LibDem Blogs - Archived!

You read it here first. Actress Anna Maxwell Martin has just lifted the Bafta for Best Actress for playing Esther Summerson in BBC 1's superb adaptation of Dickens' Bleak House. To recap for those of you who disagreed and are too busy eating the ashes of repentence: "[Gillian] Anderson was acted off the screen by Anna Maxwell Martin playing Esther Summerson. Some of Dickens' heroines are so

Election Day I have followed quite a few of the election blogs over the last month and have to say have been a bit dissappointed at some of the cheap jibes in some of them. I am a little surprised that Councillors up for election had spare energy to update blogs!!! Politics is about winning but some of the whinning in some of the blogs is not helpful in creating an image of integrity...

I promised to write more about the count on Thursday night. Election days are always exhausting, exhilarating and stressful all at the same time. It's difficult to sleep the night before, and the morning starts early. 7am found me sitting outside a polling station. Around here the tellers from the different parties are generally friendly towards each other and we...

City Councillor’s Report to Oliver’s Battery Annual Parish Meeting 8th May 2006 Not so much an “Annual Report” but a “6 Month Progress Update” in my particular case. Robin Darbyshire moved to London in August 2005 and, naturally, resigned as one of our city councillors. I was delighted to be selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the by-election that took place on 29th September; and even

Currently very excited about the wonders of Wordpress widgets. There’s a real opportunity here to make it incredibly easy for party members to build effective campaigning Wordpress-based sites. Indeed, I’ve just taken a break from coding my first political widget to write this blog entry!

There has been some stress about a letter I wrote to the Sunday Times even though it has not been published. Although I think the letter is quite clear, I would like to ensure that it is clear. The letter is in bold italics, any comments in normal text. CONGRATULATIONS on your article Innocent parents accused of abuse (News, April 23). The problems of innocent parents do not stop there. I think

Despite the best attempts at news management by Blair and New Labour after the hammering the Labour party suffered at the polls on Thursday, the headlines of the Sunday papers all spelt out bad news. Blair reshuffled quickly so the front pages had to report on that. The local elections were still covered but were pushed down the news agenda. But with two letters doing the rounds demanding

Charles Clarke offered Tony Blair his resignation twice over the foreign crimianls scandal. Blair refused to accept both resignations. Then Clarke came out fighting, telling everyone who would listen that he would sort the mess out and saw no reason why he should resign. Quite why he had seen a reason to resign twice was never made clear. More revelations came out over the Home Office mess but

Peter Hain has kicked off the Labour campaign in Blaenau Gwent with an apology to the voters for taking them for granted and imposing an all-women shortlist on them in 2005. I watched the interview on the BBC Wales opt-out on the 'Politics Show'. Hain was at pains to come across like the prodigal son: "I'm saying sorry to them (people in Blaenau Gwent). We got it wrong last time. "We sought to present a choice of women only and we over-rode local party wishes and the wishes of the people of Blaenau Gwent. ...

The British Library is hosting an exhibition, Front Page: Celebrating 100 Years of the British Newspaper 1906-2006, opening on 25th May, and running through until October. No matter that the internet now provides many of us with our primary source of news, newspaper front pages can, at their best, provide a memorably unrivalled expression of a national mood. Or, at their worst, they can

Yesterday Ross, Skye and Inverness West Liberal Democrats unanimously re-adopted John Farquhar Munro MSP to stand in next years Scottish Parliamentary Elections. The adoption meeting had to be held on a Saturday afternoon to give everyone in this geographically huge constituency chance to get there. It was particularly pleasing to see Charles Kennedy there together with his wife and son. Both he

The winner is one of the defeated Tories in Camden's Kings Cross ward: Jamieson Corfield Crosby Hunkin Thanks to Susanne Lamido for the link to the Camden results.

You could try: Tim Worstall's BritBlog Roundup; The First Post's digest of the Sunday papers.

Later today I am flying off to Pakistan to take place in something called 'Dialogue between Muslim word and the west', basically there are eight 'young political leaders' (not sure if I am more flattered by being described as young or a political leader) from the UK who are going to Pakistan to discuss politics with Pakistani equivalents. I am one of the two Liberal Democrats that are going, the other being Ellen Kelly - I am not 100% sure how I was selected but the International Office told me I have been nominated by someone to go.

I've just heard Reid claiming that people want New Labour and they're not voting Labour because they think Labour is going back to the 80s. What rubbish. It is true that a reversion to the 1980s style Labour Party will lose Labour power, but it is not this people are concerned about, it is the failure of the New Labour project. Nine years ago, people hoped that it would be a new era of politics.

There is one small downside to the result we had, and that is that we won all three seats with about 47% of the vote.Being comitted to electoral reform and a more proportional electoral system it is somehow an unsatifactory result. However, we do have to fight in the current system, and that gave us victory here, but meant in other parts of the borough there is no LibDem representation despite receiving almost as many votes as Labour. Thinking about PR, surely the London local elections are the perfect place for STV, multi member constituencies already, it would enable people ...

Despite my fretting at the count (see below), the Lib Dems made big gains in Lewisham (I had very very little part to play in this, I must stress! All I did was a day’s delivery, and a website for the mayoral candidate) with 10 new councillors. What I saw of the campaign was impressive - [...]

There is a truism that the more out of touch a dictator gets, the more extravagant his wife's hairstyle becomes. In other news, there are people "out to topple" the Prime Minister. Of course in a parliamentary democracy, it is quite legitimate for MPs to seek to topple the Prime Minister, particular one who sees fault in everyone but himself. One who can sack a foreign secretary, apparently, for

Sunday 7th May 2006 - We're back now the elections are over and how with one seat held and another gained last Thursday in the local council elections. As well as defending my own seat we won Halewood South from Labour with Dot Birch winning with a majority of 43 in a tight fought contest. Now the biggest party in Halewood, the Lib Dems are justifiably well chuffed with those resuts!!

The Sunday Times reports that the Metropolitan Police are considering a complaint, which claims John Prescott committed the offence of misconduct in a public office by carrying on his affair during working hours: Legal experts say the offence — which has previously carried a sentence of community service — applies to all public servants including councillors and government ministers. The complaint has been lodged by Alistair Watson, a retired Glasgow police officer, who helped to bring about a criminal inquiry into cash for peerages when he wrote to the police about alleged inducements to fund city academies. ...

It seems that this saga is going to run and run. At every turn there are problems and it is very hard to see a way out of this. There is a Prime Minister who has won an election but has been forced out of office yet still leads his party. The election is incomplete and so potentially invalid and yet many candidates have been legitimately returned. Parliament cannot convene and elect a new Prime minister. The Election Commission is under threat and yet Senators cannot be confirmed and if the Election Commission were to resign then there would be ...

Today's Wales on Sunday carries most of the background story to Tory AM, Glyn Davies' resignation from his party's front bench. This includes the bitterness that has grown up around the hamfisted attempt to install fellow Mid and West Wales AM, Lisa Francis, above him on the list (it failed) and the tensions that exist between Glyn and his Group Leader, Nick Bourne. Glyn has never made any secret of his ambition to lead the Assembly Tory Group, but whether there will be an opportunity to do so or not is another matter. In the Welsh Liberal Democrat ...

I'm resuming this blog now that the elections to Lewisham Council are over. I suspended it because I was told it would have to have an official Lib Dem imprint, and its contents would have had to be cleared with my election agent. Quite frankly, this is not that sort of blog. But it's now peacetime, and I can get back to writing what will always be a rather personal take on politics in Lewisham, and what I'm up to as a (re-elected) ward councillor. The Liberal Democrat team fought hard in Lewisham Central, and I have ...

The journey takes 9 days. The train from Stoke-on-Trent to Southampton takes 4 hours. At Southampton one takes the Cunard Queen Mary to New York which takes 5½ days. The rest of the journey is by train, one day to Toronto and two days from Toronto to Edmonton. This information came from Mark Smith's stupendous website: The Man in Seat 61. Unfortunately we will have to travel by air, 11 hours from Heathrow to Calgary and one hour from Calgary to Edmonton. I booked our tickets this week. We are leaving Staffordshire on 2nd June when Pickfords finish packing our ...

Devastating news - the result in Islington. After the success of 2002, what a knock-back. We are back to square one, our position in 2000, the year we won the Hillrise by-election and took over control of the council. Such mixed emotions over the last few days - didn't know whether to laugh or cry - now I'm downright angry. We've lost our Council Group leader Steve Hitchins (what a shock, everybody thought he was invincible - least he thought he was) and sadly as the knock-on effect some of the key heavyweights like Bridget Fox (Deputy Leader) ...