If Nick Clegg felt he was having a bad day, Chris Huhne had his own problems. A young female journalist confessed to eagerly pursuing the Environment Spokesman down a corridor. Unfortunately, when she sprinted round a corner after him, she slowly realised she had followed him into The Grand’s gents. Huhne’s reaction is not known. 
The next big idea is the one that says 75% of public money should be raised locally. Where money is raised is where power resides. I fear we are scared of saying the inevitable. Whatever we think of them we will need to create a democracy with fewer MPs and more Councillors and certainly beefed up Councils. I don’t say this as one myself - I say it as we need to `landerise` our ailing democracy rather like that in Germany. Labour are incapable psychologically to do it - they have great learning difficulties about this. In any case it ...
It is clear that there was a big shift in thinking in 1979. People were willing to vote for someone saying unsayable things to make a change. In 97 it was the same. There are I believe two shifts going on in politics. The first is the complacency of the Brown Government that has, I believe, prodded Mervyn King to release billions of pounds worth of money to prop up a frothy economy. It’s no doubt that the US are to blame with their rate cut this morning. FACT: We can’t keep on spending our way out of trouble and ...
Like others I am clearly getting pissed off with the media and this obsession with Ming’s age. It is clearly undisguised ageism. My view is that `Those that can. Teach. Those that can’t work for newspapers`. I ask you would it be better to have Dave Cameleon who hardly knows what day of the week it is let alone policy and philosophy. Or the `pretending not to be flash, Gordon` who clearly is so spineless he can’t offer a view on Iraq. I await with eagerness Ming’s speech tomorrow (Don’t let us down Ming!) and to then pounding the streets ...
I did the logical test and it confirms everything I thought. Yes, my logic is not always 100%, but it pretty damned good all the same ! You Are Pretty Logical You're a bit of a wizard when it comes to logic While you don't have perfect logic, you logic is pretty darn good Keep at it - you've got a lot of natural talent in this area!How Logical Are You?
Rudolph Giuliani is trying to raise his international profile in an attempt to get selected as the Republican candidate for the US presidential elections, but does so bu making stupid ill informed comments about the UK and the NHS. He said today "I had prostate cancer seven years . My chance of survival in the US is 82%; my chance of survival if I was here in England is below 50%." Of course Mr Giuliani had a higher chance of survival. He is a rich man. Perhaps we should ask Mr Giuliani what chance a poor worker in America has ...
One of the things non-party members (who usually go by the name, ‘normal people’) are most curious about is what those of us who go actually do at a Lib Dem party conference. Usually it’s a heady mix of full-on policy debates (so much more exciting if there’s a knife-edge vote which could defeat the leadership), fringe meetings (which the more ambitious MPs will attend half a dozen or more), and
... one might think that Nick Clegg's seemingly unprovoked admission to a youthful indiscretion looks suspiciously like pre-empting the kind of scrutiny that would come with a leadership campaign. Of course I'm sure nothing is further from his mind.
The 4th and final photo op I had organised for candidates was held this morning. It was about Labour's post office closure plans. Lembit Opik is the Shadow Business and Enterprise Secretary so the photos were with him. There was no Cheekie Girl in tow.I spent some time this afternoon putting photos onto the parties website. Most are not taken by me but by Alex Folkes. However, mine filled a few
It genuinely came as no surprise to hear this morning that David Cameron is the most unpopular of all the party leaders. I have friend in positions in which they meet David Cameron in both the Tory Party and the Lib Dems, and whilst people told me of the genuine warmth of people like William Hague and particularly Iain Duncan Smith, I have heard nothing but bad things about David Cameron. Whilst he may have attracted people to the Tories, some people are actually repulsed by him and would find it impossible to join a party that had as vacuous ...
Most products that are not up to the job are usually described as being only fit to wipe your backside with. However, Tesco have developed a product that does not even do this. A friend of ours who also has a young child decided to give Tesco nappies a try, only to find that they fail to stick properly and literally fall apart. A dodgy batch she assumed, so bought another pack thinking Tesco cannot make a product that is that bad. She was wrong. It appears that Tesco nappies are not even fit to wipe your backside with. Okay, ...
We had a Party Conference Broadcast this evening. The title was "Environment Action Now". It had a straight-forward narrative involving the floods in July. Ming appeared against that backdrop. He was in "animated mode". I know, the electrodes had been applied. Ha Ha. But I did find his words and body language reasonably arresting. What more does he have to do? Streak? It was a nice touch to see
This afternoon was my big set-piece speech in the main conference hall - on international development of course! We need to recognise that one of the big problems with effective foreign aid is that the most effective development projects are the small scale and local – like solar cookers. But these small scale projects don’t scale up well to making a difference to a whole population, to a whole country or to a whole region. So what is to be done?Answers in the full speech on my website.
You know how it is. You’re wandering through Brighton’s Grand hotel, and you bump into former Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy (okay, it was by arrangement, but no matter). What would you ask him? Lib Dem Voice put the following four questions to Charles when we met up earlier today: * What do you think of the [...]
I was able to praise Knaresborough’s scheme to combat plastic bags in the town at the Liberal Democrat’s annual party conference in Brighton today. In a debate on reducing excessive packaging, Liberal Democrat conference delegates heard about the scheme, as featured in the Knaresborough Post, when they agreed to an amendment which called for the consideration of a Plastic Bag levy as used in Ireland. I said that Knaresborough was one of many local schemes across Yorkshire which were in place to try and reduce the mountain of plastic bags estimated to be about 13 billion a year issued across ... 
I am astonished by the notion proposed by Hazel Blears that councils should be forced to respond to petitions which attract more than 200 signatures. Astonished because in Kingston the Council quite rightly responds to ALL petitions. Almost all are sent to the relevant committee with an officer's report with a month or two. The only exceptions are those that are directed at outside...
In the Liberal Democrats’ new film to mark their conference in Brighton, party leader Ming Campbell talks about the urgent need to take action on climate change. It is our duty to future generations to act and to act now. Only the Liberal Democrats have the vision, and the will, and the courage to make sure that the planet remains safe for our children and our children’s children. If you support a move from income tax to green taxes, from people to pollution, please sign the petition now at www.greentaxswitch.com
The media are having fun. This morning Sir Michael White quipped that Ming’s ‘toilet bowl’ photo must have been behind the poll surge reported by his august organ and friend of Lib Dem Voice, The Grauniad. But their main sport is speculating on who will be the next Lib Dem leader - even though, as [...]
Wednesday 19th September 2007 - Among another busy day's activities at the Party conference in Brighton today I managed to fit in a tour of the exhibition and visit many of the varied stands with Baroness Diane Maddock and Charles Kennedy MP. I won't reveal my vote for the best stand on here but it was a tough decision with so many good and creative ways of capturing the delegates attention!
On the telly this evening you can watch the Liberal Democrats’ party political broadcast for conference week. Liberal Democrat Voice, ahead of the game as always, can give you a sneak preview right now. It’s themed on climate change, the thread running through this week’s conference in Brighton. If you’d like to watch it in the traditional, [...] 
Well, as you would have known if you had seen the whole of my BBC interview last Sunday, I predicted that the shine had come off David Cameron and he was in trouble (sadly this bit got erased by the editor). Seems that this has been backed up by the Guardian poll which shows his net disapproval ratings are higher than Ming's. Once again the media were looking in the wrong direction for someone to have a go at. I predict (at the risk of my neighbour Gordon Williams putting a brick through my window!) that before the end of ...
I was helping out in the Lib Dem News office here at Brighton earlier this week. We wanted to use a photograph of Ming's question-and-answer session with Sandi Toksvig on the front page. The trouble was that every shot we had showed a mighty Toksvig lowering over our beloved leader. In the end we had to choose a different picture altogether. I now know why those photos were so bad. The stools had been carefully adjusted and positioned to show Ming to best advantage. Unfortunately, though, when the two of them went out on to the stage they sat the ...
Lord Bonkers has asked to assure everyone who has invested their life savings in his Rutland Rock Building Society that their money is perfectly safe.
I noticed today that although the Treasury web team have created profiles for their new raft of Ministers, they haven’t bothered deleting the old ones. Lazy sods. Still, nothing compared to William Hague. As I mentioned some time ago, his web presence could really do with a makeover.
Duncan Borrowman has the story.
Ming Campbell will use tomorrow’s conference speech at the Brighton conference to challenge the ‘cosy consensus’ established by Labour and the Tories. His chief of staff, Ed Davey, told the press this afternoon that “the Liberal Democrats are here to challenge the cosy consensus” and break up the “joint monopoly” held by the other two [...]
The next Roundup will be posted here at Liberal England on Sunday evening. If you would like to nominate a post to appear there, please send an e-mail to britblog [at] gmail [dot] com giving the link. Any posting from a British-based blog or British-born blogger made this week can be be nominated. And, yes, you can nominate something from your own blog.
If it weren’t for the Guardian, my pedantry would be forever frustrated. I share, at least in part, Zoe Williams’ indignation at the Catholic Church’s opposition to Amnesty International due to their campaign in support of safe and legal abortions for victims of rape and incest. However, this latest episode has nothing to do with faith schools. As far as I understand it, government funding to
To paraphrase old Rudyard, we should treat our triumphs with the same contempt that we reserve for our disasters, but it is nonetheless glorious to see Cameron slipping in the opinion polls behind Ming Campbell (credit: Paul Walter. More here). What’s more, this can’t be called a conference bounce since most of the polling was done before conference started. Ming makes the perfectly valid point that if you compare Ashdown and Kennedy’s standings at the same point during their leaderships, they had pretty much the same ratings that he has now, and Newsnight’s decision on Tuesday to misrepresent Ming by ...
Comedy, of course, is comedy. But as the Western world gradually adjusts to formalised same-sex partnerships, it seems a pity that possibly the first mainstream film to be based around one concerns how they can be abused by straight people for social security purposes.
Conference this afternoon debated a motion from Solihull and Meriden local party called "Accounting for the Environment" Conference noted that while the UK domestic economy is currently estimated to contribute just 2% of global emissions, UK companies are responsible for between 12%-15% of emissions globally when international operations are taken into account. The Labour Government restricted the Operating and Financial Review (OFR) in the Company Law Reform Bill to require only the 1,300 firms publicly quoted on the London Stock Exchange to submit environmental and social strategies but the OFR requirement is only enforceable by company shareholders, and legal action ...
I have heard about people being demob happy at the end of term but yesterday the Conservative Assembly Member for Clwyd West proved that there is such a thing as being too happy clappy at the beginning of term as well. Darren Millar is a high-profile Christian, so much so that Labour tried to make an issue of it during the Assembly elections. It was all the more shocking therefore to see him stand up in the Assembly and start to talk about sex in the most gratuitous of ways: Darren Millar: In the Home Office citizenship survey of 2005, ...
Am sat in the Conference Centre preparing notes for a speech that I am due to deliver summating for an amendment in the Middle East debate this afternoon (was also interviewed yesterday about my general views on Lib Dem foreign policy by the BBC World Service, which was great - have to see what goes out today or tomorrow from that). Writing these speech notes, I am reminded of a story about the late Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens, when he was first seeking selection as a Tory Parliamentary candidate. He once showed a colleague his notes for his speech to ...
So you find an Urban Legend, or a largely inaccurate story of any kind, doing the rounds. The thing to do is to put out a calm clear statement setting the record straight. Obvious and logical, no? Well not according to recent studies which suggests that rebuttals can actually lead to a strengthening in belief of the inaccurate information. Take this example: The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either "true" or "false." Among those identified as false were ...
As a senior Lib Dem blogger (that's senior in terms of age, not status or gravitas), I was particularly pleased to see a few forty-somethings and more get shortlisted in the various categories of the 2007 Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards. I was even more delighted to be nominated in the category of best posting, especially as I've never considered myself to be at the standard of some of my
Apparently this has been big State-side, but haven't seen any mention of it over here: If you just can't get enough of politically inspired raunchiness, there's also Obama Girl vs Giuliani Girl and I Like a Boy (dedicated to those serving in Iraq).
Let’s not be too po-faced… of course there’s some discussion at conference about who will succeed Ming come the time. As Chris Huhne told Lib Dem Voice today, “the cat’s out of the bag” that he’d like to be the party’s leader one day - after all, he did come from nowhere to finish as [...]
Ten weeks ago, I was an inveterate townie, whose viewpoint of the countryside was that it made an excellent place to keep things that I could eat (cows, pigs, chickens and the like), the view out of the window on train journeys more interesting and generally filled the gaps between places I have to go to for meetings. You can therefore imagine my surprise when I found myself sitting in a meeting
The lunchtime news is still insisting that the main topic of conversation at Conference is the Leadership. It's not. But one interesting thing did come out, the strength of the what the press are calling the parties Young Turks. We do seem to have a number of very talented people coming through. Not just MP's either, the Leader of Liverpool City Council, Councillor Warren Bradley, spoke passionately and eloquently about his City at the reception Liverpool gave to celebrate being European City of Culture 2008. Any Council would want him as leader, and if he became an MP he'd give ...
Wolverhampton Liberal Democrats' successful Park Ward campaign has won the Albert Ingham Award at the Party's conference in Brighton. The Award is in recognition of campaign that saw Robin Lawrence elected in May.
Last Saturday I attended Barnet police station's open day. It was an excellent event with a number of community groups represented. One organisation that was there was the Rolling Base which is a bus owned by Barnet Community transport http://www.rollingbase.co.uk/ The bus does valuable work with young people but its funding runs out next year and as yet it is unclear where new funding will come from. The other problem is that there is only one bus and only one driver. In order to raise funds the bus also visits areas outside Barnet if they have funds to pay for ...
For the first time in living memory, Guido Fawkes has a good story. It seems that the Institute for Public Policy Research - traditionally New Labour's favourite think tank - received substantial funding from Northern Rock. There's no suggestion of impropriety, but it is interesting to know all the same.
Far away from Brighton, the Shropshire Star continues to display its unrivalled news values: Duck race cancelled
As David Heath alluded to, the media are studiously ignoring any discussion of democracy at this conference, so it’s incumbent on those of us who happen to think it is important to report what has been decided. Much as I agree with the motion on packaging, the fact that it has been prioritised (by whom? the media? the press office?) over and above proposals to fundamentally change our constitution is appalling. I’m pleased that For the People, By the People was passed overwhelmingly and unamended. And while I only got to make a one-minute intervention, I’m pleased that there were ...
Imagine spending $20+ million on a high-profile video game only to find that puritanical film-industry censors deny you the ability to market your product, even to consenting adults. A couple of months ago, The British Board of Film Classification, the organisation who put those age-certificates at the start of home-videos and movies decided not to award a certificate to Manhunt 2, effectively banning this product from both the retail and rental markets. This week, the British government has publicly backed the BBFC’s position on Manunt 2. Rockstar have two options - either modify their game such that it is compatible ...
Conference this afternoon debated the Better Governance Policy Paper - For the People, By the People. Conference agreed that there is a serious crisis in British democracy, marked by low - and declining - turnout in elections, widespread disillusionment with politics and politicians, a sense among the electorate of powerlessness to achieve change and public alienation from the political process, particularly among the young and ethnic minorities. Conference welcomed the Green Paper from the Government, The Governance of Britain. Conference noted that major changes both to the structure and personnel of government took place in June 2007 with no recourse ...
It's Wednesday morning - so it's time for another conference diary webcast: Running time: 83 seconds
Or is it? The Guardian are reporting that the Lib Dem's poll ratings have gone up to 20%, finally breaking back into the 20s after a slew of summer teen ratings. I've been critical of Ming, I'll admit, but this turnaround is worthy of praise - especially considering David Cameron, who has been resorting to dog-whistle politics in recent weeks, with is focus on crime, immigration and the EU, has
I have another piece on Comment is Free this morning... At home in the stalls If you want know what the Liberal Democrats are really like, don't listen to the debates in the conference hall. Don't even go to the fringe meetings that fill every function room in Brighton. These days they are organised by outside pressure groups here to seek the party's support rather than by Lib Dem members themselves. Instead, you should visit the stalls area to see the way that the homemade and well-meaning sits alongside the professional and ambitious. In a good year, commercial stalls can ...
Just when you thought it was safe another party leadership election gets underway - and a year early at that.
Whilst the press would like you to believe that the talk of the Conference bar is Ming, it’s actual who is going to replace Simon Hughes as our President in 2009! Campaigning has started early as people arrived at Conference wearing I’m 4 Ros badges. In a panic the John Smithson campaign had to be launched much earlier than planned and Theo got John Smithson for President badges made up on the LibDem Image stand. And last night the Lembit campaign started handing out stickers as they felt left behind. {I'm 4 Ros} {John Smithson for President} {I Pik Opik} ...
In his final webcast from this year’s Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton, Ming Campbell talks about today’s debate on reforming the UK’s political system to better connect politicans with the population, and comments on today’s ICM poll.
Conference today debated the issue of excess packaging. Total domestic waste produced in Britain has increased 21% since 1997, to over 26 million tonnes and whilst household recycling in the UK has increased from 6% to 23%, but this has only managed to keep pace with the total increase. A large proportion of this waste, around 5 million tonnes, is made up of packaging and packaging accounts for around 17% of the average household food budget.
I did a quick cut and paste last night about the ICM poll showing Cameron behind Ming and Brown in the popularity stakes. Yes! Ming is more popular than Cameron. So stick that in your pipe, oh detractors, and smoke it! James quite rightly says that it is the Tories who should now be tearing themselves apart. Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian concludes that Cameron has not stayed the course of
Lots of coverage today about Loan Sharks - an obvious, and criminal if they are not registered lenders, example of taking advantage of people's misfortune. But this got me thinking about the less obvious ways in which low income people can be conned. Recently I got a leaflet through the door, and I imagine everyone living in my area did too, about a saving scheme (aimed at Christmas) where you paid in money and got vouchers for high street stores. You could get the vouchers and then carry on paying for them. On the face of it (and as long ...
I had to take time out from the LibDem conference in Brighton yesterday, to go up to London to give a presentation to a group of government information officers from an eclectic range of countries including Bahrain, Nigeria and Singapore, on how the government, the opposition and individual politicians in Britain communicate with the public. This is something I do at least once a year, but this was the first time that I was able to talk about Tony Blair in the past tense. Would that Downing Street ’spin’ had equally been consigned to history, but Gordon Brown and his team ...
Here's the photo of metaking part in my own photo op yesterday with Vince Cable cutting income tax!
Got home from Conference last night. Had to come away early as we have Planning tonight and Licencing tomorrow, and we're pretty busy on the home front. I went along to the debate between Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, which Andrew Neil was touting as an unofficial husting on the leadership challenge. He had a couple of mugs, one with Clegg badges and one with Huhne badges, I took a Clegg badge and watched Neil being filmed declaring Clegg the winner of the straw poll. The room was packed, so packed that Huhne was told, 'sorry mate it's full' when ...
The Archbishop of Wales is absolutely right when he argues that the controversial “Anglican Covenant” – a peace plan to keep disparate elements of the Anglican church united – could leave Anglicans with different views on homosexuality no option but to leave the communion: Dr Morgan said, “The original intention of a covenant to affirm the bonds of affection, was good. The indications now are that many see it as a contract, a means of ensuring a uniform view on human sexuality enforceable by the threat of exclusion from the Communion if one does not conform. I certainly do not ...
My New Statesman Conference blog is here.
Tonight, whilst veh, veh drunk, I was introduced to some poor unfortunate whose surname, according to his conference badge, was Cory, and dredging up my Simon and Garfunkel memory, I asked him if he knew Richard Cory. He had a vague recollection but the fine gentleman I was with, who claimed to own a “Best of” Simon and Garfunkel CD, had no idea idea who Richard Cory was either. This led to me quizzing the next 20 or so people who came to the bar I was standing near - “Do you know who Richard Cory was? He owned one ...
The above title is also the name of Henry George’s greatest work (which I strongly recommend everyone on the planet to read). I mention this because, while the Lib Dems broadly voted the right way during their poverty debate yesterday afternoon (certainly in rejecting the option to support differential age rates for minimum wage), I couldn’t help but feel there was an enormous Georgist hole in the paper. Why? Because despite what we managed to do today, you can’t divorce taxation from issues relating to poverty. One point I didn’t make this morning was that one of the other poor ...
I got a response from the BBC today about my complaint regarding Jonathan Sacks’ programme on Rosh Hashanah a couple of weeks ago in which he lauded a Jewish school which had a multi-faith intake while, off-camera, doing everything he can to prevent faith schools from having to have a minimum intake of pupils of other faiths and none. The response is as follows: Dear Mr Graham Thank you for your e-mail regarding ‘Rosh Hashanah 2007′ on 9 September. I understand that you had concerns over how the issue of faith schools was dealt with in the programme. This programme ...
The other day I attended a Fringe event about young people. At the age of 20, I probably count as one myself, especially in the context of conference. The listing in the fringe guide was as follows: MTV and Electoral Reform Society Are you listening? A panel of young people take politicians to task. 18.15 – 19.30 Old Ship Hotel, Gresham Suite And that would indeed be a fairly accurate
Unfortunately this year I am not at the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference, which started on 15th September. A long period of unemployment, Ramadhan and plans for a trip abroad later this year just mean it is unaffordable this year. | < | September 2007 | > | ||||
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