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Posted by Chris I attended the rally at Harrogate last night and sat on the front row. Having got in early to ensure that we got seats, in what inevitably turned out to be a jam packed meeting, I was determined to get an unrestricted view of the proceedings. Glynis hates sitting at the front, cos she is not as showy as me and she sat two rows back with good friends Stan and Stella Wilson, formally of Redcar but now living in Thirsk. Stan was my ward colleague before he retired and Glynis took over. On the way through ...

I hear from Harrogate that today's Post Office motion was passed "overwhelmingly" - congratulations to Norman Lamb for responding so positively to the views expressed at the last conference, and to Ming Campbell for supporting the motion so vigorously. I think the policy we have ended up with is a superb vindication of the federal system at its best. There still seems to be some general unease,

Experiencing withdrawal symptoms from not being in sunny Harrogate and a bout of my usual ill health, I’ve been catching up on my reading instead of moving about much. Despite having several books on the go, I found something worth reading in today’s Guardian (unlikely as that sounds). Ming asserts that ‘We are the real liberals’ on the page following a mischievous attempt to prove all parties are the same – though Richard and I both easily spotted which ones weren’t Liberals, the two conservative parties were more difficult to distinguish in the Manifesto-mixing ‘Whose line is it anyway?’ (a ...

On a year-long academic sojourn in Rhode Island, USA, it is not easy to see "The Culture Wars" at first hand. Brown University is a leafy enclave of the liberal North-East, and the only culture warrior is the occasional trustafarian rebelling against their liberal establishment parents. However, last night, I ventured deep into the heart of Conneticut and Mohegun Suns casino to see 'Toby Keith's

I feel really upbeat about the state of the party following the leadership campaign. Of course, I'm a little disappointed that Chris Huhne didn't win - but it was always going to be a mountain to climb. But he damned nearly climbed it, and in doing so he provided our party with precisely what it needed. I said right at the beginning that if Ming Campbell was going to lead our party, he had to win a convincing contest - and that he has done. So I now pledge my support to Ming Campbell as he leads our party into ...

Well, it was good fun, but Ming has won fairly, squarely, and well. He has always commanded the respect of the party, and I look forward to great future successes under him. Already, I'm impressed that he managed to convince conference to pass this morning's post office motion. There's a great buzz here, and the leadership contest has done wonders for emphasising the lack of differences between Lib Dems. Regardless of which camp people supported in the campaign, there's a genuine team spirit to rally around our excellent new leader and take the fight to Brown and Cameron. Now, off ...

One of the hazards of Conference is the ability of so-called senior MPs to monopolise the agenda with their own policy announcements. Even though the particular proposals they are talking about are not up for discussion and will not be voted on by representatives, suitable pre-briefings and a properly timed speech on something especially controversial can give the ordinary public the impression that the whole Conference has agreed with the MP in question. We have just voted to reject a constitutional amendment that would have meant that all policy will lapse afer eight years. Those behind this amendment ...

You have probably heard of Aljazeera, the arabic tv station that tends to attract faulty missiles. You won't be surprised that they are on to the Tony Blair mission from God story. the British Premier said he followed his conscience when he decided to join the United States in its war on Iraq. "That decision has to be taken and has to be lived with, and in the end there is a judgment that -- well, I think if you have faith about these things then you realise that judgment is made by other people." "If you believe in ...

Hello from snowy Harrogate. Despite the weather, I arrived only an hour later than intended yesterday afternoon and had a chance to watch Deal or No Deal before heading to the conference centre. Rather than attend the Meeting the Challenge and Meet the New Leader session, which I correctly predicted was standing room only, I went [...]

Sheffield are getting the jitters certainly judging by last nights performance against bottom side Crewe. Watford managed to squeak a point from their home fixture with Derby drawing 2-2. Meanwhile the mighty Leeds negotiated a tricky fixture away to Crystal Palace coming away with all three points following a 2-1 win. Sheffield United are still in 2nd place on 75 points but Leeds have closed the gap to 6 points and they still have a game in hand. Meanwhile Reading march on towards the promised land despatching Burnley 3-0 and with a 14 point lead over 2nd and ...

Here I am at conference, I just spoken in a debate, I wwill have to ask if it was OK?Speak later

And even if we do then the Liberal Democrats should not be it! Why are we considering privatising the Post Office so that we can invest in it. This sounds like shades of railway privatisation. Yes of course we want to support the Post Office network and it is vital for local communities that they are retained. Indeed we should be finding ways of reopening some of those that have already closed

Yesterday's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. Incidentally, there was no House Points column last week. The Commons on its half-term holiday and I was still obliged to be neutral in the leadership contest. So we decided the editorial gods were against the idea. Gut feelings Britain has a long and unhappy history of intervention in Afghanistan. There was the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838–42, where the massacre of the British garrison in Kabul was followed by brutal reprisals. Then came the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–79), when much the same happened. By the time of the Third ...

(the headline doesn’t work quite as well with ISA) I think I’m about the only person on Earth who is actually sympathetic to Tessa Jowell’s plight over the past week. I have some insight into the stresses of public life, how it screws up politicians’ personal lives and the degree to which they depend on [...]

Much mention in Conference already of Tony Blair's claim to have God on his side in invading Iraq. Is it possible that he has spent too long in the company of George W Bush or is it that he has just lost the plot? Perhaps he should consider the words of Bob Dylan when he next considers whether to invade a foreign country, using a false pretext and in defiance of international law: But now we got weapons Of the chemical dust If fire them we're forced to Then fire them we must One ...

Greetings from snow-covered Harrogate where the party has just debated and approved a policy to invest £2 billion in the sub-Post Office network. They will do this by separating Post Office Limited from the Royal Mail Group and retaining Post Office Limited in the public sector, giving post offices the opportunity to develop new business. We are proposing a shared ownership model for Royal Mail with a 51% majority of shares divided equally between the government and a Trust for Royal Mail staff, with half of the remaining 49% of shares sold directly to staff and small investors and ...

Journalists who desperately searched for a "Clause IV" moment contained within the cynical press release prepared by David Cameron (hereafter known as Mr. Balloon) on Tuesday should hie themselves to the Liberal Democrat conference this weekend and see how a real paradigm shift is engineered. Congratulations are due to Ming - not only did he convincingly beat a surprisingly strong challenge from

A beautiful morning dawns in Harrogate, the sunlight glinting off the ice and icicles hanging under the railway bridge. Harrogate is in the grip of the bleak midwinter and after being trampled by numerous Lib Dem feet, the 2 inches of soft fluffy snow that fell yesterday afternoon has been trampled into a treacherous sheet of ice. When I arrived in Harrogate there was a complete blizzard going up and it was cold enough to freeze the brass balls off a ballot box (or such-like). Being the intrepid explorer that I am, I traipsed through the snow to the conference ...

I got this email from another.com, which allows you to have an extra nine email addresses that are aliases of the main account one. I had "no-terminal-five@heathrow-airport.co.uk", or something very similar. I'd almost forgotten about it, in fact, until...

I long since learned that being beaten up turns you into a coward. I proved it again tonight: it's an unpleasant feeling that leaves you bitter and twisted up inside.It's, what? Six years since I was attacked on a train on the way back from a...