LibDem Blogs - Archived!

Last weekend I received the letter advising me as an approved candidate that applications for the Livingston constituency were open. No surprise to me there being also a member of the local party involved in the eventual selection of candidate from the short listed applicants. As a chess player I spend a long time considering my move in this. I'll going to call it the Livingston Gambit

The Guardian diary got it wrong Livingston Liberal Democrats have yet to vote on a candidate for the forthcoming by election. However, while out delivering Charles Kennedy's residents' survey in various areas today, in glorious sunshine, it was encouraging to get comments like: "Oh! The Liberal Democrats, I thought Labour would be here first." and "After all the coverage Labour has had in the

I've been told that the reason Cheddleton decided not to have a newsletter was because the size of the parish would make it difficult to deliver it to every household. Of course, delivery is a problem, but there are alternatives to door to door delivery. Publishing the newsletter on the website would probably make it available to more than half the households in the parish. Bundles of the newsletter could be left at the shops, post offices, schools, churches, even the travelling library. Additionally a subscription service could be offered, covering the cost of postage. I like ...

By and large cats are proud and dignified creatures. This website therefore is beyond the pale. How anybody can treat such a noble creature in this way is beyond me.

I am sure that many Assembly Members will agree with me that whereas we wish Sue Essex well in the future, her decision to stand down from the Assembly at the next election will leave the whole institution impoverished. She is a highly capable and effective Minister who has had an enormous influence on the new agenda being carved out for Wales by the Assembly. Sue's main legacy of course will be the All Wales Spatial Plan, which has already started to transform the way that we plan the shape of our communities and the services they rely on, ...

It was inevitable really that those MPs who voted through the 24 hour licensing laws would end up on the wrong end of them. For despite all the spin about empowering communities and enabling democratically elected local Councils to determine applications in accordance with the needs of communities, the reality is that the legislation has left Licensing Committees with very little discretion to turn down applications. Furthermore, the rolling up of a number of licenses for music, alcohol, dancing etc into one super licence has left many establishments with little choice but to apply for permission to carry out activities ...

It will take some time to pin this issue down. However, what I have found so far is that the Insolvency Service is selling people's debts. It writes a letter to them saying we are selling your "debt for £xxxxx (we do not know how much it is". This, of course, causes rather a lot of confusion. I could understand the concept that they are sub-contracting in part the process of working out how

There is a site which aggregates LibDem blogs. At the moment it's a bit like being in the kitchen after a half-hearted party - everybody is talking about what would have made it more fun, and who should organise the next one. There's been some talk of Liberal Democrat philosophy: what it is, what it's good for and where we might get some. A step along the way seems to be the labeling of types