LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Today I have been to Southwell in Nottinghamshire to visit the Minster, which is one of England's finest cathedrals and certainly the least well known. It stands in a spacious little town that has connections with Lord Byron. Lord Bonkers writes: In those days many people had connections with Lord Byron. One of the great things about the East Midlands is how little the region is known. If Southwell were in the Cotswolds it would be crawling with tourists. Here the town caters for visitors but is not swamped by them. The result is that Southwell is a ...

It seemed everyone on the train to Waterloo this morning had a picnic with them. I enjoyed trying to work out whether they were going to Live8, the Gay Pride march, Wimbledon, Lords, or Lambeth Palace. Lambeth Palace? - well 3000 of us were heading for the gardens to celebrate the centenary of the Diocese of Southwark. I joined the choir that performed at the service at the end of the day. Earlier in the week the Archbishop of Canterbury had said that the policy of returning asylum seekers to Zimbabwe was immoral, and he repeated ...

Charles Clarke says that ID cards will stop a “big brother” society. This statement must have had George Orwell not only turning in his grave but laughing and crying. The age of “doublespeak” truly arrived at that moment. ID cards are wrong in principle. But even if you support them, it doesn't mean they have to be of the type the Government is forcing on British citizens. They are incredibly

In the May 2005 General Election Brian Eno set up a website: Lib Dem This Time. People signed up to say they would vote Liberal Democrat at the election. The Liberal Democrat party continued to target seats, maximising its vote in an electoral system that is biased against a third party. The Liberal Democrats gained more seats than in the previous election but are still not the official Opposition. Targeting seats has proved very effective. Focusing on discontent over the Iraq War and Tony Blair helped to increase support from Labour voters. But the party is stuck with a ...

Another report by the Western Mail which does not appear to have an electronic version, concerns a power struggle between two Assembly Government Ministers over the Welsh Development Agency. The newspaper speculates that this dispute is being played out as a proxy for the contest to succeed Rhodri Morgan, when he eventually calls it a day. The Welsh Foods Directorate currently sits within the WDA but is accountable to Carwyn Jones, the Minister for the Environment, Planning and the Countryside (A.K.A. the Minister for eating farm breakfasts). As the WDA is to be brought in-house in April a ...

The Western Mail this morning reports that the ramifications of Peter Law's victory as an independent in Blaenau Gwent continue to reverberate throughout that constituency. An Independent candidate has won a landslide victory to deprive Labour of their majority on Brynmawr Town Council for the first time in living memory. Some pundits are taking this victory as an indication that Labour has lost its grip on the area and that the voters are prepared to abandon old allegiances to support the candidate rather than the party in future polls. I was speaking to somebody who has strong connections ...

Somewhat miraculously the parliamentary bureaucracy has now started grinding more effectively. I now have three phones [and two desks] in my (small) office (note to self: the rules permit photographs of the office, one for the blog in the future). I have an ethernet cable into the parliamentary network. My casework system which works for me as an MP and as a Councillor is still on the City

All good arguments should reference an outrageous satirical piece of art. Subtlety shouldn't come into it, and you should do your best to ridicule every side of the argument. The ultimate Devil's advocate. Here's mine: "As actors, it's our job to read the newspapers, and then say it on TV or radio as if it were our opinion." Take an actor who has recently starred in a blockbuster - somebody relatively famous. This actor gets his post-move-release limelight, and what does he say? Not.. "It's been great working on the movie, Mr Spielberg is an ...

On Wednesday, I took part in one of the Edinburgh heats for the Independent Sudoku Grand Master Championship. We were told that there were 125 heats in all, at 25 different locations around the country. The session was run in exam conditions, although these were slightly disrupted by one of the hotel telephones ringing a couple [...]