LibDem Blogs - Archived!

I found some particularly good comments on the Blairwarch.co.uk blog article about the National ID card scheme: “This is going to be one of the biggest wastes of public money ever. Still, as an IT contractor, maybe I will be lucky enough to get on the gravy train? I’ve worked on 2 local govt projects in [...]

A study by researchers at Hull University has concluded that just thinking about your muscles can make them stronger. Gyms up and down the country are contemplating bankruptcy. The sedentary life of an Assembly Member suddenly seems far healthier.

Surgery at Wood Green - harrowing as ever! Work at constituency office in afternoon - and get further news on the mess in Haringey education with sight of a local Labour leaflet. Labour are in real trouble as several of their council candidates have now started openly campaigning against the official Labour local schools policies. They have attacked the official schools policy calling it

Tune in to BBC4 tonight at 11.30, or set your recording devices, for the last really great episode of the colour Diana Rigg episodes of The Avengers. It’s enormous fun, starting off like a standard Avengers – stolen secrets, agents murdered – but rapidly turning into larks in the countryside, as Steed and Mrs Peel just drive around enjoying themselves to fabulous music. It’s like a week’s holiday in the ‘ordinary’ Sixties instead of their usual fabulous world, complete with ‘Swingingdale’ village, sexual innuendo, Arthur Lowe and the most hilariously bad back projection you’ve ever seen. Some of it’s even ...

This post by Steve Guy got me thinking. Labour are now determined to press on with ID cards, regardless of the views of their opponents. The Tory cave-in (MatGB has a round-up of the heroes and villains of the piece) has demonstrated their lack of commitment to opposing them. This piece at ConservativeHome gives the impression, not backed up by hard quotes, that this is some cunning ploy to postpone the battle until the next general election, where voters will be given a clear choice - vote Labour in and get ID cards, vote them out and (presumably?) ...

A member of the public has put a freedom of information request to the Assembly Parliamentary Service to ask how is the Welsh Assembly financed? "Who provides the money for the overheads. e.g. operating and administrative costs such as members salaries and expenses, staff salaries, capital expenditure etc? Where is this funding raised from?" The simple answer is that the taxpayer pays, which no doubt will include the person making the enquiry. The same goes for Parliament and local Councils. The price of a democratic society is not small. The price we would pay for ...

One way or another I haven't read a newspaper all week or watched television, so I'm reduced to piggybacking on an old Liberal England item about the unlikely spat between Phil Willis MP and Jodie Marsh. There are a couple of issues here. First, this kind of thing is typical of Phil Willis. While clearly an intelligent and charismatic man, his political always strike me as patrician and Fabian rather than obviously Liberal. While he describes his parliamentary question about whether Ms Marsh is a suitable person to lead an anti-bullying campaign as 'tongue-in cheek', the precise wording ...

Learn Direct Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much Learn Direct has spent on sponsoring the Jeremy Kyle show. (John Hemming) A:Ufi, the organisation responsible for learndirect, is currently sponsoring a package of programmes on TV. This comprises 12 weeks of 'The Jeremy Kyle Show', on ITV and also 12 weeks of Sunday night drama (three weeks of 'Wild at Heart', six

Last night saw possibly the most telling local council by-election upset in the history of Glasgow city council. Liberal Democrat Candidate, Margot Clark won the Kings Park by-election from Fourth place and was returned with a majority of 100 over previous incumbent Labour. This is bad news for Labour in Glasgow who face melt down [...]

James Lovelock crops up again on the today programme. Our efforts against global warming are puny, and we should concentrate on sea defences and food and energy security. Environmental organisations worry that we will shift from scepticism to despair without passing through a stage of determination. (I think this has largely already happened - environmentalists tend to think that people haven't

How appropriate he blasted off when the moon was waxing.

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News. Bypassing Brown Good news from the Budget debate: Gordon Brown does not have as much influence on British education as he likes to pretend. The chancellor presents himself as the saviour of our schools: now providing billions to improve standards; now finding extra money for some desirable policy goal. Monday’s budget debate showed that the truth is rather different. Take Brown’s headline figure of an extra £34bn for schools. As Sarah Teather pointed out, this was arrived at by adding up all the capital spending over the next five ...

There have been, or are about to be, some interesting elections happening overseas and of course nominations have opened in the UK's Local Elections. I thought I would give a quick (p)review of events in Belarus, Ukraine, Israel, Thailand and the UK.

Looks like Coppell is going to sign a new contract - but still only for a year at a time. This seems to be his preferred method of operating although I am sure he will have been offered a longer contract. Quite refreshing really.

I'm not sure I've ever been nominated for an award before (unless you count school prize-giving, which wasn't really a nomination kinda thing), but today I learned that my other gaff - www.stephentall.org.uk - is up for a New Statesman 2006 New Media Award in the “Elected representative” category. The full list of nominations for all catregories is here. And you can nominate your own preferred