Tonight I was at the Lib Dem bloggers drinks, it having won a landslide victory in my poll as to whether I should go there, or sup with Tesco. I had earlier been interviewed by the Radio 4 for The World Tonight on the Tesco issue and also what I thought of various issues such as coalitions. Apparently the issue of coalitions is on everybody's tongues. If it is, nobody has mentioned it to me. I 
David Cameron is Britain's least popular party leader among voters, according to a new poll.The survey found that voters' satisfaction with the Conservative leader's performance was lower than for either Prime Minister Gordon Brown or the Liberal Democrats' Sir Menzies Campbell.The ICM poll also showed Labour re-establishing an eight-point lead over the Tories following a sequence of surveys at
I am at the Lib Dems' Federal Conference in Brighton where my hotel thoughtfully provides free broadband access. Having lugged a laptop here I was gratified. Yesterday after playing my small part in successfully seeing off an attempt to reverse our admirable anti-nuclear power policy (hurray!) I celebrated by returning to a favourite haunt, where a delicious, great value and arguably the healthiest, lunchtime bite is to be found: chez Jack & Linda's smoked fish emporium at 197 King's Road Arches. Go ye there in droves! Jack is clearly a great guy. For one thing he serves very nice fish, ...
Today, I met with Professor Malory Nye, Acting Principal of the Al-Maktoum Institute, about the proposals for a Cultural Centre and, in particular, the state of the site of the former Logie Secondary School. I am pleased that Professor Nye confirm ed that a further clean-up of the site will take place in the next few weeks, with construction starting in a few months. At lunchtime, I chaired the inaugural public meeting of the Western Cemetery Association at Harris Academy (click on the headline to see the article in tonight's Evening Telegraph) and was delighted at the good turnout. The ...
On a whim I had took myself off to the National's revival of Chatroom and Citizenship, two of the plays from 2006's connections series, this evening. They are aimed at teenagers (both to perform and to watch) so maybe I shouldn't be too critical. But I found them at heart rather light morality plays, eerily reminiscent (if much better acted) of the skits we were made to act out for assembly 
Two weeks ago, Nottingham Forest of League One were beating Leicester City of the Championship in a League Cup encounter. With an upset on the cards, the game was abruptly halted when Leicester player Clive Clarke collapsed with a heart attack. With no thought to their own strong position in the game, Nottingham Forest agreed without hesitation that the game should be abandoned. That showed a real sporting compassion from Nottingham Forest recognizing that some things come before football results. So tonight Leicester City returned to Nottingham to replay the match and the second part of this football "sporting" match ...
Last Saturday I wrote a letter to the Chief Executive of Kingston Hospital about how they had ignored South of the Borough in their consultation roadshows. I'm pleased to report that it worked! I'll give full details of the new roadshow in the Chessington area when I get back from conference.
If I were the Tories or the Labour Party I would be rubbing my hands with glee at the thought of the Lib Dems passing plans to grant amnesty to virtually any illegal immigrant who has been in the UK for more than ten years. The plan may have some financial merits in terms of raising money for the treasury, but then again so would legalising cocaine and taxing it. However, money is not the prerequisite for a policy being a good idea. It is also fine for Nick Clegg to say ; "I do not think our party should ...
The facts that two innocent people, who were legally going about their everyday business, died as a result of a car full of joyriders drove the wrong way along a motorway, is deeply distressing for anyone. The news that three of the joyriders themselves died is not. The fact that the police called off the chase because the joyriders acted in such a dangerous way is also something of a concern because it now tells all joyriders that the more dangerously they act, the more irresponsibly they behave, the greater the chance they have of the police giving up the ...
I have arranged to put on 4 photo ops for candidates and campaigners at conference. The first was on Sunday with Norman Lamb MP and a giant tooth. This is for those involved in the health campaign and the photos can be used to illustrate the decay in the NHS dentistry service. Advance notice of this appeared in the Guardian recently! The second was yesterday with Chris Huhne MP. This involved 2 
Sunny Hundal on The Guardian's Comment is Free website has written an article on the BBC's failure to stand up to right-wing bloggers who insist that the organisation adheres to their world view. Very kindly he has linked to my post at the end of last week on the 9/11 Newsround furore.
Conference this afternoon endorsed the Poverty and Inequality Policy Paper - Freedom from Poverty, Opportunity for All.
for the environment. Things we should do: Tax pollution - that is CO2 emissions and emissions of other greenhouse gases in terms of climate change. Support new technology - perhaps Google can be persuaded to offer a prize for carbon capture technology (artificial plants anyone?) or cheap, efficient solar cells Increase globalisation through greater free trade and abolishing subsidies Pay [...]
I’ve taken an hour or two off this afternoon to take in some of the media coverage of conference. I have two frustrations: 1) The absolute obsession with Ming’s leadership. There is not an undercurrent of “Get Ming Out” at this conference. Every time he speaks here, the media are grabbing party members to grill them about the “leadership debate”. They are not getting the answers they want, so they’re just writing about it regardless. We have some outstanding policy coming out of this conference and we can feel rightly hard done by that the media are glossing over this. ...
The winner is Titterstone Clee in Shropshire. Not only would Frankie Howerd have loved it, but it has a fascinating industrial history too.
If you can drag yourselves away from the debates, The Book Guide's East Sussex pages may be useful.
Stephen and I have been around conference and - armed with his camera and my brazen cheek - managed to put four quick questions to top Lib Dem MPs, Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg. At last night’s Independent fringe, Steve Richards chaired a meeting at which the pair were the only speakers. While they have spoken [...]
Over at the Ministry of Truth. No, not the Lib Dem leader, you booby. I mean The Emperor of Mongo.
I gather there was a programme about the loss of the Hindenburg on television last night. This seems a good time to repeat Lord Bonkers' comments on airships: One of the great disappointments of the twentieth century was the failure of the airship to maintain its early promise as a means of mass transportation. I remember with fondness those great ships of an earlier age: the Graf Zeppelin, the R101 and, here in Rutland, The First Lady Bonkers.The problem that saw the downfall of these graceful galleons of the sky was an uncertainty over what should be used to fill ...
The Daily Mail have excelled themselves today in their article on the Lib Dem immigration plan. As it's been put through my Nick Clegg, they've used it as an excuse to speculate about his leadership chances: According to mystery sources, Mr Clegg agreed not to oppose him [Ming] when Charles Kennedy was forced to quit as leader following a revolt by MPs over his drink problem in January last year.
This morning it was corporate social responsibility at a Social Market Foundation breakfast meeting. I've put up on my website the full length version of the speech, which I slimmed down to fit the time today. My take on the issues around how companies should behave, whether corporate social responsibility drives are welcome or cynical window-dressing, and so on, starts with the individual: I want to look at the issue from a different angle. Because companies are made up of individual people. Those decisions – they aren’t being made by companies, they are being made by individuals in the companies. ...
Ian Swales, the Lib Dem's Redcar Constituency prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Glyn Nightingale and Lib Dem Team member, Tina Meir, went to Eston Police Station to check whether it was open. We found that it is closed every day except Wednesdays. Ian Swales writes - "As I write the police are still looking for who shot an 11 year old boy in Liverpool. Gun crime has been increasing yet the Government STILL hasn't implemented the hand gun register recommended after the Dunblane massacre in 1996. Local Liberal Democrats were recently involved in the case of a respectable 15 year old boy ...
Discontent with our modern lot - that was the theme of my speech at last night's launch of Reinventing the State: Social Liberalism for the 21st Century : I started out on my chapter just thinking about how often friends or colleagues bound up to me and say, “Hey Lynne, I feel fabulously happy and I there’s nothing I would want different.” Duh! Never! We appear to wander round in mild to severe discontent with our lot. It’s not actually the ‘fabulously happy’ answer that I really hope for – but I do wonder what it is that makes us ...
Conference this afternoon debated the subject of immigration. Conference agreed migration is a worldwide phenomenon that has always been part of human history, and immigration to Britain has been of enormous benefit to the economy and to society. However they also agreed the benefits of a liberal immigration policy can only be secured if the effort is made to plan for the impact and consequences of that policy. They further agreed a practical liberal approach to immigration should therefore focus on creating a system that works: efficient, fair and effective, planning for the effects of managed inward migration, promoting integration ...
A stand in conference helpfully has a hotel booking agency helping delegates find accommodation for next Spring’s conference in the European Capital of Culture. And they are warning the city will be extremely busy the weekend of the Lib Dem conference, 7-9 March next year. So busy indeed that the guy I spoke to when I was [...]
One of the best things about the flat that I’ve rented in Brighton is that we have a TV with a Freeview box. This means that not only do I get to go to all the fringes and get the free food, meet up with my friends and gather a large collection of pens, I also get to lie on the sofa and watch the Conference hall on BBC Parliament when I’m tired.
Driving over the Severn Bridge this afternoon on the way back to the first Assembly session of the new term, I came over all nostalgic listening to Ron Davies, Dafydd Wigley, Nick Bourne and Richard Livsey talking on Radio Wales about devolution. It is of course ten years to the day since that nail-biting ballot result and a great deal has changed, including increasing public support for the devolution project. The Welsh Liberal Democrats have played an important role in that process, not least in providing the stability the Assembly so needed in its first term, when we went into ...
Ormesby & Nunthorpe Councillors, Glyn & Irene Nightingale and Eric Empson with Ian Swales, the Lib Dem’s prospective parliamentary candidate, went round to see the impact of Operation Eco has on Overfields. They were particularly impressed with the new Boro mural painted by young volunteers on the side of the Allendale shopping centre which was also repainted by community workers.
Nice as it was to chew the fat with our esteemed leader, with the other LibDem blog of the year shortlisters, in the Margaret Thatcher Near-death Experience Suite on Sunday, it was all a bit too cloistered for my liking. All right, fair enough. Dear old Ming gave up 30 minutes of his time and was [...]
For some reason, when British people debate the EU, we never seem to debate any of the important questions. For example, the entire debate on the European Reform Treaty is about whether we (ie Britain) should accept it or not - well, and whether we should have a referendum or not. Strangely, those in favour of the referendum / against the ERT have not adopted the slogan I suggested for them: "Nice is nice". Yet, that is what their position amounts to: let's have the Treaty of Nice, not the ERT. Indeed, I find it utterly bizarre that there is ...
Temperature - even hotter Training sessions run - 2 Attendance at them - up but visibly wilitng. Key seats met with - 3 Dinner with a few colleagues - very pleasant Meeting up with large group to celebrate Richard Huzzey's birthday - excellent Strong environment policy to campaign on - passed Chances of them fixing the air conditioning - apparently slim. v busy - more later - ttfn
Conference, also today debated the Tax Reform Policy Paper - Reducing the Burden. After ten years of the current Labour Government the tax system remains unfair, with the bottom 20% of households paying a higher proportion of their income in taxes than the top 20% of households. Wealth inequality is now worse than at any time under Margaret Thatcher.
In yesterday’s Independent, former Lib Dem member Donnachadh McCarthy slates the Lib Dems in his article “The shameful truth behind the Lib Dems’ demise”. He is wrong on so many counts, but I will pick out two. Firstly, he says that instead of promoting its “good policy paper on how to reduce carbon emissions” the party is instead wanting “to waste enormous political energy over the next few years tackling a pointless referendum on Europe”. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the party’s call for a referendum on Europe rather than on the new European treaty, he completely misunderstands what ...
One of the other joys of the new technology is that, if you've missed the morning's business, they repeat it again for you at lunchtime! Mind you, quite why I'd want to be subjected to even more of Theo Butt Philip than I already volunteer for is beyond me... (only kidding, and Theo, hear hear!) I'm glad at any rate that my own view on the matter of LVT was aired in the hall (yes we should have
The answer to my earlier question “Will the Lib Dems finally get serious about taxation this morning?” was sadly no. With housing now more of an issue than it was in 2005, expect local income tax, which seemed to do us almost as much harm as good, to start actively damaging us as Labour and the Tories start writing to first time buyers about how the Lib Dems will both make their first home even more unaffordable. I’m sure these people, who claim to be having more visits to their website at the moment than ever, will be most receptive. ...
There’s a slightly odd mood surrounding the conference. It’s a combination, I guess, of the ‘will he, won’t he’ general election speculation that Gordon Brown has allowed his spin-doctors to fuel, which inevitably makes for nervous excitement - only partly quelled by most people’s best guess that he won’t. And also a sense of frustration, to which we Lib Dems have had to become accustomed,
The immigration policy motion has passed conference unamended. An attempt to remove the section re-establishing border controls failed, after Simon Hughes and others argued it was needed to protect the vulnerable and trafficked. Notably, former McCann family advisor and Lib Dem 2005 candidate Justine McGuinness argued against the omission on the basis of child protection. A [...]
This morning I met with Cllr Peter connor, the Executive member for Housing at Salford City Council, to talk about the derelict shops on Chapel Road in Rainsough. The estate is in the odd position of receiving services from Bury Council (and representation from Bury Councillors), but the tenants are Salford tenants because the estate is on the border of the two authorities. I hope this isn’t why sometimes things fall through the gap in terms of service provision… The area is crying out for some decent community facilities, and Cllr Connor seemed very keen to work with us to renovate ...
That's one of the topics at conference today, as you can see from my latest conference webcast diary: Running time: 91 secondsMore details about the immigration debate are on the party's website - and you can also see the other conference webcasts (from Ming Campbell and Conference Committee Chair Duncan Brack) by clicking here.
I expect this kind of thing of downmarket right-wing tabloids like The Times. Naively I hold out slightly higher hopes for The Guardian. Alas. Yesterday, Ming conducted an hour-long Q&A with Sandi Toksvig - it went down well in the conference hall (I heard several warm compliments from those who have been luke-warm about Ming). But [...]
Conference, this morning today debated how to make planning local and how to rewarding community housing. Since Labour was elected in 1997, house prices in Britain have tripled, leaving millions unable to afford to buy a decent home of their own. Both Labour and Tories support a planning system based on illiberal top-down targets, that can force unpopular development on to local communities.
Those nice people at Comment is Free have just asked to write something else for them. While I do, blogging will be light. In the mean time, here is the short piece on Reinventing the State that I wrote for them the other day... Chapters Diverse They are strange beasts, these Liberal Democrats. Ask what their party stands for and they will tell you it exists to champion liberty. And the Lib Dems do have an honourable record of speaking up for civil liberties. But you will also find them as keen for government to intervene on the side of ...
The BBC has a report on the winners. And this picture comes from the blog written by Millennium Elephant. If I were the judges, incidentally, I would be careful. I don't suppose Millennium will forget.
In today’s webcast from the Liberal Democrats’ conference in Brighton, Ming talks about today’s debate on taxation and the party’s proposals to switch the burden of taxation from national income tax to charges on pollution.
Sunday: STUFF being GROWN UP about it… Waaahhh! Boo hoo! boo hoo! Okay, got that out of my system. Congratulations to all the winners of the Blogger of the Year contest, and big hugs and thank yous to the judges for giving me the opportunity to be nonimated again next year! six prizes, three winners, one, er, representative {Posted by Picasa} In a ceremony in Brighton’s GLAMOROUS seafront Holiday Inn, presented by Glamorous Mr Councillor Deputy Lord Stephen (frock by Dior) and Handsome Ms Lynne Featherweight (miffed about the frock) special guest Ms Ros-from-the-Grauniad presented the Big Prize to Mr ...
There ought to be a law against photographing those of us who still have a reasonable amount of hair at the front from this angle. It destroys our illusions. Thanks a bunch to Liberal Burblings for the photograph.
It seems that normal life is continuing outside Brighton. For this week's BritBlog Roundup can be found at Clariwil.
Poor Ming!
Lucy handing out flyers to delegates to promote our fringe events! Trade & Climate Change fringe Tuesday 18th September 2007 - I am at our Party conference in Brighton this week where the mood among delegates is upbeat and enthusiastic despite the constant media obsession with Ming Campbell's leadership. I am at a loss to understand why they are not more
Hot news from conference last night. Girls on the street trying to get customers into Spearmint Rhino tried to persuade Colin Ross he she should pay the establishment a visit. Looking at the front of their website they have only been in Brighton since last week, I think that maybe they need to be a bit more discerning in who they stop...
An early start this morning with a breakfast hosted by BBC World to inform us about their work and the launch of their Arabic service. This was a very informative event and I was able to appreciate just how the BBC's impartiality is valued and the impact this has across the world, often where this is not available from other stations.
Heading home from the Champagne Taste Test fringe last night I was handed a flyer from a very pleasant young girl inviting me to Spearmint Rhino. I have to say the conference committee have excelled themselves in the range of fringe events this year. I suspect the Campaign for Gender Balance are behind promoting an organisation that provides employment for so many young women.
I have lost my phone - a Blackberry Pearl - and I am completely panicking. It might be at the Grand, so if you have come across it (It has a picture of my boys as screensaver), please do let me know!
The run on the bank continues, despite the Chancellor's intervention. Since Northern Rock went to the Bank of England for a loan last Thursday, their customers have been queuing up to withdraw their money, convinced that the bank is about to sink, and their life savings with it. So far, over £2bn worth of deposits have been withdrawn - that's getting on for 10% of the total holdings. There was a snowball effect. The more Northern Rock savers closed their accounts, the higher the chances of the bank going under, and the greater the temptation for their remaining customers to ...
If you support the policy of improving the nutrtional standards of school meals, but eat the occasional turkey twizzler yourself, are you a hypocrite? Or if you support a penny on income tax, for some bizarre off-message reason, but you fail to donate an extra 1% of your income to the treasury, are you a hypocrite? In each case no. The question is deeply confused. Yet, if you advocate improved
That was the main nugget I took from the meeting with Ming on Sunday, when the shortlisters for the "LibDem blogger of the year" award interviewed him. Alex Wilcock, drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of the party's labyrinthine policy procedures, pointed out that the party, as we spoke, was having a consultative session on Europe including: 13. In either case, would a referendum as part of
Mark Braund is remarkably generous about the Lib Dems on Comment is Free this morning, saying that “what makes the Lib Dem position on tax most interesting is their apparent willingness to discuss the far more radical idea of land value taxation (LVT).” The truth is, this debate will be happening in the face of the Policy Committee and many members of the Party’s front bench. Last year’s Tax Commission report promised jam tomorrow, promising to revisit this issue. This year’s “Reducing the Burden” report makes almost no reference. The debate within the party over LVT is often portrayed as ...
Some idle musings from the Liberal Democrat Party Conference. It's good to be back! This is my first party conference for 23 years, in fact my first Liberal Democrat one, the last one was a Liberal Party Assembly. Everything is bigger and shinier now. Better organised, more professional. Speakers appear on a giant video screen. There are so many fringe meetings it would take 6 months to attend
Great news: Our leader fluently explained out tax policies on live radio at 7.50am! It can be done. It is worth listening to the interview with Carolyn Quinn on Radio Four's Today if you missed it. If you go to their web page, just click on "7.50" under "Today's Top Stories" and you can listen to it. I thought Ming responded particularly well to pressure from Carolyn Quinn about the impact of
Organisations hosting fringe events at conference have a standard practice for getting people through the doors and ensuring there are bums on seats. It's called "Refreshments available". This is a well tried and tested practice and is a good way of getting people into a meeting about an issues of which they have very limited knowledge or indeed interest. It is possible to go through a
Does anyone really believe those emails trying to sell you cheap Viagra? Well, apparently many do and they have made Ashish Galai a very rich man. Yesterday he was jailed at Kingston Crown Court for supplying fake tablets. According to the Independent, some customers complained that the tablets had no effect - only some?
Pauline has always demonstrated an impressive understanding of court procedures. It is sad, but the failures of the legal profession have led to parents having to learn how to use legal procedures themselves. There are different problems in different areas of the country. In Liverpool there are quite a few odd things that happen in the courts.
A little while back I was filmed for an interview about my Sheffield Hallam successor, Nick Clegg MP, to be broadcast at this week’s Lib Dem conference. The result including my small contribution is now available on the Observer website. | < | September 2007 | > | ||||
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