LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Monday 22nd October 2007

Localising policy making

James Graham has a piece on openDemocracy on policy making in the Lib Dems, in which, amongst other things, he bemoans the lack of local involvement in policy making: That isn't to say that the quality of debate at Lib Dem conference isn't high; the problem is the level of debate up until that point. "Consultation" such as it is involves a three hour debate on the Sunday morning before party conferences followed by a narrow window of opportunity to make written submissions. In many cases the working group will have already pretty much decided 90% of the paper by ...

Save our local Badgers

We big problem today that distract attention from amicable big fun process to choose new Don of Liberali Family. Turn out Labouristi get wise to scam we running to ferry essential pharmaceutical products to deprived rural communities. Initially scam seem like really good idea. I out with Capo 'Jolly' Roger Williams in Little Sicily one day enjoying selling his organic apple moonshine he bring in from Llandrindod Wells. I not remember much about that day but at some point we get to talking about risks of smuggling various things past Untouchables and what to do about it. Lot of stray ...

Moura Budberg: Nick Clegg's great great aunt

Just when you thought the Lib Dem leadership campaign was going to be dull, the press has discovered Moura Budberg. Nick Clegg's great great aunt, she makes even Elspeth Campbell look mundane. As the Mail on Sunday tells it: Of all the many colourful names in the Clegg family tree it is his greatgreat- aunt (sic.) Moura Budberg who stands out above the rest.The Russian-born noblewoman was widely suspected of spying for both the Soviet Union and British intelligence. Sensuously beautiful – and with a distinctly liberal attitude to sex – her life was full of shadowy entanglements and glamorous ...

A bad day

Not a good day. Before 9.30 a.m. there were 3 big problems to deal with at the Community Centre, so John had to drive to our meeting with the Council leader so I could sort out what I could on the mobile phone. It got worse. The lovely play area in Newham Grange Park, where we visited on Friday, has been vandalised. When I went to see what was happening, lots of children and people looking...

Have you made up your mind?

In the guise of Catherine Tate i’ll say `come on it’s just a game, guessing can be fun!`. However, if you’ve made up your mind for Chris or Nick just put that name down on comments and we can do a tally.

Uncle and Mistress Masham's Repose

The Daily Telegraph asked several writers to name their "unsung favourites" amongst children's books. Two of my own favourites are among those named. Will Self chose Uncle by the Revd J.P. Martin: Uncle is an elephant of grandiose character. He lives in a ramshackle castle with a couple of sidekicks, one a monkey, the other a lion who can increase his weight at will. Uncle is really an exercise in materialist excess designed to appeal to the pre-pubescent proto-capitalist. The eponymous hero possesses high-speed lifts, enormous halls, numerous swimming pools etc etc… In the basement there's an oil lake which ...

They’re back!

{In-Clegg-able} {Huhne Monster} And if you’re really lucky I might even throw in a bar-chart!

Snailbeach Mine

While in Shropshire I visited the old mines at Snailbeach. Lead mining ended at Snailbeach around the time of the First World War, but the mineral barytes was extracted here until the 1950s and the spoil heaps were worked for spar into the 1970s. That website, maintained by the Shropshire Mines Trust, will give you a good idea of the surface remains and of the old workings the public can visit on open days. It's all very interesting for the visitor, but I can't help looking back fondly on the Snailbeach mines as they were when I first came across ...

The youth of today

When reading THIS story today about the dreadful attack on an elderly gentleman in London last year, one thing stood out for me. Two school children pursued the man and helped the police track him down. They also went to court very bravely to give evidence. The youth of today are too easily criticised by the media, by those in authority and by society as a whole and it is often forgotten and ignored when they show that the stereotyped view people hold of youths is not correct. It would have been good to see the judge reward these pupils ...

My Dreadful Confession

While I was an undergraduate at Oxford, I did nothing interesting enough to be scandalous Both Nick and Chris are in a spot of bother over dum things they did as teenagers. In Chris’ case it was (probably) writing an article arguing for tolerance of hard drugs and (probably not) taking said drugs. This is the case that is attracting more attention, which is perhaps surprising because the skeleton that has fallen out of Nick’s closet is far more unusual. To quote BBC news, “As a 16-year-old exchange student in Munich, he was given community service after setting fire to ...

BritBlog Roundup 140

Balancing daintily on The Wardman Wire.

TB or not TB?

Having seen David King offer apparently diametrically opposite advice to the Government’s own 9 year study, the only thing I’m reasonably confident of is that badgers like mashed potato. This appears to be the one fact that has not been contradicted in any government report. Surely therefore, the solution is self evident…? Share This

Labour count the cost of the Great Non-Event.

So Labour spent over a million quid on preparations for a snap election... What's more they spent it in quite a dumb way: letters saying "There's an election"; billboard bookings; and other things with no shelf life. That would have been very irresponsible for a skint political party to do just on the off-chance of an election. All the more evidence that Brown's half-cocked Plan A was for a General Election that would be reaching its climax just about now. The Conservatives are saying that they spent very little on snap election preparations - all the more reason, if it's ...

Lib Dems call to account Tory plans to halt Nibley park-and-ride

Liberal Democrat Councillors are appealing to the South Gloucestershire Conservative Administration to rethink their decision to put the Nibley park-and-ride on hold. Councillors Pat Hockey and Claire Young (pictured above at the site) are among five Liberal Democrat councillors who have asked that the decision be reconsidered at the next meeting of the Planning Transportation and Strategic Environment select committee on the 28th of November 2007. The Executive Member issued a press release and started the decision making process without any consultation, despite having made a commitment a few weeks earlier that he would continue the practice of always consulting ...

Why do people always think they are the exception?

Ok, Mr McClintock, which bit of the word legislation do you not understand? It is the law that you are not allowed to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexuality. A law that every one of us is subject to whilst we are in the United Kingdom. What a person chooses to believe, and Christian beliefs are a choice thankfully not predetermined biologically, is not a good enough

'Turkey's Jews Back Ankara's Stance on US Armenian Bill'

Turkey has been getting a lot of attention recently. I thought this was an interesting article, and dimension, one that has not been reported in the West. Most people assume that all Turks are Muslims, when in fact there is a very old and established Jewish community, stretching back to 1492, when the Ottoman Sultans welcomed Jews and offered them safe haven from persecution in European countries like Spain and England. Turkey is one of the few ally's Israel has in the Middle East.

Littlewood and the Westminster Hour

Some interesting points here from Mark Littlewood regarding the Lib Dem leadership contest. I agree with him that Chris Huhne needs to present himself more as a team player, and that Nick Clegg should be wary of relying on a campaign team that nearly lead Ming Campbell to defeat. I also - strongly - endorse the idea that the candidates need to big up their differences, something that both of them appeared to be at pains to minimise over the weekend. Then again, when you attempt to tease out a difference in the gentlest of ways, as Huhne did yesterday ...

Energy Saving Week

This week is Energy Saving Week (according to the Energy Saving Trust). Ideas for starting to save energy and money straight away include: Insulating your cavity wallsFitting a jacket to your hot water tankInsulating hot water pipesReducing your thermostat by 1 degreeNot leaving appliances on standbyFitting energy saving lightbulbsUsing an energy efficient fridge freezerYou can find out more

US tells Turkey to give Diplomacy a Chance!

No, you couldn't make it up! Turkey's former closest ally, the US, joined by the UK Government, is urging her to give diplomacy a chance, before resorting to military action!! In recent weeks, PKK Kurdish militants have reportedly killed more than 40 Turkish soldiers, wounded civilians, and after Sundays attack 8 soldiers are missing, believed to be held as hostages by the PKK. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, who arrived in the UK today, has said that he has not 'had a single positive result from the Bush administration' He faces huge pressure from angry public demonstrations, and ...

Hustings: Yorkshire and Humberside

More details of hustings have been announced, this time in Leeds on Saturday 3rd November, at Leeds Civic Hall from 3pm, following the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Conference. More details on the official site. At the moment, this looks as though it will be the first ‘official’ hustings in that they’re the first to take place after the close of nominations - of course, there’s still scope for something to be organised on Thursday 1st or Friday 2nd.

The food for thought continues...

I am still undecided on the leadership race. We have two excellent candidates declared at the moment. We really are fortunate. But making up my mind between them is difficult. You can't really put a fag paper between them on most criteria. Thanks to the anonymous commenter who kindly pointed me in the direction of Nick Clegg's 2006 speech advocating a Great Repeal Act (Click below if you want to

Imitation, flattery etc

It’s always nice to see Tories seeing the light and realising that we’ve been right on something for years. Lord Hanningfield, and any other Tories who want to get rid of Council Tax, are of course welcome to add their names here.

Christmas Cake!

It's that time of year already - you soak your fruit overnight in brandy, warm the butter and eggs and line the cake tins as well as wrap them up in brown paper. You invite your son to have his Christmas Wish as he stirs the cake mixture .... he's grown up and away from Christmas magic so you make their wishes for them all (it's a very old tradition) .... the cake goes in the oven and needs

Leadership Election: Highly Dubious Poll

This is one of those projects that you only do when you’re at home with a virus instead of at work. Half way through I realised I’d massively underestimated how long it would take… I decided to go through all the blogs on Lib Dem Blogs Aggregated and take a count of who’s declared for Clegg or for Huhne. Bearing in mind this is entirely unscientific and completely unrepresentative of the Lib Dems as a whole, my “research” found that 124 blogs were either, “don’t know”, “won’t say”, “can’t say” or didn’t mention the election at all. 9 Blogs came ...

Rethinking policy

Over at OpenDemocracy / OurKingdom, I’ve written a think piece about how we might rethink the Lib Dems’ policy making process. There’s lots more I could have put in there about increasing the level of deliberation and the role of local parties in the process, but I was wary of getting too technical. With the leadership debate getting into the swing of things, now would seem like a good time to have a debate on this. This is only my first attempt to get my head around things; I accept for example that in practice the difference between short term ...

ID Cards - companies to target

Tristan points us to companies we might like to boycott who are now on he shortlist for contracts related to the ID cards and database: ID Cards - companies to boycott: El Reg gives us the list of companies able to bid for the ID cards contracts. They are: Accenture - BAE Systems - CSC - EDS - Fujitsu - IBM - Steria - Thales {No2ID Logo & Link to No2ID Campaign} Other ways to fight the ID card madness But it got me thinking. Perhaps rather than just boycotting companies whose products, let's face it, most of us ...

control

Last week I was able to go to the cinema for the first time in ages (see previous post). We went along to see Control, the biopic of Ian Curtis, the Joy Division singer and lyricist. I knew it was never going to have a happy ending (as he committed suicide on 18 May 1980), but I wasn't fully aware of how he'd got to that situation, or quite how troubled and disturbed he was (all be it from the perspective of his wife Debbie, who he'd just about left in the days/weeks before his tragic end). The music of ...

back blogging

The last few weeks have been a little bit hectic: conference general election preparation general election stand-down making offers on a house - and all that that entails (mortgages, surveys etc) getting current house into a suitable state to put on market (clearing out old leaflets...) So not too much time for blogging I'm afraid. I'm not going to write much about the leadership contest, as I'm yet another floating voter. I want to wait and see what both are offering before signing up to either of them.

I am no student of ancient culture...

... before I talk, I should read a book. But there's one thing that I do know. There's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia... oh dear... (returns to work, somewhat glumly...)

Maritime Museum

Went to the Maritime Museum at the Albert Dock this weekend. We had a look round the slavery exhibition - really well put together I thought, although we could both think of things that should have been there as well. The museum was really buzzing with people. It was great to see so many families there.

The Connected Republic

I spend a lot of time in my day job and in my free time (yes, weird I know) thinking about how technology can be used to improve public services. So I was pleased to be able to join a project recently that has been set up by a group of colleagues called The Connected Republic. It’s an experiment that I hope will produce some good ideas over time - the kick-off Connected Republic paper is certainly worth a read.

How lo-cal can you go?!

Here’s a niche rant on parish annual audits. As parish clerk for my village I am required to complete an audit, which I fully accept is reasonable to ensure we are not whooping it up at the taxpayer’s expense. However, what is beyond the pale as far as I am concerned is the level of detail required for a tiny village budget. My parish a few years ago agreed to double the precept to afford the purchase of a new burial ground, a one-off expense. The next year we dutifully lowered the precept to the previous level and filed our ...

Ageism article

Good piece in the Guardian today by Jackie Ashley about ageism. She's pointing out how although on the whole commentators will speak out against racism and sexism.. and will go for anyone who attempts to cruelly portray someone who is disabled... there seems to be an open season for those who want to have a go at older people. Now I thought Menzies Campbell was in the wrong job for him and could see there were aspects of the leaders' role he just wasn't right for. But that is no excuse for the level of cruel stuff about age which ...

Chris pledges Charles top job in Shadow Cabinet

In his Question & Answer session with The Independent’s readers, Chris Huhne has said Charles Kennedy should return to a front-line position in the shadow cabinet. “The party needs Charles to come back in a key front line role as soon as possible. He is far too big a talent for him to sit on the subs’ bench rather than play on the field,” said Chris. With all the talk of similar policies, this is at least one issue on which Nick and Chris have set out different stalls. The Clegg campaign want Kennedy to be part of a “council ...

The Lib Dems Are The [INSERT PROPAGANDA HERE] Party

Looking at the first question asked to Chris in the Indy’s “You ask the questions” I thought to myself, well, that looks familiar. Wasn’t it the exact same accusation made by a helpfully on-message talking head that commented on one of my posts yesterday? Isn’t it something that’s been popping up all over the blogosphere, always with the same format. “Blah blah blah. It only goes to show that the Lib Dems are the Blah Party” Well, great, so there’s a semi-organised attempt to spread a blatantly misleading piece of propaganda around in the hopes that if its repeated enough ...

Gwynedd Schools

Despite the fact that many of us have been on the wrong end of a Plaid Cymru rant about how to handle school closures, about the importance of small rural schools and the necessity of keeping them open for the benefit of the language, I have no intention of returning their ire over Gwynedd's school reorganisation plans. They have already lost their Education Cabinet member over these proposals, whilst Councillor Seimon Glyn has resigned from the Plaid Cymru group altogether. Welsh language campaigners are organising parents to protest and no doubt there will be a knock-on effect for the party ...

Independent’s You Ask The Questions

Lib Dem Voice highlights Chris Huhne’s “You Ask The Questions” piece. I remembered that I’d seen Nick doing one a while ago so I thought I’d link that one as well.

You spend your money, you take your chance

This morning's Guardian reports that Gordon Brown's decision this month not to call a general election has left the Labour party with a bill approaching £1m. They say that by Saturday October 6, when the prime minister decided not to go ahead with the election, party officials had sanctioned hundreds of thousands of pounds of expenditure on booking hoarding sites, literature and recruitment of staff, and were at an advanced stage in setting up a media centre to handle daily press conferences. Of course this is not public money, it is Labour's money, and they have responsibility for paying all ...

Leadership contest - ah yes, that diversity question once again…

Nearly two years ago, I attended the hustings meeting organised by Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats, where the three candidates addressed the knotty question of how Liberal Democrats could better reflect the communities they serve. And so it was some interest, and the help of Sandra Gidley MP, whose question it was, that I asked both Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg about the same issue on Saturday.

King Making

It's really good for your ego to be told by strangers in the street that you ought to stand for the leadership of your party. It happened on Saturday in town, yesterday in a shop and this mornin...

Youth End Poverty

You'll recall I was interviewed some months back by Roars Not Whispers regarding different attitudes to poverty in Dundee (click on headline about about this). Arising out of this, Yep Dundee (Youth End Poverty) will launch its first public meeting tomorrow (23rd October) at 7.30pm at DVA, The Number Ten Building, 10 Constitution Road, Dundee. I promised to publicise this on the blog, so here's some of the info about the meeting : "The meeting will last around an hour, and it will be a chance to meet other people involved with Yep, and to start looking at poverty in ...

Report from the first Euro hustings

So the first of Yorkshire & the Humber region’s two Euro hustings took place on Saturday: the first in Sheffield and later in the afternoon in Leeds. Given the delay in members receiving the ballot packs with the details of the hustings, I suppose we should be amazed anybody turned up at all. Inevitable then the numbers were pretty poor: just 11 in Sheffield and about 20 in Leeds and several, in both locations, were family and friends. In addition, only six of the nine shortlisted candidates turned up. Two sent of these sent a statement to be read out ...

Gigbeth countdown, G-10 days

There’s just ten days to go before the big kick-off of Gigbeth 2007. On the face of it, it’s just a music festival taking place across a number of venues. But start to scratch the surface and you’ll see it’s so much more than that. First of all it’s organised by the Learning & Skills Council, which helps to explain the variety of events taking place over the weekend, in addition to the gigs. There’s a conference, club nights, seminars, workshops and “Platform G”, enouraging young people to get involved. Personally I’m very excited to be involved, both as a ...

Um… Chris2Win

OK as anyone that reads this blog regularly will know - I’ve been struggling to build up any enthusiasm for the leadership election - partly because I’m not sure about either of the candidates - and partly because I’m still not sure Ming was right to go. But it’s happening and the ballot papers will be going out before I know what’s hit me - so I’ve decided to make a decision - or at least a preliminary decision. I’ve been reading news stories, features, blog posts and the websites of the two likely candidates, Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg ...

Abortion rights and wrongs

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrote a very measured piece on the Observer yesterday about modern attitudes towards abortion. He expressed concerns that there has been a “weakening of the feeling that abortion is a last resort”. He laments the fact that there’s no longer the presumption of marriage as a lifelong union, that marriage and family are no longer seen as the “

The death of Common Sense

I was sent the following by friend and it precisely sums up the way I feel about modern life in the UK. Source unknown but this theme is one that The Liberal Democrats could do well to exploit. Most people know instinctively that the world has gone mad and common sense has been lost. We need to identify these issues and explain what we propose to do about it. That will be a great way to reconnect with the electorate Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. ...

Good news from Poland

Poland's centre-right Civic Platform party appears to have won enough seats to lead a coalition following the country's General Election. This is good news, as it spells defeat for the governing, conservative Law and Justice Party, whose policies are bad news for Poland and the EU. The media are exaggerating when they call Civic Platform "Poland's 'liberal' opposition party", but they are still much better than Law and Justice. It will be interesting to see how Poland's Democratic Party, social liberals who sit with us in the European Parliament, have done, once all the votes are counted.

Watch Chris and Nick speak at the Newbury hustings

Thanks to the good folk at Newbury Today, we can point to not only an account of Saturday’s hustings in the town but some video too.

Why Clegg?

Having come out for Clegg early, I've been accused of going for style over substance, and told that I should wait until both candidates have declared their policies. That's a fair point, and here's why I'm voting Clegg. I met Chris earlier in the year, when he came down here to do a bit of canvassing and give an after dinner speech. A very capable and professional performance, but I have no idea what he said, in fact I had forgotten it 10 minutes after he gave the speech. At the spring conference I found myself with half an hour ...

Don't bin IT, donate IT! - Wednesday 24 October 2007

Digital Birmingham in partnership with Birmingham City Council, Maxitech.biz and Hewlett Packard are running a donation event that will allow Birmingham residents to get rid of redundant IT equipment. Where possible, the IT equipment will be recyled to help community groups in Birmingham, as well as reducing what goes into landfill. The team will be in Centenary Square on Wednesday 24 October

Ask the candidates

No doubt the candidates will be travelling up and down the country to Hustings etc. However, what I want to know is what other bloggers/readers think should be the issues/questions they want to ask. 1. On internal party matters - ie development of policy 2. On the issues facing voters - what do THEY think I’ll kick off: 1. The relationship between local and national government 2. Immigration - how can we relate our policies to ordinary people and how are we going to develop them.

100 days of Plaid in power

Several months ago, I wrote a piece for LDV setting out what I thought was a golden opportunity for the Welsh Lib Dems following a disappointing night in May. Now, 100 days have passed since Plaid decided to kick the prospect of alternating government in Wales into touch and instead prop up a discredited and unpopular [...]

Decisions, Decisions

I am quite upbeat about the choice that faces the Liberal Democrats this leadership election. I am also pleasantly impressed with the choices on offer for the European Parliament candidates list and more provincially,the Mayor and Assembly for London. Talented, successful, interesting people. As for the leadership: Chris Huhne is a successful businessman with a brain. As an economics journalist he was an insightful commentator for The Independent. The way that he set up what has become Fitch IBCA- the rating agency- reveals a clear business brain. He is internationally aware- in addition to having been a MEP, his wife ...

"..but how you played the game"

As a Scotland supporter, I know the pain of defeat better than most. The defeat of English footballers in Russia was not pleasant (Even for me- Russia is one of the few countries where I would happily cheer on England). The likely defeat of the Red Rose in Rugby inevitably followed- and of course, naturally the players were disappointed to fall at the last rung of the ladder they had climbed. The reaction of some England supporters was not pleasant- and that of the press even worse. At the end of the day, the virtues of sport are not always ...

The inherent danger in being the Lib Dem leadership "front runner"

There used to be a time when it was good to be seen as the favourite, the early pace setter or the front runner, but recent political battles tell us otherwise, and I have got the impression the Nick Clegg camp are starting to talk down the "front runner" status of their man whilst the press try to talk up Nick Clegg's chances, possibly because they fear him the most and by promoting his "favourite" status, they hope to weaken his electability or possibly it is also just out of sheer laziness. After all, the press did for Ming, and ...

How (not) to chair an opportunity to hear and question the declared leadership contenders (it’s not a hustings, really it isn’t!)

And so Saturday came to pass, and Ros and I drove down to Newbury, to participate in the Autumn Conference of South Central Region Liberal Democrats. The events of the previous forty-eight hours meant that we would both be working, and I debuted my new suit, in an attempt to look credible, given the likelihood that I would be in camera shot (look Mum, I’m on television!). In my role as chair of

Chris would make fair votes a condition of any coalition

The Guardian reports that Chris will announce this week that if he was to lead the party into coalition talks, reforms to the voting system and fixed-term parliaments would be a condition for any talks. Mr Huhne will argue that without a commitment to PR and fixed term parliaments, the Liberal Democrats are vulnerable to a prime minister then deciding the date of the next election, and choosing a time that maximises the chance of pushing the Lib Dems from power on a first past the post system.

Slow News Day?

I have just been quite entertained by looking at the BBC Politics page and seeing the headline "Business to lobby Darling on tax". You don't say.

A spot of Tory hypocrisy from Iain Dale's blog ?

Iain Dale has rightly highlighted a dreadful plan by the Labour government to take 5% of any money left in school budgets at the end of each financial year. As Iain says, this hits those schools hardest that are saving for a large capital programme, perhaps buying a minibus or any other number of expensive things needed in schools. This would be a great story of how awful Labour are were it not for the fact that Norfolk County Council, a Conservative run County, has for the last few years been desperately trying to introduce a similar scheme which involves ...

A Ray of Hope

As the results continue to come in from the Polish elections, two things are already clear: Firstly that turnout has risen sharply, to 55%- which is the highest since 1989; Secondly that the country has decisively rejected the ultra-nationalist Samo obrona- Self Defence and the ultra-Conservative Lega Polskich Rodzin- the League of Polish Families. Even more crucially, despite the benefit that the ruling PiS- Law and Justice- have gained from the demise of their erstwhile allies, it is the Liberal opposition, Platforma Obwytelska that has stormed to victory. The Liberals were supported by the young generation of Poles, who found ...

London calling

I am off work for a week, and heading down to London tomorrow for a few days to visit some old friends and relax with my camera, a good book and lots of time. Before that I have a Lib Dem group meeting tonight where we will talk news and political machinations for a few hours. And then tomorrow morning it’s the first meeting of the GMPTA Service Improvement Sub-Committee for this municipal year. And I will take to that meeting my suitcase, because I’m heading straight to the train station afterwards. All of which is great timing because, just ...

Edwina Hart and the local health board

My first response to the news that Edwina Hart wants to reduce the number of local health boards (currently based on local authority boundaries) was that this was a typical Labour move towards centralisation. It wasn't clear to me that it would reduce the incidence of patients being "lost in the gaps". Siobhan Mclelland's considered view, based on experience, is probably more accurate, though: "She's going to do what politicians always do when they come into the health service... they reorganise structure as a proxy for making real changes." And, as always, a reorganisation would soak up money which could ...

Ming to discuss Blair/Brown statism?

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1679252007 `Gordon Brown is pledging a full-scale review of the country’s constitutional arrangements, including the possibility of forming a written constitution, setting out people’s rights and the roles of government and parliament. Campbell may be offered the task of taking the plans forward. ` Have no problem with the constitution - but it is up to parties what the roles of government and parliament are. Would this hamper us from reviewing central government and devolution? As part of the leadership contest I would like to hear exactly what the contenders think that Central Government’s role actually is. What I don’t ...

Just what I didn't want for Christmas

I love the classic Charles Dickens tale "A Christmas Carol", and I also like watching the many and various versions that have been turned in to films. Particular favourites are Alistair Sim's classic version in Black and White (not the awful coloured in version Channel Five insist on showing) and I even like the Muppets Chistmas Carol. However, I am less than enamoured at the new version of the tale planned. Apparently Walt Disney (oh dear !) are to remake the story using lots of computer effects, which are barely needed for a tale of this sort, and the film ...

Anonymous Blogger Beware

Someone needs to be worried. Using the cloak of anonymity does not protect you from the full fury of libel law. You IP identity can be revealed even if you post anonymously.

Clegg’s Slogan? “Britain’s Liberal Future”

Nick’s website still has a lot of work to be done before it’s ready to go live. However, I have learned that the headline ’slogan’ for Nick’s campaign is likely to be “Britain’s Liberal Future.” How does this compare with Huhne’s slogan, “A Fairer Society. People In Charge?” It’s difficult to decide which slogan is the most meaningful. Nick’s is remarkable for a Lib Dem in that he’s not afraid to use the word, “British” or, in fact, the word, “Liberal.” It is also shorter, more direct and a more broad invoker of ‘beliefs and values’ than Chris’. One test ...

Of all the bizarre political deaths, this is a new one on me

An Indian politician died yesterday in rather tragic circumstances. The usual way you might expect a politician to die early, not from natural causes, in the Indian subcontinent might be through the hand of an assassin, a terrorist or by some other fould human deed. But no, in this most unusual and tragic deaths, he was attacked and killed by a group of monkeys !

Why it needs to be Nick...

So the race has begun and it appears increasingly likely that the field will distil down to just 2 contenders. And for what it is worth, I’m just going to nail my colours to the mast right here and say that I am for Clegg. Why? Whilst Chris is a truly worthy candidate, I believe that Nick offers both the party and the nation a new direction, energy and dynamism that will reinvigorate our platform and make our policies sing. Many members have still to make up their minds and will I hope engage in one of the many hustings ...

Join the Liberal Democrats and vote in the leadership election

If you'd like to join the Liberal Democrats, or your membership has lapsed, then you'd be wise to do something about it before the end of October. All party members at that date will be able to vote in the leadership election. The easiest way to join is online.

Chris gets truckin’

Chris is the subject of the Independent’s ‘You Ask The Questions’ feature today, revealing - amongst other things - that his favourite Grateful Dead track is Truckin’.

After a Weekend of Sporting Disaster

As a Scottish member of the BoSox nation, for those not au fait with Baseball that is what us fans of the Boston Red Sox are known as, I had a sleepless night last night. Game 7 of the American League Championship Series fell on Five's normal Sunday scheduled basball night. So having recovered from 3-1 down during the week to take the series to the deciding game us UK fans were guaranteed at

An autumn visit to Highgate Cemetery

{Highgate Cemetery} Fall is well and truly upon us, and yesterday afternoon we took a beautiful autumnal walk around Highgate Cemetery. It is very much a creation of the nineteenth century - one of several cemeteries built following the need for more burial space during the rapid expansion of London, and before the twentieth century vogue of cremation. And it feels very Victorian gothic, containing graves or other tombs which are at the least very grand and proper, normally topped by at least an angel or some other statue, and in many cases magnificently more: several large family mausoleums, as ...

Homeopath Hitmen

The Society of Homeopaths* have been a bit naughty and forced the hosts of The Quackometer to take down an article disparaging the noble society. Sounds a lot like what happened to Craig Murray and Bloggerheads last month. Thank god for the internet, therefore, as copies of the offending article have been springing up everywhere in a fantastic demonstration of how utterly archaic this country's

Today’s leadership news links

The only thing I could find this morning was this Q&A between Chris Huhne and the readers of the Independent which includes questions on the nature of liberalism. drug use, whether Chris should be ashamed to be wealthy, and a couple of good policy questions. If you know of more news web links, do post them [...]

Dinner without Simon Hughes

Simon Hughes was the scheduled speaker at the Dinner Debate hosted by Hampstead Liberal Democrats last night, but he had to phone in his apologies as the trains from Birmingham, where he had been visiting his ailing mother, were cancelled. I can imagine his frustration at this perfectly legitimate impediment, but there were inevitably smiles, as his habitual lateness (or non-arrival) is legendary. In that sense, he is the Shirley Williams de nos jours. In Simon’s case, the tardiness is often the result of taking on too much, of finding it difficult to say ‘no’, and of getting so enthusiastically involved ...

Shameless plug for my other gaff

I’m blogging the leadership contest from the perspective of a floating voter over on my personal blog where you’ll find: Some of the scandals that may befall the contest The first episode of a Podcast where I begin to make my decision The second episode of said same Podcast (better than the first, there will be more)

German Predictions on Oil Supply

The link is to the story in "The Guardian" about energy supplies. I am scheduled to meet the German MP behind this later today. I will comment about the details in the report when I have read it. In essence, however, the thesis is valid. The minor details as to precisely the rate of decline and date of peak are not so important. What matters is that peak is "about now" - within this or the

Opinion: An inappropriate truth

Notwithstanding the somewhat tenuous connection between peace and the weather, I was more than happy to see Al Gore scoop this year’s Nobel prize for his tireless efforts to raise awareness of the threat posed by global warming to the future of life on Earth. But, in my view, his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth [...]

Video: Vote Chris Huhne

Another video, this time from Sean McMahon, explaining why he’s backing Chris (again, click here if it doesn’t show up below)

Redundancy

Do you know why Ariane-5 exploded 39 seconds after take-off? It was because the inertial guidance system failed. And then the backup inertial guidance system failed. Then the rocket made a course correction it didn't need to, put the rocket in an aerodynamically dangerous position, and then the auto-destruct sequence was called, as designed in the case of significant malfunction, and worked perfectly. Amongst the many lessons one could take away from the explosion is that having a backup system that works exactly the same way as the primary system means that if the primary system fails due to an ...

Comments on Nick Clegg’s announcement speech

My near neighbour Toby Philpott has posted the text of Nick Clegg’s launch speech. It’s a very very good speech but - and without compromising my neutrality (I’m so neutral that Switzerland are going to give me Honorary Citizenship) - a few things strike me. “If the Liberal Democrats are to change the tired old pattern of British politics…” This is a reinterpretation of Alliance rhetoric in the 1980s when the metaphor was “breaking the mould”? Mould is good because as well as meaning shape it also evokes rot and decay (from mould as in fungus). “Pattern” may be better because you can hang other adjectives on it: “tired old ...

The Two Doctors

There are a few years between them. They each have different styles of presentation. Neither of them has any policies on the economy as far as I’m aware. Erm… {Davison and Tennant (BBC)} As I’m not allowed to comment on the biggest subject currently enveloping the Liberal Democrat blogosphere, I’ll have to appeal to the Doctor Who blogosphere instead. [Obligatory plug: if you’re a Lib Dem supporter, click here to join the party before the end of the month and get a vote in the leadership election.] This year’s Children in Need is on November 16th and once again there’s ...

Monday 22nd October 2007

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