Tomorrow (Monday) night 9pm - 10pm sees my first appearance on 18 Doughty Street as a guest on Blogger TV. The Monday of Labour conference with a possible General ELection in the offing, the first show since our conference, the day that Iain Dale's Guide to Political Blogging 2007 is published and the week that several political blogs were taken down thanks to an Uzbeki. Should be quite a fun 
Nich Starling has tagged me in the My Political Influences meme. He shall pay... One point, this list is of influences that have shaped my views, not a list of the greatest Liberals or politicians (if that makes sense): But here we go, in rough chronological order of influence: 1. Karl Marx. What! You all say. I read Marx at a very early age. Ok, the trot in me disappeared a long time ago. But
Story of the Week Bloggerheads and Craig Murray's blog have been down for several days following action by lawyers acting on behalf of the Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov. A number of other notable blogs, including those written by Bob Piper and Boris Johnson, have also disappeared, as action has been threatened against the server hosting the blogs rather than the individual writers. The best place to keep up with developments in this sorry affair is Chicken Yoghurt. The Yoghurt carries a list of the people who have blogged about it. It currently totals 193: Curious Hamster, Pickled Politics, Harry’s Place, ...
I have been tagged by Nich with the political influences meme. So here they are. Since my political position is probably not actually final yet (indeed, I kind of hope it never is - I can't see how you can be certain you are right without closing your mind, hence the title of this blog), I have no way of really evaluating who is the most important, so I thought instead I would order the list
We love elections in Epping Forest. Even when they are not planned one seems to pop up. Since May 2006 we seem to have had a by-election in each part of the constituency; Grange Hill, Dec 2006, Buckhurst Hill, April 2007 , local elections in May 2007, Loughton, August 2007, currently a by-election in Waltham Abbey. But, still we may well have a snap general election. The local party in Epping 
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After the recent press about the death of Jordon Lyon, I think people need to ask the following question. Do you expect the Police to save your life? Now it might not seem that hard, but I have the view that the Police are there to protect and the same goes for the PCSOs. If it was two lifeguards, yes I would be asking why they didn’t jump in, but these were two fully clothed PCSOs. It might be “human nature” to jump in, but what if the two officers couldn’t swim? I’m not the best swimmer and I remember ...
Fellow Bearwood blogger Bob Piper is back online. Which means my post Labour Conference - a farce should now make sense! Welcome back, Bob! UPDATE: and he’s back with a bang!
{No not me, I didn't win. It was James Graham} As I had a slight lack of Internet access whilst in Brighton, it took some time to add the Winner Buttons to the “and the winner is“ post on LibDemVoice. However as there are some 40 posts since then I think the winning (and highly commended) authors may have missed them. So here’s a plug. Feel free to use the buttons on your own site, and the same goes for all those who made the shortlist.
Here in BathNES we are one of four Unitary Authorities that used to be Avon. The Government wants local authorities to work in partnership to deliver some of the big strategic goals that are wider than a single Unitary. So the four of us formed the West of England Partnership. Any name to avoid Avon. Actually we are also know as CUBA (Councilsthat Usedto Be Avon) and the two Somerset authorities...
Welcome to the 31st of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (16th-22nd September), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed. And it’s all a little less conference-dominated than I expected. Here you go, in descending order of popularity: 1. Extraordinary [...]
Today Martin Shapland (Youth Rep on the West Midlands Liberal Democrat Executive) and I attended the Fresher's Fayre at Keele University. It was much more politically than some Universities with five political parties represented.
It's there in black and white, supported 100% by Gordon Brown - "We [the Labour party] will introduce as a general rule a fixed Parliamentary term."Oh - the date of the commitment? The 1992 Labour manifesto as supported by one G Brown. I agree with him - the 1992 vintage that is. It shouldn't be down to just one person - the Prime Minister - to decide whether or not to hold an election (and making that decision based on their own party's self-interest). I want to see fixed-term Parliaments, with provision for early elections if (a) the government loses ...
You may have noticed that an "I'm 4 Ros" button has appeared on this blog. This is in support of Ros Scott's candidacy for President of the Liberal Democrats. You can get one yourself from Duncan Borrowman's blog. The other candidates are likely to be John Smithson and Lembit Opik.
I've only met Ros Scott once - at a small Lib Dem 'do' in Basildon last year. She was charming, warm and funny, someone that people can easily relate to, and I'm delighted that she's standing for party president.
... is Wednesday 5th December at 7pm in the Hook Centre. You may remember that I wrote to the Chief Executive of Kingston Hospital last week because their schedule of roadshows omitted the whole of the southern end of the Borough, and I'm grateful that she has responded so promptly. The purpose of these events is to update us all, and give us an opportunity to comment, on their...
So JSP has expanded on her eloquent remarks the other night on Question Time. Which is nice, since it gives me something a little bit more substantial to try to take apart. So: Fighting to impose his authority on his party at the end of their annual conference last week, Ming Campbell confronted the age issue head on by asserting that his 66 years make him a better leader than David Cameron (40)
If there is one thing that struck me more than anything at this week’s conference, it is that most people are now genuinely at ease with Ming Campbell’s leadership of the party. It is however also true that people are discussing who comes next. What I sensed in the last week is that people are starting to understand where Ming Campbell is coming from, and appreciate that even if it is not what they would have chosen. This is tending to be along the following lines. Firstly, with David Cameron’s personal popularity waning, people are recognising the advantage of having ...
About 15 years ago I used to read the Sunday Times regularly. I have sinced switched to the Observer, although I have had cause to shout at that organ in recent months. The Sunday Times used to run regular articles pointing out that in the UK we paid substantially more on average for food than shoppers in Europe and, particularly, the USA. I have just spent an hour and £10 trying to search the
I have been blog tagged for a new meme by Some Random Thoughts which must be revenge for me tagging him, yesterday on a different meme. This meme asks for my political influences, so here we go , 1) Beveridge - Let us not forget that a Liberal invented the idea of the welfare state and went way beyond his remit in order to come up with his famous report. 2) Norman Lamb MP - I hope all my influences don;t have to be dead as Norman is very much alive. He is everything a local MP should be. brilliantly ...
Yesterday Andrew and I visited a food and drink festival- a sort of small farmers market with stalls from the local allotments and to advertise the new cycling strategy for their area. All good ideas to take away with me for Prestwich! Local councillors had worked on the sub-group of their area committee to organise it - and they are all Lib Dems .... We had to check up on number 2 son who was
The excellent Tory blogger Dizzy, who is also an Evertonian (of course) has discovered plans for an alternative to 18 Doughty Street coming from a Labour point of view. As ever, Dizzy shows us just what a great blogger he is.
Great to see so many people taking part in the London Freewheel mass bike ride today. Traffic was banned from 14km of central London roads to make way for more than 30,000 cyclists. Camden Cycling Campaign members (including Camden Council's Cycling Champion, Cllr Paul Braithwaite) stewarded nearly 100 riders, including many small children safely from Swiss Cottage to The Mall to ride the circuit along the Thames to London Bridge. Paul said: "The most heartening feature, apart from the bonhomie, was the thousands of enthusiastic children who took part. London has truly never seen ANYTHING like it!" Fantastic.
In an analysis piece on the Lib Dem Conference at the end of the week, BBC political writer Nick Assinder wrote “After a conference week dominated by chatter over his leadership, Sir Menzies Campbell needed to meet his critics…” Later in the piece he talks of a week “which was overshadowed by leadership talk”. How does Mr Assinder justify the statement that the week was “dominated by chatter over his Leadership”? In what sense was the week dominated by this question? Was it one of the topics under discussion within the formal conference? Well, there were about 50 motions, debates ...
Thank you to Lynne Featherstone and Nich Starling for tagging me regarding my earliest political memory. At first I believed that I had, with spooky coincidence, already blogged about what I thought was my first political memory the previous day when I reminisced about seeing John Pardoe speak when I was ten. However, Lynne's recollection about the Cuban missile crisis has made me recall
We need a party president with experience, one who will work with the party and tackle some of the bureaucratic nightmares. That's why I am backing Ros Scott. Last night I created this button for blogs. To add it to your blog or website copy and paste this code:
At Labour conference and struggling to type using a godawful metal keyboard which appears to not have a control key (clearly they have a problem with Labour delegates having even that level of power). Blogging will be lighter than last week, at least until I figure out how to access the free internet access. Meanwhile, you might want to visit my guide to Lib Dem bloggers over at Our Kingdom. Oh, and I get a name check on Iain Dale’s guide to political blogging on the Torygraph. It’s all gravy. Anyway, Britain’s Got Talent Finalists the Kombat Breakers are about ...
Now we are out of the relegation zone properly following yesterdays 2-0 defeat of Swansea. That makes seven straight wins and equals our start to the 1973/74 season when we won the title! A repeat would do just nicely. Of course if the Football League had not docked us fifteen points we would already be five points clear at the top. Lets hope that when the FA consider this case that they either overrule the fifteen point deduction or at least send the case to an independent commission.
I was pretty shocked to learn, via Colin Ross’s blog this morning, that a councillor’s blog has been taken down. In fact, his webhost has been shut down as a result of an international legal action which had nothing at all to do with him. Bob Piper is a Labour councillor in Sandwell and I have [...]
I was asked to review Reinventing the State for Liberator. The word limit was 1800 and I found that I could not to do it justice in that space. So I decided to write something else instead, and this article on Mill was the result. You can find it in Liberator 321 - the issue that was on sale at Brighton. A few days later Comment is Free offered to pay me to review Reinventing the State in 400 words. Magically, I found it was possible. Grist to the Mill? More than 200 years after his birth, John Stuart Mill ... 
so here is the first part of what conference was for me; We, as in me, heather, Ryan and Ross, left lincoln just after 9 oclock on staurday morning to drive down to brighton. the drive was ok, didnt hit too much traffic till we got to the M25. we stopped a couple of times and got to brighton around 3, and eventually found our way to the appartment we had rented for the week. it was a very nice place, and very new. we worked out that the building had only been open for about 6-7 mounths. once we ...
Having spent the latter part of the week in Belfast, I have been catching up on the local news on my return. There was a very good leader piece in the Courier last week about disquiet about planning appeal decisions by the Reporter – and in particular the imbalance in appeal rights between developers appealing against a decision by the local authority to refuse planning permission and objectors wishing to challenge a decision to grant permission (the former can appeal; the latter cannot). I have long had concerns about the democratic deficit whereby the planning decisions of local authorities (made ...
Given Iain Dale has tagged me to blog about my first political memory - I cannot resist. The only hesitation I have - is that it somewhat reveals my advanced years! The first time politics impinged on my secure little childhood was when I was watching television in our lounge in the flat in Highgate that I grew up in - Highpoint. I can't remember whether they interrupted the TV or whether it was just on the news - but the newscaster in super-serious tones was talking about something to do with Cuba and nuclear war. I can't say I ...
Andrew Lugovoi, the man accused of murdering Alexander Litvinenko (a constituent of mine) in the radiation poisoning case, should be coming to the UK to face trial on the charges. But instead of being extradited - he is standing for the next Russian Parliament elections for the ... Liberal Democratic Party. Needless to say - they are not the sister party of the Lib Dems here!
Went to The Hall for Cornwall last night to see the History Boys. The Hall is celebrating its 10th birthday this year, and is managing to pull some top productions down, and The History Boys is a top production. The young cast were brilliant and the themes completely relevant. I've heard of people going to see it two or three times, and I can understand that as there are so many ideas being thrown out, you need time to consider them to get the best out of it. We've had a number of the lads staying with us this week, ...
The Daily Telegraph today details some of the internal unhappiness in the Tory party with their leader, David Cameron - the least popular national party leader according to recent opinion polls. The article is headlined ‘Tory pressure as David Cameron effect fades’, and claims: Mr Cameron’s standing in some marginal seats is so bad that some Tory [...]
I spent Friday afternoon walking the streets of Central London wondering how politicians can all be so blind to what is taking place in this great City. Do they choose to purposefully delete out what is taking place right under our noses? You might think that I have lost the plot and that too much Lib Demmery has meant that I am on the slippery slope to joining the ranks of the sentimentalists and idealists. Well, what triggered this introspection? About 2 miles down the road from where I was (Holborn), 'suits' were continuing to make their fortunes, buying commodities, ...
I don't usually give much of a mention to planning committee meetings, but on Thursday I went to one which was remarkable for displays of humanity over the strict letter of planning guidelines, and two rejections by councillors of planning officers' advice in one evening. The first was a church which had been operating without planning permission in an indutrial unit on Thurston Road. Officers recommended rejection of the retrospective application and enforcement action being taken against the church. I felt this was a bit heavy handed, especially as no nearby residents had complained about the church. When one of ...
The Japanese will have a new Prime Minister after the ruling Liberal Democrats chose their next leader. Now people are going to say I am being pathetic now but he does have the comedy name of Mr Fukuda. I have my differences with Ming Campbell, mainly in the areas of policy and presentation, but I have never had a problem with his age. It is interesting that in the UK were are more age obsessed than in Japan. It appears that in Japan, with age comes experience and people like that.
Sanddef has tagged me to talk about my first political memory. I don't usually do memes but I will make an exception in this case simply because it is one that I find interesting. The memory that stands out for me from my childhood is undoubtedly the three day week in 1973. With the exception of budget day, when my father expected us to be able to tell him what the Chancellor had done with tax allowances on his return home from work, it was the one single event that raised my awareness of politics and the perils of governance. ...
The main stream media has now picked up on the unprecedented outrage at the actions of Alisher Usmanov and his lawyers. With thanks to Duncan Borrowman for drawing my attention to the video.
Thought I'd give some publicity to the following e-mail from Lewisham Council: Change in the Legal Purchase Age of Tobacco
I occasionally get very angry when Labour’s sympathisers in the media talk about Labour’s liberalising of Britain. Quite apart from the fact that it will soon be illegal to go to the shops without an ID card in your pocket, the Labour party is deeply illiberal in its campaigns. I’m sure many of you will [...]
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