LibDem Blogs - Archived!

I'm typing this with a hot-water bottle on my lap. My refusal to turn the heating on has nothing to do with global warming. I grew up in the 50s, I'm British, and one just does not turn on the heating in July! Went on CPRE regional training day. It was fiendishly planned: it was on a canal boat; once on, we could not get off, even when given a list of 60 or so acronyms to do with the regional assembly. Actually, it was a jolly good day. I'm posting a pic of the ...

"Is your party having a change of leadership?" I was asked a few days ago. The question knocked me for six - Charles Kennedy has just been re-elected unopposed as the party's leader - Where does this rumour come from?Can't help feeling furious (I'm actually thumping mad) about supposed comments from some of the party's key politicians at a private meeting - recently reported in the news papers. OK there may be some internal post-election discussions going on but why leak to the press.Leadership doubts hit Lib Dems - all this is doing is feeding unnecessary media speculation.Then again - ...

It's not because they will make us money. I fully expect the games to be a financial disaster and to cost us zillions. It's not because they will improve transport in London. If things are wrong they need to be put right now because people are suffering, not because they may inconvenience the Polish women's water volleyball team one day. It's not because they will galvanise the nation's youth. If watching sport on television made you active our youngsters would be the fittest in the world, rather than out of their skulls on Sunny D and Turkey Twizzlers. No, the ...

Simon Hoggart's Commons sketch in the Guardian today is good on the absurdities of today's celebrity politics. Writing about the heyday of anti-nuclear protest in the early 1960s, he asks: Can you imagine the CND folk saying: "I think we can get Billy Fury and Kathy Kirby for the Trafalgar Square gig! And maybe we can bring Vince Eager back from panto in Ipswich!" A pedant writes: Shouldn't there be a question mark in there somewhere?

There is something familiar about this story of the First Minister proclaiming openness, only for his government to be caught out almost immediately by the press. It is a cast iron rule of politics that as soon as you make a clear and unequivocal statement somebody will come along to debunk you. Thus, although the Welsh Assembly Government may be the most open in the western World, it is still constrained in what it can and cannot reveal by law, protocols with other governments, common sense, commercial reality, policy development issues and sheer politics. It can ...

Currently sitting in an internet cafe in Mainz, and don´t really have a huge amount of time for new observations. Will stick to a few comments about Live 8 and sport: Live 8 - was it really worth all the fuss it seemed to be getting in the British press? I was watching in Germany, and whilst the Philadelphia concert in particular seemed to be amaying, the atmosphere at the other concerts seemed a little tepid - although that may well have been due to the fact that we were forced, through TV coverage, to concert-hop. I also love the ...

The debate a while ago about Council Housing has now been reported in the local press. The fact that there will be 10,000 fewer low cost houses to rent 5 years from now, however, has not been reported. One of the most frequent issues at my advice bureau is the unavailability of housing to rent at a reasonable price. It means that people on 10-12K generally have difficulty finding somewhere to

I bought a new device the other day, being a technology addict. This is the O2 XDA IIi, a mobile phone/handheld computer that runs a Windows operating system. The attraction of this was that I want to be able to browse the web anywhere when I get the sudden urge to look something up. [...]