increased to help save the environment. That may well be true (I don't know); but he ...

The linked story is a story in "The Times" which refers to the costs of PFI. It also includes the following: "The issue was brought into focus last month by an admission by Queen Elizabeth Hospital trust, in Woolwich, that the trust was technically insolvent." The fact is that it is only adjustments by the Treasury for Risk that make PFI appear superficially OK. In fact although leasing a van for a short period is not necessarily a bad idea leasing a hospital for a long period is. You could not lease a hospital for a short ...

Pooling is not an exact science and last week as I mentioned at the start of my thought on restoring trust one such poll was made at exactly the wrong point i.e. last week end for the Liberal Democrats. However, as Lord Rennard said on Monday when he announced the plans for the leadership election the party was already starting to come together and put the bad blodd behind it. It appears the

Watford Borough Council has been shortlisted in the ‘Most improved council’ category of the Local Government Chronicle Awards. At the time Dorothy won the mayoral election four years ago and the Lib Dem administration, an Audit Commission report gave a verdict that Watford was ‘one of the worst-performing district councils in the country’ – a damning indictment of the previous Labour administration. The council was an example of Labour at its worst. The previous leadership was obsessed with taking part in government pilot projects (‘Better government for older people’ etc.) rather than managing core services well. A veneer of community ...

Ok so I was watching The West Wing repeat, Freedonia, on More 4 last night and Amy Gardner was preparing Santos for debate and telling him he was lacking the Presidential voice. In light of our four candidates’ performances on Saturday morning do any of them have a Prime Ministerial voice. The real test will undoubtedly be on the doorsteps in 3-4 years when our Parliamentary candidates, hopefully

Under-reported in Lib Dem blogs is this opinion poll by ICM, showing the Lib Dem support down just a single percentage point at 1%. One thing our opponents are unlikely to acknowledge is that we appear to have reached a point whereby a fifth of the country supporting the Lib Dems has now become the normative. [...]

Those of us that view our server stats will know that the Lib Dem leadership contest has caused an explosion of interest in Lib Dem weblogs. I think we would all do well to remember that our outpourings are not just being read by our peers. They are also syndicated on many other websites, and tracked and searched by political students and hacks. I welcome a healthy debate about the relative merits of the four contenders. But I am a little concerned that some of the entries are turning more to negative campaigning against certain candidates. I don't think it ...

Chapter 8: Tough Liberalism: A liberal approach to cutting crime by Mark Oaten While the slogan "Tough Liberalism" seems odd, the policy of actually doing something to make prisoners employable post-release is tough indeed. Oaten could also have mentioned the difficulty there is getting access to drug treatment for non-offenders, pushing people down the offending route. With large numbers of

I echo Robin’s sentiments entirely. I also wanted to say that I know our family and many friends enjoyed commenting on our posts so I’m very sorry that because of the childish behaviour of one individual we’ve reluctantly been forced to take this facility away. It’s a bit like school where one naughty child spoils it for everyone else. I’d really love to know what makes people so nasty or prevents them from operating beyond the kindergarten level. Was there a niceness chip missing when they were born? Or did their mothers not bring them up properly? Anyway to ...

Ming Campbell's campaign website has now gone live. You can visit it by clicking the link below or typing http://www.campbellcampaign.org/ into your web-browser. You can sign up for campaign update by email on the website.

Sky News will tonight be broadcasting a Leadership Hustings between 7pm and 8pm. I will not be able to watch it as I will be out, I will however be videoing it should anyone else miss it ans want to borrow the copy (or indeed come to Wolverhampton and watch it!). It has also been agreed that the West Midlands Leadership Hustings will take place in the afternoon of the West Midlands Spring Conference in Coventry on 18th February - more details soon.

by Peter Continuing this occasional series, today John O'Sullivan - formerly an advisor to Thatcher - steps up to take aim at Cameron in the FT. His thesis is that Cameron is attempting to fool all of the people all of the time. And he says so with some style: The activists are trying to convince themselves that he is pulling off a brilliant trick. He is presenting orthodox Tory ideas in glittering centrist garb – or, if not quite that, adding new ideas to the existing corpus. For instance, asking Bob Geldof to help forge a world anti-poverty ...

Forceful and moderate’s own George Galloway Libertycat (which presumably makes the fire headed Viv Rula Lenska) mentions an interesting quote from Oaten in the Guardian: Mr Oaten also warned that some Lib Dems were failing to live up to their liberal belief in individual freedom by falling in with “nanny state” proposals to ban smoking or [...]

Rob Knight and Phil Grant add their opprobium to Jackie Ashley’s latest nonsense about the evils of political betting. Quite right too. Yesterday I blogged about how articles about Lib-Lab talks made a welcome change from the constant chatter about a possible Lib-Con coalition. And who was I thinking of most when I wrote [...]

Mark Oaten has finally discovered the virtues of Liberalism, it seems. From the Guardian: Mr Oaten also warned that some Lib Dems were failing to live up to their liberal belief in individual freedom by falling in with "nanny state" proposals to ban smoking or outlaw foxhunting. He said: "A lot of my colleagues would support a ban on smoking, but as a liberal I'm uncomfortable with that, so I do

Rereading that 2001 BBC interview with Mark Oaten I linked to previously, some of the other bits are actually more revealing and important given the current context, than that silly Militant quote. Here we see Mark the principled crusader for Lib-Lab cooperation: He used to be a Lib-Lab “Project” man, but purely for instrumental purposes rather than [...]

This story made me laugh… BLAIR’S GRAN IS GRAFFITI VANDAL COMMIE MARY HELPED TO DEFACE WALLS Credit: Nick Robinson.

James Lovelock is predicting the end of the world in today’s Independent: The climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth’s physical condition, and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into a morbid fever that may last as [...]

Phil Grant has written a letter to the Guardian on the subject of Jackie Ashley's latest column, on the influence of betting on the political process. This is topical because of the coverage of the Liberal Democrat leadership election, in which there have been frequent references to the changes in betting odds. Ashley clearly disapproves of this influence, though it might be worth wondering why she disapproves of it. The obvious accusation is that, as a journalist, she feels that she (and her colleagues) should maintain their monopoly on political analysis, and that alternatives posed by betting, prediction ...

by Peter Thanks to all those who took part in the quiz. The author of that spirited evocation of Liberals past and present was... ...Adair Turner (aka Lord Turner). Turner is better known of late for his report on pensions (a report which upset Gordon Brown). The paragraph quoted is the closing paragraph of his book Just Capital. (Here is a review by Samuel Brittan). Who needed to say something like this? I think Simon Hughes needed to say it - and indeed he has said he no longer believes in 50% Income ...

The BBC have uploaded a video of Ming’s complete speech at the Meeting the Challenge conference onto their news site. BBC Report: “Campbell outlines leadership credentials” Sir Menzies Campbell said the Lib Dems needed to be more ambitious and tackle poverty, in his leadership campaign speech. He said Britain was “crying out” for a liberal alternative and the [...]

by Peter This shouldn't be too difficult for you - which candidate went to which school? a) Llandaff Cathedral School b) Westminster School c) Queens' School d) Hillhead High

If MP's vote for MI5 being allowed to snoop on them then this really is a 'turkeys voting for Christmas' scenario ! Although, it'll probably just happen [and happens] without recource to parliament. Traditional Labour voters must be sick to the core at how civil liberties are being trashed by Blair. Will someone from the Lib Dems [and elsewhere] put the ball in the net as an open goal looms. Speaking of goals a 3-0 win for my first sporting love; Nottingham Forest on Saturday, lets have some away wins and less defensive football please Mr. Megson. Leicester City in ...

It is often commented what a small place Wales is. In the Assembly we feel it especially, simply because everything we do is scrutinised in minute detail. Issues that would not raise an eyelid in Westminster are major headline news in Cardiff Bay. It is like living in a transparent bubble. Do not get me wrong, I am not complaining. Instead, I trying to make a wider point, namely that this sort of introspection (some would call it media incest) can also work against those who propagate it. Politicians and journalists can develop tunnel-vision, so that they fail to ...

This is my 'why David Cameron is not a liberal' post previously on Missing Shade of Yellow. It's here for symmetry - my next (extended) post is 'why Tony Blair is left-wing' (unless anything more interesting intervenes). [NB: Since I wrote the bulk of the article, David Cameron has demonstrated he's not a 'gut' liberal with his 'nanny state' enthusiasm to save the British people from the attack

Chris Huhne has more hair than Menzies Campbell. Chris Huhne is more intelligent than Menzies Campbell. Chris Huhne went to the same school as me.This is all a bit trivial, granted. But the important decision is the one I explained in my long and serious post - why it is important that the next Liberal Democrat leader be someone who emphasises hard thinking about policy more and campaigning

I just learnt from the BBC's Lib Dem leadership quiz that Chris Huhne's grandfather was named William Ewart Gladstone Murray. Any readers who know of my Gladstone obsession will appreciate my delight! EDIT: Jonathan at Forceful but Moderate has some equally deep reasons for voting Huhne, too.

Press coverage of the leadership election is already focussing on the "split" in the Party between "social liberals"/the Beveridge group/paid shills for the public-sector unions and "economic liberals"/the Orange Book crowd/people who belong in Cameron's Tory party. The choice of candidates will fits the pattern nicely, with Simple Simon on the left, Mark the Muppet on the right, Ming the

Many Liberal Democrats were hoping for a breakthrough in last years election. I was personally expecting 100 + seats. Unfortuanatly this did not happen. The ‘decapitation strategy’ failed miserably and we wasted far too much time and resources chasing the Tories in their heartlands. The message we must learn is that it’s [...]

Silly nonsense coming from the Kennedy camp: Sir Menzies is trying to reassure members who think he is too right-wing. Allies of Charles Kennedy suggested yesterday that Sir Menzies was more cautious than the former leader in opposing the Iraq war. Mr Kennedy’s former chief of staff, Dick Newby, told ITV’s Jonathan Dimbleby show that there [...]

I made a New Years resolution to resume the blog but to be honest the beginning of the year was depressing. I just couldn't bring myself to comment daily on the unfolding story of Charles Kennedy. Some of you may now be sniggering into your cornflakes recalling that I publicly called for Charles to go and was one of the signatories on the various letters that were sent to Charles. All I am going