LibDem Blogs - Archived!

South Bank Show on Armando Iannucci: oh yes. I allow ITV to survive another month. Wikipedia throws up the fact that Armando is one of a number of notable Scots of Italian descent. Also on the list are the pleasent Sharleen Spiteri of Texas fame, and 17th Century git David Rizzio, who an ancestor of mine apparently helped to murder.

I read an interesting article in today's Sunday Herald relating to the fallout in the Labour Party following Dunfermline. It was made all the more interesing my the following comments from my opponent in May last year Michael Connarty the MP for Linlithgow adn East Falkirk: "Tony Blair’s 'illiberal' views cost Labour the by-election. There was a general feeling that people wanted to tell Labour

In case you missed it, the Times published the following letter yesterday. Dear Sir We are all members of the current Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet. The last few weeks have been turbulent and challenging for the Liberal Democrats. Our party has faced considerable difficulties from a major media onslaught. In this context, the outstanding result for Willie [...]

by Davd Langshaw To Slough yesterday, for the Leadership Hustings. It started in the best way possible, with a rousing address from our favourite Lib Dem MP – yes, Willie Rennie flew down to Heathrow, just to come and speak to an ecstatic South Central Regional Conference. I can’t remember much of what he said, but who cares? We cheered, we shouted, we yelled, we laughed at the jokes and agreed with everything he might have said. Careful attention was paid to the three leadership candidates on the platform, to see that their fervour and enthusiasm for our new hero ...

That was the fair question asked of my by James Graham in his comment to my posting below criticising the leadership contest for treading water. My reply was too long for a comment box, so I thought I'd give it an airing here: You're right of course the 'Orange Book' is a mixed bag - I was using the term as a commonly understood short-hand to refer to an emphasis on using market-based economics to

Some things are worth reading even though they are in the Daily Mail. Like this.

I explored some wonderful foods in Jamaica that were new to me - ackee and saltfish, sorrel (the fruit, not the herb), Solomon gundy, yam, baked plantain, escoveitched fish, and, of course, jerked chicken and pork. We ate a lot of fish, especially snapper and tilapia, and all kinds of fruit. I found an excellent cookbook over there called Eat Caribbean by Virginia Burke. Here is one...

The Financial Times reports: The Labour candidate, Catherine Stihler, showed how out of touch she was with the mood of the constituency when she warned supporters on polling day that if they stayed at home "they risked waking up to a Scottish National party MP on Friday morning".

I know it is too much to ask, but I do find it a bit exasperating reading blog after blog by people who a couple of days ago were trashing YouGov, now claiming that today’s poll of supporters (i.e. NOT members) proves, without shadow of a doubt, that Simon Hughes is the front runner. [...]

This post by Lib Dem blogger Andy asks whether liberalism has to apply to everything - specifically, whether it has to apply to the economy. He takes a certain view and, at least on my first reading, it is a view that I agree with in part, but differ with on some key points. This is not to say that our views are polar opposites or even all that far apart; the extent of economic liberty is a question that has occupied the minds of many people, many of whom came to conclusions much further from my own ...

Jo Swinson MP gives us her advice on what aspiring candidates should be doing: Be open minded. Standing for Parliament can be an interesting and worthwhile experience itself, even if the job of MP / MSP / MEP doesn’t appeal to you. When I first stood, in a safe Labour seat, it was [...]

The leadership campaign has acted as midwife to a remarkable number of new Lib Dem blogs. Go to Lib Dem Blogs Aggregated for the latest list, but Alex Wilcock's Love and Liberty is particularly worth a visit. Elsewhere, Iain Sharpe has been saying some nice things about me. Apparently I am "the nice cop ... of Bloggers for Huhne" and even "the world's favourite Liberal Democrat blogger". But he has also pointed out that I should be very worried that Nanny from Hell Polly Toynbee is also backing Chris Huhne, mentioning a posting I once made about one of her ...

Ski-jump flop Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards has branded Scotland's Olympic-winning curlers a bunch of lesbianssays the Daily Record. Now back to the underwater moguls team competition, where Britain is doing very well in 23rd place.

Simon's interview with Andrew Marr on BBC Sunday AM this morning was Simon at his best. The good news is that another YouGov poll puts Simon Hughes on 34%, Sir Menzies Campbell on 21% and Chris Huhne, 13% among party supporters. Giving a margin of error this puts Simon's Leadership bid on the side of optimism. No need for me to repeat what has already been written. There are other Simon bloggers who are following and analysing all the facts and figures with a fine toothcomb. Saves myself a lot of writing. Stephen Glenn ...

We’re currently collecting questions from party members for Ming to answer on one of his campaign podcasts. All questions are welcome, although we can’t at this point guarantee to answer all of them in the first podcast since we don’t know how many we are going to get. But, if we can’t answer your question in the [...]

It turns out that those cartoons were published in an Egyptian newspaper in October 2005, during Ramadan. A defence of that blog is here. I find the arguments of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Maryam Namazie compelling. Ali writes There is no freedom of speech in those Arab countries where the demonstrations and public outrage are being staged. The reason many people flee to Europe from these places is

Sunday 12th February 2006 - As some regular readers of my diary will know, I write a regular column on local topical issues for another site www.knowsleyonline.com. Pay a visit and you can read my views this coming week on the proposed merger of Merseyside Police with Cheshire Police.

I am the Lib-Dem candidate in the Werrington ward district council by-election which is taking place on March 9th. The by-election is because a Conservative district councillor has died. There are six other candidates. The other political parties are Conservative, Labour, UKIP and BNP. Austin Hanchard who used to be a Labour councillor is standing as an independent and there is one other independent candidate. Roy Gregg is my agent, which is brilliant because he has so much energy and lots of good ideas. Week 1 of the campaign went well. I got my nominations ...

So I had retired to "bed" after a day of sea air, long walks and less healthy food. I was relaxed after a long soak in a hot bath coupled with tea tree oil induced calmness. I recommend Tea Tree Oil at all costs! Thursday was always going to be a big day in Lib Dem land and so it proved. Firstly Question Time its leadership special edition. I'll be honest and say I was a bit disappointed and my overwhelming feeling was being annoyed that lots of good candidates hadn't stood. I was also annoyed at very poor question ...

I just snarfed my copy of Daniel Kitson’s new series on Resonance FM courtesy of the Bittorrent p2p network. For those who dont know, Kitson is a Perrier award winning stand-up genius. He does a show on London’s Resonance 104.4 FM every Friday night. Resonance FM have given Daniel completely free reign to do whatever he [...]

Last night, while most crazy young people are out getting sorted for E’s and whizz, I decided to stay in and migrate the Exciting Hellebore Shew and Epistaxis Archives over to Wordpress. To my dismay it appears that the standard Wordpress RSS importer cannot handle enclosures, so there is no way to import a podcast [...]

Just been reading Femme de Resistance's post, and the reaction it has attracted, in particular the comment: It is all about priorities. If you support both economic and personal liberalism, think that free markets are best for the whole society, but also think, that the state shouldn't have a say to what consenting adults may do in the bedroom,then you have to choose which is the most important

A somewhat belated review of QT since I've had a flu-ish thing for the last day or so... As per normal, the hustings started with around 14 minutes of "Please smooze about Charlie and self-flagellate over his resignation. Birch rods will be provided." This arrived in the form of "If Charles Kennedy was standing in this election, would he win?" Let us analyse the sheer stupidity of this

It looked like it was all up for Chris Huhne’s leadership bid a few days ago when an erstwhile dinner party guest of his outrageously attempted to derail his campaign by coming out in support of him. Fortunately though, our Chris is made of sterner stuff. Today’s attack on him by Nick Cohen has surely [...]

I was thinking about the political betting thing and the amount its being talked about and saw the GorDaq index. This made me wonder if there was a political stock market and it seems there isn't, at least for UK politics. One is/was running in the US but it seems broken and out of date, another was run for the 1988 US presidential election and I'm sure Iowa Electronic Markets will run one in the

The Independent on Sunday has reported that Charles Kennedy's closest aide is backing Chris Huhne as the next Liberal Democrat leader, saying he is "best placed to take on Cameron". Kennedy's former chief of staff, Lord Newby, said he has the "high levels of energy" required to be leader and the policies to see off the Tory threat.

David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge and a supporter of Chris Huhne MP in the Party's leadership contest today refuted suggestions that Chris had been overtaken in the leadership race following the publication of a poll in the Sunday Times.

I've been having a long discussion with Chris Palmer in the comments box on my Dunfermline by-election post. Most of the discussion is mulling over the usual '101 criticisms of the Lib Dems' , some fair, some not, but he asks: Let me ask you something. You seem to be an intelligent enough person, though you make the odd factual mistake (I don’t profess to know everything myself, and I don’t

Notwithstanding my reservations, below, I have today sent off my completed ballot paper: Ming 1, Chris 2, Simon 3. Each has considerable strengths, and some weaknesses; I can see any one of them serving this party with great distinction. Leaders are, of course, important - for much of the public they embody the party. But liberals should not get so hung up about who is our primus inter pares.

One of the funniest things I've picked up from other blogs is the Podcast of Guido's pub interview with John Hemming - Lib Dem MP. A bit long but I've listened to it twice - suits my sense of humour - well worth downloading. The no-holds barred honest approach is refreshing instead of all the usual spin on truth. It's absolutely hilarious. Expect criticism from some stuffed shirts who believe his personal life should not be talked about and remain hidden. If everything is out in the open and he has the guts ...

Anyone who has phoned me up in the last couple of weeks to discuss a poll in this or that paper will have heard me recite something along the lines of “the sample may not be indicative of the wider membership, the sample size is too small, the margin of error is huge” etc - [...]

Controversial pollster YouGov says that Campbell is the people's choice in the leadership election. This is how the Sunday Times reported the results Campbell is people’s choice for Lib Dems SIR Menzies Campbell is the narrow preference of all voters to become the next leader of the Liberal Democrats, according to today’s Sunday Times-YouGov poll. But among Lib Dem supporters alone, Simon Hughes is clearly ahead, writes David Smith. The poll, of more than 1,600 people, carried out on Thursday and Friday, shows that the three candidates have yet to make a public impact, despite recent ...

Now that my ballot is in - at least, I hope that it's in, I posted it first class on Thursday morning - I can perhaps reflect on the leadership race so far. From a personal perspective, I have been disappointed. Not by the quality of the candidates, as I think that all three have had something to say and the means by which to deliver their vision, but by the actual campaigns. I expected people to

Among Lib Dem supporters, Hughes, 54, the party president, is well ahead on 34%, followed by Sir Menzies Campbell on 21% and Chris Huhne, 13%.

Following his Party's humiliating defeat at the Dunfermline by-election on Thursday, Tony Blair faces three key days that will make or break his premiership. On Monday, there is a vote on the use of compulsory rather than voluntary ID cards and the use of a central database of biometric profiles of everybody in the UK, which is not kept in any other country or required by the USA for passports. When the Commons last voted on this in October 20o5, thirty two Labour MPs rebelled in six votes and the government's lowest majority was 25. What will happen now ...

Now that the Dunfermline by Election is out of the way I can devote more time to the final few weeks of the leadership campaign and as a result more time to my other site Bloggers 4 Hughes. Therefore I was delighted to see another Blogger supporting and voting Simon 1 this morning. David from the Republic of Hyde Park also gives some very astute reasoning behind his preference order. Simon also

This morning's Wales on Sunday reports that the editor of the Welsh student newspaper, which printed one of the controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed has apologised. Tom Wellington is quoted as saying that: "The cartoon was not reproduced as part of some frivolous defence of freedom of speech but was a genuine mistake on our part which arose from a desire to give context to a small and balanced world news piece reporting the developing international situation surrounding the cartoons." Although I would take issue with the idea that any defence of freedom of speech can ...

Leighton Andrews reproduces the minute of the House Committee from 23 June 2005 in which the decision to name the new building Senedd was taken. His view is that the minute is unclear and confusing and that accordingly those members who were at the meeting were not clear that a decision was actually taken. I was clear and even referred to the new names in a comment on this blog sometime afterwards. However, just so the record is clear here is an extract from the report referred to in the minute: Naming of Spaces within the Building 2. The ...

by Steve Travis I noted two snippets in today's Observer concerning Chris Huhne. The first is a rather catty dig at his former car-purchasing habits by Nick Cohen: Can this be the same Chris Huhne who led an unseemly scramble for company cars by Independent execs all those years ago? And picked a BMW which was such a flash motor that Ian Jack, the most fastidious literary journalist of the time, wrote 'This Car Is Very Vulgar' in the dust on the bonnet? If Huhne wins, Lib Dems shouldn't be too surprised if he orders a stretch limo ...

So, having survived my first day of canvassing in far too many years, and invigorated by our glorious win in Dunfermline West Fife, I spent another session out on the stump. I have to admit that it was more fun this time, and my canvassing technique is getting better (slowly). Get their preference and get on, don't argue, don't get into a debate. I even persuaded someone to take a poster! So,

Former Communist Party of Great Britain activist Martin Kettle has a fascinating Grauniad column about British Communists' reaction to Kruschev's denunciation of Stalin. The last two paragraphs have a wider message. But it shattered something else too. After 1956 it was no longer intellectually honest or true (if it had ever been) to use the cold-war syllogism that my enemy's enemy is my friend.