LibDem Blogs - Archived!

I have just finished watching Al Gore: The Climate Crisis (bargin basement produced) interview with Al Gore on More 4. It was entrancing albeit in a liberal fantasy way. (the consensus being that he won't run and if he does that he will lose) Nevertheless it was good TV. A simple explaination of the Science, practical suggestions for change, gravitas laden setting out of the challenges but optimistic exposition that we can do this. I particularly enjoyed the War analogies. His evocation of Churchill and the "gathering storm" was a rhetorical flourish that I will shamelessly steal. However of more ...

Why are people (examples here, here and here) so bitchy about the fact that Beckett enjoys taking caravan holidays? Surely this is one of the few endearing things about her?

Our three major political parties have each had their own big media stories in the last few days. For Labour, John Prescott has, once again, become the easy butt of easy jokes, having been paparazzied playing croquet last Thursday afternoon. For the Tories, David Cameron has garnered a good few column inches for his list of favourite tracks on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. And, for the Lib

Your Political Profile: Overall: 5% Conservative, 95% Liberal Social Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% LiberalHow Liberal Or Conservative Are You? I expected to come out overwhelmingly Liberal but this is ridiculous. I suppose the problem is that it is an American quiz and thus a bit two-dimensional in a British context.

The online petition that Mark Pack and I set up to back Don Foster’s campaign to allow people to take alcohol into cricket grounds has been somewhat more successful than we expected. At the time of writing, 793 signatories and climbing.

Monday 29th May 2006 - Is anyone else already sick of hearing about the build up to the World Cup?? Or am I the only one tired of hearing what Wayne did next.................hold the front page Wayne managed to go to the toilet today all on his own.....the medical team reported this was great news for Sven and the boys..................come on surely to goodness there are more important things

As I’m only about 8 weeks away from setting out on my walk, time for an update as my body now seems to be willing to work properly again and has got over the teething problems, aches and pains. So, as promised, here’s what you can do to help while I’m walking. First and foremost, you [...]

Yes, I’ve made another video. This time, it’s the Flaming Lips on Platform One for Do You Realize (It’s The End Of The World)?. (Download information here)

So who is the world’s first Liberal podcaster? It’s possible to make a case for Gladstone with his 1888 recording on a wax cylinder for Thomas Edison (and you can understand from this extract of the Gladstone recording on the Liberal Democrat History Group website just how resonant and impressive his voice must have been). [...]

Kingston Green Fair is always full of unusual and delightful surprises. At its heart it is a "celebration of sustainability" - everything is powered by wind, sun or bicycle. It takes place every year on the Spring Bank Holiday beside the Thames in Canbury Gardens. After an early shower, which had us all running for the Green Homes Exhibition tent, the weather was kind...

One of Earth's possible futures is what PZ Myers calls "Wallowing in Poverty and War and Desperation". It's what happens if we run out of resources. James White's 1979 novel, "Underkill" describes in detail what sort of life we might have in such a grim world. It's long out of print but a few copies are available secondhand from the likes of Amazon. White's books are normally optimistic, with

I was sad to hear the news today of another two British Soldiers being killed in Iraq. I was more disturbed to hear that the total is now 9 in May alone. I was also disturbed that this news was third and then fourth on Five Lives new agenda this afternoon. It was only a week or so ago when I posted on British troop deaths loosing its "Headline News" status. However today I got that sinking feeling that not only are things in Iraq getting worse but due to familiarity and boredom we are collectively forgeting about our ...

Peter McGrath very usefully mentioned this posting by PZ Myers which asked the question "Will the 'human' race be around in 100 years? Myers speculates on three possible outcomes: 1. We keep going as we have been. The population is double what it is now or more, and resources are scarcer. We continue to tear at the planet, squabbling over what's left, and we're wallowing in poverty and war

I, for one, am much happier with John Prescott playing croquet than thinking that he may have his hand otherwise on the nuclear button. There are very few ministers (and I don't think Tony Blair is one of them) who are actually capable of running anything properly. That is the underlying difficulty in which the country currently is. New Labour are good at spinning, but useless at making

Guido Fawkes seems to have spotted my post of a couple of weeks ago...

In my final year as a student my room over looked the College croquet lawn. It doesn't fit the sterotypes to complain about being disturbed by Anti Social croquet players but they could get very het up. I suspect John Precott is the victim of counter intuitive skiving. If he had been spotted comming out of the Bookies or having parked one of his Jags outside a pie and mash shop then would this really be a story? However croquet doesn't summon up working class roots but Pimms and posh people. Having observed croquet first hand and knowing how competitive ...

We have plans to spend next weekend at the Guardian Hay Festival and accordingly tickets have been purchased for a number of events, including Alan Alda on the Saturday night. Not having done the booking myself I was intriqued by Carolyn Hitt's description of the experience in this morning's Western Mail. So much so that I had to check it out for myself. Sure enough on the checkout screen of the Hay Festival site the drop down menu for 'Title' provides a wide choice of prefix. There is Professor, Lord, Lady, and Princess as well as the more common ...

But some of the questions shouldn't really be restricted to just two possible answers.... Your Political Profile:Overall: 45% Conservative, 55% LiberalSocial Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% LiberalPersonal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% LiberalFiscal Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% LiberalEthics: 25% Conservative, 75% LiberalDefense and Crime: 75% Conservative, 25% LiberalHow Liberal Or

Can Al make it? That seems to be the question consuming many US political commentators, despite the fact that Gore himself denies any interest in the job. As we all know, that's the surest sign of enthusiasm for the Oval Office. Or at least, for political commentators it is. Gore has long been a political hero. In fact, it seems that pretty much anybody who is a laughing stock in the US is a politician I liked (Kerry, Carter, we could go on). I find it hard to believe that he'd resist another Presidential run if he was convinced that ...

First I should note that here I am talking about the principle of conservatism not the Conservative and Unionist Party (which often seems far from conservative, often its more reactionary than anything else). By conservatism, I mean the resistance to change and the urge to keep things the same and maintain the status quo. I've come to realise that this is an important instinct. We are all

As I've mentioned before, the Liberal Democrats lost control of Winchester earlier this month. The Tories now have 29 of the 57 council seats to our 21 (plus 3 Labour and 4 Independents). We're in the process of learning a little about what life under a Conservative administration is all about. Obviously the Tories have all the Cabinet portfolios, although they've created some strange and

Much to my own personal surprise, I find myself a millionaire today. There are more than 30,000 Vietnamese Dong to the Pound so, on arrival, I hit the first ATM I found (for those of you planning on visiting Ho Chi Minh City, there are two at the airport and both accept Abbey-issued VISA ATM cards) and withdrew 2,000,000 Dong, in crisp 50,000 Dong notes. So, what do I think of Vietnam so far?

Amnesty International have launched a new website, Irrepressible, to fight internet censorship. As regular readers (if there are any) know, I'm a huge fan of freedom of speech as the best way to fight totalitarian and authoritarian governments, so I have signed up to their pledge: "I believe the Internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and

Just back from one of my trips over to Indiana and Chicago. Several things strike me about the USA, apart from the cars and huge portions of food and real lemonade. The first is how militarised the country seems. Its not a case of guns being everywhere (the only guns I see tend to be carried by the police, which in itself is unnerving) but things like special veterans number plates on cars an MIAPOW (Missing In Action, Prisoner of War) bumper stickers (probably people who have relatives who are in that MIAPOW). It all leads to me feeling ...

I imagine everyone will have read the Femail interview with Clare Short. Clare has fallen in love again - and you don´t need to be a devotee of GWB to agree that this is a fine thing. But she can´t get away from politics, our Clare. if love has mellowed Clare in many ways, she has lost none of her burning political passion. A fierce critic of Tony Blair, she admires Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell - 'a real gentleman' - but has little time for David Cameron. 'He is doing another Blair,' Clare says. 'Very slick ...

This posting on The Snow in the Summer or So-So was also found via The Virtual Stoa. It was written on the death of John Profumo and says of him: He was the penultimate surviving member of the 37th (1935-45) Parliament, having entered at a by-election for Kettering in 1940. The remaining member is Wing-Commander Ernest Rogers Millington, the Commonwealth (later Labour) MP for Chelmsford from January 1945 until the 1950 election. Of the 1945 intake, only Michael Foot (Lab, Plymouth Devonport), Maj. John Freeman (Lab, Watford, subsequently to host Face to Face), David Renton (Nat Lib, Huntingdonshire), and ...

Lots of local issues tackled this week including : * Useful site visit with two Tait's Lane residents and an officer from the Planning helpful discussions over Tay Bridge and other transport issues.

(This is by Tabman) It seems that the media love-in with "Dave" Cameron is showing signs of coming to an end. Admittedly, the Independent was never going to be chief cheer-leader for the Witney Wunderkind, but today's Third Leader examines the spinning coming from Cameron's choice of music on Desert Island Discs: Oh for the days when people said what they meant and meant what they said. The days when - to take one quite random example - the castaway on Desert Island Discs chose a Brahms concerto or a Mozart mass or even "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in ...

Iain Dale has been pondering who should be the Conservative candidate in the Bromley & Chislehurst by-election: I have looked through the names on the 'A' List on ConservativeHome and I keep coming back to two names. Tim Collins and Laura Sandys. In this kind of situation I think Tim could be a good bet. He will be able to deal with the media, is combative as well as being tenacious.Tim Collins? We should be so lucky. For Collins played an honourable part in the crippling of the Conservatives as a political force. John Major made his famous Back to ...

{Opera Mini} Whilst I'm not too keen on the full browser (being a Firefox fan), I have to say that Opera Mini is great.It works on most modern mobiles, is free* to use and make web browsing on the phone much nicer.As a P910 user I already have Opera Mobile installed, but Mini is a whole lot faster and a lot smoother.You can download it easily by pointing your wap browser to this urlhttp://mini.opera.com/ then following the steps. * If you download it via your phone, you will need to pay the GRPS charges for the software. Also ...

Today's news that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have named their new baby daughter, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt bring to mind that famous scene from Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian', starring Aberystwyth's very own Sue Jones Davies. Shiloh is a Hebrew word which translates roughly as "the peaceful one" and is taken by Christians to mean the messiah. 'New Messiah' may prove to be burdensome and overly pretentious name for the child of two film stars or indeed, for any child. It may be said that Pitt and Jolie have an over-inflated view of their own importance. N.B. Can ...

The question on everyone's lips is: "If he'd been engaging in a game of footy with a pie in one hand and a bag of chips fried in lard in the other, whilst wearing a flat cap... would anyone have cared he didn't have his head down, vexing over the affairs of state?" They would? In which case, does it matter he was playing croquet? Or even wearing white trousers for that matter - hasn't anyone

The news that two West Lothian men died while attending a stag party in Blackpool came on the day David Livingstone, who was killed in car crash in Bathgate last Saturday, was due to be married. Barry Bryce from Armadale and Scott Hunter from Blackridge got into difficulties when a wave swept them off steps on the sea wall. My thoughts and prayers are with the families involved.

Quoting Richard Littlejohn is not going to become a habit, but this is definitely worth repeating: You could hear his tyres pound,As they raced across the ground,And the clatter of the wheels,As they spun round and round,And he pedalled into Westminster,His helmet on his head,His name was Davey,And he rode the fastest push-bike in the West. Now Davey had a chauffeur,A fella known as Bill,He followed Davey in the car,From his home in Notting Hill.They said Davey was a hypocrite,For cycling into work,With his bags and clothes in a Lexus,The two-faced little berk.They called him Davey,And he rode the fastest ...

As I was queuing at the superb Victoria park cafe yesterday, I took advantage of a copy of the "Mail on Sunday" which they had available for customers. I wouldn't otherwise buy such an organ. I read the story about John Prescott's game of croquet. I suppose its significance is emblematic more than anything else. Of course, it is ludicrous that Prescott is getting paid so much money to chair the

Once again, I was amazed by the variety of events at the Newbury Fringe Festival. As usual there were lots of things for children to join in with. My daughter was captivated by an illustrator and children's author, Simon Murray, who showed her and other children how to draw his new character the Icky Doo-dah. We also enjoyed the glass painting in the library and an impromptu demonstration of an