LibDem Blogs - Archived!

In hindsight, and with the benefit of reflection, I feel somewhat cheated. It appears that my faith in the honour and decency of some of our party's most senior figures might have been ill-judged and, by exhibiting an unhelpful degree of naivety, I may well have prejudiced the very cause I had hoped to promote. You will recall that I had been surprised by the two amendments that were chosen for

Following in the footsteps of a number of blogs I read regularly, I've added a BlogCode box to my blog. This system is designed to show links to other blogs which are similar in theme and content. A slight anomaly is that it seems to find my own blog as being related to itself! I think this is because it is accessible from two different URLs (though I only provide links to one, so I'm not sure how the other one got there). Anyhow, aside from that it seems to work properly. I'll be adding a few ...

On Saturday afternoon, I popped into the conference hall just in time to see Baroness Ludford MEP storm the stage (I exaggerate a little). From there, to a meeting in the bar, and then to an excellent LibDems Online fringe meeting. There were some great online campaigning tips discussed, and hopefully many of them will [...]

If you listened to the Today programme this morning, you may enjoy this posting on Drinking From Home.

There's an ice cream van outside my house. Am I missing something?

Today saw the announcement of the new Shadow Cabinet. There are relatively few surprises and most of the media attention has been on the widely-tipped appointment of Chris Huhne to the Environment post. Some have suggested that this is a meagre reward for a man who gained 43% of the final vote in the leadership election. After all, Environment is not generally considered to be one of the 'great offices of state', and to shadow the Environment minister is not, perhaps, one of the most glamorous jobs in politics. But I think that this view gets it ...

Larry Elliot in today’s Guardian writes about the impact of world economic development on oil consumption: …between now and 2050, GS estimates demand for oil will double to 169m barrels a day, with both China and India requiring more than the US does now. Where will all this oil come from? The industry remains confident that there are new sources of supply to be tapped, but some analysts say the world may be close to "peak oil", the moment when supply starts to dwindle. Either way, prices are going to stay high and may go higher. The ...

The police merger juggernaut is continuing to rumble on even though it will cost a lot to go forwards. This is a good example of really bad government.

It was going to happen eventually. Membership renewed. I am now, once again a Liberal Democrat. So it seems that Ming Cambell wins the MatGB Challenge. (Re-reading an old post it seems I might owe Mat a drink too).

Out of curiosity and sheer desperation, I have decided that it is high time I started my own blog. Not knowing anything about web publishing can only be beneficial to me, as it means I may actually see Ryan once in a while. All you web widows/widowers will understand. Also, since I can't afford post grad study, it will hopefully keep my mind sharp until I find a mildly intellectual job. So, what to expect from my blog?Ramblings on daily life, nothing too philosophical as that part of my brain died long ago. Plenty of Lib ...

Nuclear power and all that is back in the news, with the publication of the Sustainable Development Commission report. Joe Otten is dismayed by the slightness of some of the arguments deployed and I have to say at first glance I agree. There is a rather meaty discussion of the differing costs of power generation posted by the blogger known as ‘Jerome a Paris’ on the European Tribune. Jerome works in finance and the power industry and has good links to hard data. His posting is repeated over on Daily Kos which attracted a substantial US-based response. Amongst ...

Michael Moore’s promotion to Foreign Affairs has left the Defence Spokes seat in the Shadow Cabinet vacant. Time for the return of an old campaign?

The Liberal Democrats have a long tradition of local campaigning on post office closures. The FOCUS leaflet about saving the local post office has become enough of a cliche that I chose "saving post offices" as a metaphor for the things the Liberal Democrats do which have nothing to do with Liberalism when I was writing my speech for the launch of Young, Free and Liberal. This was a mistake -

According the press release, Huhne gets the Environment job. Clegg is Shadow Foreign Secretary, Cable stays as Shadow Chancellor and gains Julia Goldsworthy as Chief Sec, Webb stays at Health.

Bit of a round-up posting today obviously I was at Harrogate Conference all weekend, I have posted a bit about the training Sir Menzies speech already and don't have much more to say apart from it was a good weekend and great to see so many friends again. Last week we also had two by-elections in Warwickshire which the Conservatives held but saw a good swing to the Liberal Democrats - results below. Also the most exiting news of the weekend is that I have a new boiler.

Alex Foster’s photo of queuing LibDems prompts me to comment on the bizarre security checks being carried out at party conference in Harrogate. I was fortunate not to be caught up in any long delays, but I have a conspiratorial mind: I’m the sort of person who, while waiting to pass through the metal detector at [...]

The Sustainable Development Commission has reported on the subject of nuclear power. This is a finely balanced question, and what worries me is quite how weak most of their arguments are. Links: News item, SDC, chapter on C02 (pdf) These are the arguments: 1. Long-term waste – no long term solutions are yet available, let alone acceptable to the general public; it is impossible to guarantee

Dave: Come on! We're late!Shadow Cabinet: Where are we going?Dave: To LiverpoolShadow Cabinet:Why? Has Boris got to apologise again?Dave: Stop muttering and get in the coach! Have you remembered your packed lunch?Shadow Cabinet: Why do we need a packed lunch? Aren't we going to have lunch with our Liverpool MPs?Dave: We haven't got any, you clot!Shadow Cabinet: Well, with our Councillors then?Dave: (reaches for detention book)Shadow Cabinet: Sorreee!Dave: Just get in the coach, and no muttering!Shadow Cabinet: Well if we haven't got any Councillors and we haven't got any MPs, What are we going to do in Liverpool?Dave: We are ...

F and M directs me to the very brief mention this blog receives from the the Daily Telegraph for having not blogged about the leadership election a great deal. There’s loads of other stuff I plan to not talk about to keep up this frantic media attention. Having spent Friday nosing around the incredibly tatty Parliamentary Press Gallery and the weekend missing Conference, I rather excitingly got a trip around Downing Street this morning. It’s quite nice, although some bits of it are ridiculously cold. I did notice a copy of Margaret Thatchers’ book The Path to Power on ...

In yesterday’s Observer Oona King is described as an ‘ex-Labour MP’. I think they must have her confused with George Galloway.

The international system is facing a period of increasing upheaval. The duopoly of power: the Soviet Union facing the West, has given way to a radically different order. Initially the emergence of a single "hyperpower" -the United States- was suggested to be "the end of history", or rather the end of ideological struggle. However, it is now clear that the United States is not as preeminent as it had seemed. The shock of September 11th revealed that critical challenges now came from outside the state system- from small and ruthless groups with a seemingly limitless appetite for death on an ...

After suggestions from a couple of friends, I've started a LiveJournal account - I doubt I'll be posting much there immediately, but I quite like the 'community' idea. So I may explore that later... Still feeling rather zonked today.

After the positive feeling emerging from the party's Harrogate conference, I wanted to muse on two key issues which will decide the future of the Lib Dems. Firstly, I was delighted to see "for a fairer and greener Britain" as the slogan of the conference. I couldn't have said it better myself. It's a perfect phrase and it is not surprising that it has emerged as the defining summary of the agenda being pushed by our party's most-respected champion. Sir Menzies Campbell has impressed the membership and is going to be an excellent captain of an energetic and bright young ...

I saw parts of Ming's speech yesterday and was particluarly interested in the part about tax policy. I wondered at the time about the 50p rate and whether or not Ming wants to drop it. I concluded that he did but only because of the three principles which he outlined as follows :First, the tax burden must be lighter for those on lowest incomes. Second, the tax system must provide incentives to

Although David Cameron came to Wales at the weekend and told critics of his policy reforms that he was prepared to accelerate the pace of change even further, things are not so hunky-dory in the Conservative Party. This morning's Mirror newspaper reports that the Tory economic chief, John Redwood, has already contradicted his leader's tax plans: The right-winger, dubbed The Vulcan by bitter ex-wife Gail, produced a pamphlet backing controversial flat taxes. It would mean everyone from binmen to billionaires pays the same rate. His call comes weeks after Mr Cameron ruled out the scheme and ...

I haven’t really read the Telegraph much since my grandfather died - and even then only really used to read the crossword. However, it was nice to see that they like Flock Together. The Daily Telegraph: More LibDems online

Just before we rushed off to Harrogate, I noticed FM was in the Telegraph. There are also mentions of the blogging MPs sites as well as Hot Ginger and Dynamite, Liberal Bureaucracy and The Apollo Project.

I am one of the people who welcomes Ming Campbell's aim to have more professionalism in the way in which the Lib Dems operate. That, however, does not mean that I support the suggestions of requiring lone parents of children aged 11 to work. I was also uncomfortable with the proposals on the Royal Mail. We need to have an effective policy on how to maintain the network of sub-Post Offices and there was 95% agreement as to much of the resolution passed. There did, however, remain a 5% disagreement. The agreement relates to the outcomes, the ...

I have to admit to feeling a little deflated having spent a lot of time running the Reflecting Britain website. This weekend, the Lib Dem Spring Conference passed a motion on encouraging more ethnic minority MPs. Although you can’t sum up a strategy as wide as that in a single motion, the fact [...]

And so I threw myself into a heady social whirl that is Federal Conference. There I was, minding my own business, when Francesca Marritt, from the Campaign for Gender Balance, told me that there were in fact two amendments to my motion. It might have been nice if someone had told me... Francesca was behind one of them, on monitoring, and I had no fundamental objection to a voluntary, opt-in

It appears that the Right Honourable Member of Parliament for Dulwich and West Norwood's ongoing audition for a lead role in one of the less salubrious soap operas continues. The story so far... David and Tessa love each other. Tessa has risen from being a psychiatric social worker to being a senior member of her friend Tony's government, whilst David has a successful legal career, helping people