Little Bowden this evening.
Two years ago tonight I was in New York. A year ago I was in Manchester. But this evening finds me in Market Harborough. Anyway,here is the foreword to new Liberator songbook that my fellow Liberal Democrats will be using at the Conference Glee Club this evening. Bonkers HallRutlandTel: Rutland 7 Risselty-rosselty, hey, pomposity Nickety nackety noo, noo, noo. There is no denying it: the Scots have a way with a lyric. That is why I was delighted when I heard that the Liberal Democrat Conference was to take place in Glasgow this year. And when I heard it will ...
The Hertfordshire Schools Journey Planner offers a range of routes either on foot, by bike, by public transport or by car. It finds the quickest and safest routes to school and helps parents to find alternative ways to get to school other than by car. This in turn should help to ease congestion on our busy roads as well as reduce emissions. The planner also shows the approximate amount of calories burned on each route and the amount of carbon emissions produced to help families to pick the best way to get to school. Walking routes take into account unsafe ...
The most important decision Harborough District Council took while I was a member - more important even than building the town's leisure centre - was to allow the redevelopment of the cattle market in Market Harborough. I supported this move, which was controversial, because I hoped that by allowing a major supermarket to be built there (it turned out to be a Sainsbury's) we would prevent one being built near the new by-pass and thus keep shoppers in the town centre. And it worked. Market Harborough town centre has remained prosperous despite the economic downturn. New supermarkets have arrived since ...
[View the story "Leadership wins the last crunch vote as 100+ extra votes appear: Tuesday in Glasgow" on Storify]
Or at least there are by my count. Kent (or to be more exact the area within the boundary Kent County Council) has just under 1.5 million people residents. There are 37 countries with populations smaller than that. They are mostly small pacific islands but also include recognisable national entities like Bahrain, Montonegro and Cyprus. [...]
Tue 17th
20:15
Clegg: "Every primary school pupil should be able to sit down to a hot, healthy lunch with their cla...
[IMG: school children] Nick Clegg's speech to the Lib Dem conference on Wednesday will contain one new, significant policy announcement: all pupils at infant schools in England are to get free school lunches from next September. In addition, disadvantaged students at sixth form colleges and further education colleges in England will also be eligible for free school meals also from next September. Money is also being provided for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but as education is a devolved issue, it will be up to those running schools there to decide whether to spend the money on free lunches. The ...
It has been common, at least since Mike Thornton won the Eastleigh by-election, for Liberal Democrats to argue that those who say we will be all but wiped out at the next general election are mistaken. Never mind the opinion polls, our MPs are popular and good campaigners, so they have a sporting chance of keeping their seats. More evidence for this view comes from the October issue of Total Politics. The magazine asked the members of YouGov's online panel about their satisfaction with their own MP. The results were startling: if you're a Conservative and you have a Labour ...
Friends. It is a special pleasure to speak to Conference in the city where I had my political baptism of fire. Glasgow is a great city and Glaswegians are warm, hospitable and humorous. But Glasgow has experienced one party, Labour, rule for decades. And I was part of the Labour political machine here in the 1970s. On one level it worked. Insanitary slums were razed to the ground. We built 30,000 new social homes for rent in a decade - 5,000 in one year, a scale unimaginable today. There was also an unhealthy tribalism and a Tammany Hall political machine ...
Cllr David Jenkins Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats have called for a full review of Park and Ride sites to explore all options for generating revenue and further promoting sustainable transport. They claim a strategy is needed to make sure Cambridgeshire County Council is deriving the most benefit from the sites. The call comes after it was decided that a county council Cabinet decision to impose parking charges at P & R sites should be reconsidered. Lib Dems claim the decision, which they overturned after calling it in for scrutiny, was constitutionally flawed and should not have been taken. David Jenkins, Lib ...
So the coalition government have found a billion pounds a year from somewhere and they had to decide how to spend it. Middle England believes that keeping parents in unhappy marriages will help solve some of the issues of 'Broken Britain' as apparently marriage and that piece of paper can change everything. I think this is bizarre and doesn't exactly add up but still I'm going to look at the other portion of the one billion pounds a year and where it is going. It is going to the kids, 'why won't somebody think of the children?' shrieks Mrs Lovejoy ...
Following a consultation with residents on the northern part of the South Park Road estate, a proposal for a quiet cycle route allowing cyclists to get from the Gatley lights to Parrs Wood comes to Cheadle Area Committee next week. The route is mostly funded by the Government and the longer-term aim is to get more people cycling, which I see as absolutely critical if we're going to have any chance of really improving the traffic – and queues – around the Kingsway junction. The route goes along Coniston Road and round South Park Road (it doesn't go along the ...
Churchtown's traditional Christmas tree has been saved from the scrooges at Sefton Council. Due to cutbacks the Council decided to axe provision of the Christmas tree and decorations that have provided joy to children and adults alike over the years. Churchtown's Lib Dem councillors, John Dodd, Nigel Ashton and David Rimmer, have voted to use funds from the local area budget to provide the tree, decorations, and lights this year. The three Meols councillors are also supported by councillors from neighbouring Cambridge Ward in ensuring provision of the tree. Cllr Nigel Ashton said "Christmas in Churchtown wouldn't be the same ...
Tue 17th
17:15Bob Worcester forecasts Lib Dems to be reduced to 24 seats in 2015. I'll run naked down Whitehall if...
At a conference fringe meeting on Monday evening, the pollster's pollster Bob Worcester, MORI's founder, made a forecast of how many seats the Lib Dems will win at the 2015 election: 24. His prediction was based on current polling which he'd fed into the Electoral Calculus website and implied the number should be 17. His slightly higher punt allows for known Lib Dem strengths, such as our MPs' habit of holding on tight in seats we win through sheer Stakhonovite grit. Forecasting the next election is a bit of a mug's game, as the Coalition means there's no past precedent ...
Over the past couple of months my Council colleagues and I, have noticed a large increase in the number of vulnerable residents calling to ask for help with matters that relate to services which Ealing Council provide. Activities such as renewing parking permits and buying visitors' vouchers, for some, have become impossible. If they go to Ealing Town Hall they are turned away. If they phone up they are not given assistance. When they write they do not get a letter or a call from Ealing Council. Many elderly or vulnerable residents do not find it easy to access the ...
Leaving aside the issue of defence, what was striking about the vote on the amendment to today's defence motion at the Liberal Democrat conference was the numbers. 228 voted for the amendment and 322 voted against, a total of 550 voting representatives. Given the importance of this vote, it is a fair bet that most voting reps present in Glasgow took part. This suggests that it is unlikely the total number of voting reps present in Glasgow exceeds 600. Yes, holding the conference in Glasgow when most party members live in southern England deters attendance. Yes, many members attending are ...
A rare Tuesday by election takes place today says Vote UK. It's a difficult defence for the Lib Dems in Woking following the disqualification of their councillor - they have a majority of just 16 over Labour, but the Tories hold the other two seats in the ward!
As we're in Glasgow, the city where my Dad was born and to which Alex Salmond is so eager to make me an alien, I thought the First Minister deserved some rigorous intellectual analysis. What do his 'Independence-Lite-Ambiguity-Heavy' reassurances to a sceptical Scotland really mean? 'So I want us to move out, and you're nervous you won't like the new place. But it's OK! Putting Britain through a divorce they don't want and stiffing them with the rent won't change anything. We'll still be able to shag them whenever we want and borrow all their stuff - just no strings! ...
Over at Total Politics magazine, Stephen Tall's 'The Underdog' column focuses on the Lib Dem conference and how the party has been suffering the hangover from hell ever since the Coalition was formed: My party is still suffering the hangover-from-hell that we woke up to on the morning of 7 May 2010. Until then, we'd been able to maintain the pretence, at least for our own benefit, that we would form a majority government and introduce our manifesto wholesale. And if that didn't happen in one bound, we'd wangle it so that electoral reform guaranteed us our fair share of ...
On Monday afternoon, the party leadership's opposition to a 50p top rate of tax only just won out, by a threadbare margin of 4 votes. Yet other 'leadership tests' in Glasgow have been won much more easily. What is more, just 444 votes were cast compared to today's 550 votes cast in the Trident debate. (Ignore comparisons, by the way, with how many voted at other recent party conferences held in England. Vote totals are always lower when the conference is further away from south east England.) So a close vote and a low turnout. The reason? The usual text ...
I see the NHS as a health service provided by the state and paid for by our taxes. The service is provided regardless of the recipient's ability to pay for the service that they receive. The definition does get more complicated but this is a simple definition and I guess that most would see the NHS as a shining example for the rest of the world. It has its faults and I have written blogs about some of those faults but the general principle is a good one. If someone needs help then it should be given to them. There ...
This morning's debate on defence was heavily dominated by just one subject – whether or not Britain should continue to have a nuclear deterrent. An amendment rejecting any renewal of Trident, which had no big name backers, came within 100 votes of defeating Danny Alexander's motion. It was quite an achievement for the amendment's proposer, George Potter, to get it at least to a counted vote. The speech of the debate came from Glasgow's Paul Coleshill who likened replacing Trident to a middle aged man buying a sports car as a mid life crisis – but one he could only ...
I am extraordinarily pleased that Liberal Democrat Conference just voted to reject the proposed amendment to the leadership's Defence motion today. One of the most important functions of any Government (and therefore any party seeking to form or be part of a Government) is to protect the nation from enemies both foreign and domestic. The suggestion (as the amendment proposed) that Britain should almost immediately decommission all nuclear weapons capability when we face a cross-roads with respect to international nuclear proliferation was therefore, in my view at least, both reckless and naive. Whilst I understand the spirit with which the ...
We Lib Dems really dislike First Past the Post. A post, yesterday In fact I'd even go so far as to say that we hate it. We hate the distorting effect it has on our politics. We hate the way its ossifying influence helps to keep the red/blue duopoly of our system. We hate the way it keeps smaller parties (not just ourselves but e.g. Greens and UKIP) out of power or even in some cases parliament altogether. So I think it's fair to say we are generally not fans. And yet in 2015 the First Past the Post electoral ...
[IMG: Clegg Voting] THAT email, the one giving a briefing to MPs on how to address the media, was always going to delight the political gossips. And so it proved. Shorn of the drama of a full out Farron versus Clegg versus Cable bloodbath, the quidnuncs in the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and at politics.co.uk leapt on the email. The New Statesmen notes that MPs are told not to refer to the "bedroom tax", it is a "spare room subsidy." Regardless, as the Guardian and Inside Housing report, the conference condemned the bedroom tax for discriminating against the most vulnerable ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Polling: Not love, actually | Total Politics Important @philipjcowley article highlighting how (relatively) well rated LD MPs are by their voters http://bit.ly/18slLck A VIEW FROM HAM COMMON: EXCLUSIVE : Tim Farron's speech to conference: the story everyone's missed Good spot from @richardmorrisUK [IMG: :)] EXCLUSIVE: Tim Farron's speech to conference: the story everyone's missed http://bit.ly/1grUFHc Voters turn against pygmy politics Brutal but brilliant analysis by Peter Kellner > Voters turn against pygmy politics http://bit.ly/1grTAPF Now it's the Lib Dems who talk of power, and the Tories who plot - Telegraph Blogs Don't ...
Tue 17th
13:25
VIDEO: Paddy wows Lib Dem conference with the promise of more leaflets, more blisters and more early...
Here's the new film from the Liberal Democrats: Also on YouTube.
I've been Guidoed I feel like my blog has arrived :-)
2012 election void after Election Petition. LD seat.
Inception Review Just running through all the movies I've reviewed for the 2010/2014 awards and found that the Inception movie and sound track review has gone AWOL. I don't know why... sometimes these things just happen / it's a massive digital conspiracy to wreak havoc upon my finely honed organisational skills... ANYWAY. Don't panic! I'm going to review both right here and now because that's the kind of person I am. (I might have already reviewed them somewhere else, the review I give now may not bear any resemblance to any previous review...) Inception (12A) Writer & director: Christopher Nolan ...
No no no. This blog isn't about what I'd do with [redacted] if she was up for [redacted] with [redacted] whilst wearing [redacted] and melted Mars Bars. Oh no. This is about another fantasy. Fantasy baseball. I have written before that I've been told that writing/talking about your fantasy team with people who aren't in your league is amongst some of the most boring things that one can do but yet here I am and after a dramatic few days in my fantasy baseball league I think its worthy of a blog post. In recent years I have totally scaled ...
Episode 76 of the House of Comments podcast "2013 Lib Dem Conference Special" is out. This week I was joined by Caron Lindsay and Nick Thornsby to discuss all things Lib Dem - live (well OK, recorded but you know) from the party's conference in Glasgow covering topics as diverse as fracking, Trident and porn filters. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here. Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe. You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here. Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here: listen ...
Nuclear weapons? What are they good for?...I am a relative defence hawk. Many years ago, I proposed a motion at a Young Liberal Council meeting which called for major improvements in defence procurement thus allowing the resultant savings to be spent on... more weapons. I am not a tree-hugging, cheese-eating surrender monkey. Well, I am cheese-eating, even though it is bad for my diet.So, naturally, I'll be supporting the motion currently being proposed by my former colleague in the East of England, Julie Smith, won't I? It is, I admit, wholly reasonable, and addresses two of my concerns - support ...
Stockport's Hatworks museum is right in the Town Centre and is a great visit for all ages. Now the museum's made it into a BBC feature on the oddest days out in the UK. Read the BBC piece here.
Here's the new film from the Liberal Democrats: Also on YouTube.
Most of the UK is aware of the austerity measures that are being imposed on them due to the financial issues we have faced since 2008. Cuts have been made to excessive and unnecessary spending in a whole manner of issues. Tough decisions have been made about what front line services are to be kept and front line services like education and health are afforded protection. However, in Northern Ireland the Minister for Health has been using his limited, if protected budget, on the institutionalised homophobia. I am not mincing my words on this as I have called the way ...
[IMG: newsnight2] I was one of thirty or so party members invited to be the audience last night on Newsnight. We were encouraged to join in the discussion with Vince Cable and other guests, including Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Maajid Nawaz. As usual the BBC does not allow us to embed their videos but you can view the programme on i-Player. * Mary Reid is the Tuesday Editor on Lib Dem Voice.
Just because the House of Commons recently voted against military action in Syria does not mean that Britain or indeed the West can walk away from the tragic situation there. As I said in a speech at the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow this morning, we still have a moral obligation to act under Responsibility [...]
Tue 17th
10:23
The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge 2013.6 - Another Eight Answers #LibDemValues
Half-way through Liberal Democrat Conference in Glasgow, I'm turning from the hotly argued policy votes to essential principles and eight Lib Dems' own individual, diverse, but unifying rallying cries on What the Lib Dems Stand For. Some are shorter, some longer, some I'll link to for more, but all are recognisably Liberal Democrat. Here's what Sam Phripp, Prateek Buch, Andrew Tennant, Dave Page, Maelo Manning, Nick Barlow, Andrew Brown, Chris Richards - and me - have to say: which inspires you? Try some in your local party, or on the doorstep, or your leaflets and speeches... And share yours, too! ...
[IMG: Broke] I was whizzing back down to London during the Lib Dems economy speech yesterday, but I watched it all later. Nick Clegg's summing up was highly effective. So was Vince Cable's 'hated Tories' speech later, not so much laying into his cabinet colleagues - as the news reports say - but laying into the election machinery behind them. But in retrospect, I find the whole business pretty infuriating. Clegg wasn't allowed to go over time - a sign of an authentic debate if ever there was one (I can't see Ed Miliband told to "bring his remarks to ...
I always enjoy Party Conference. It is a chance to meet old friends, meet charities and organisations and lobby hard on the issues you care about. For as long [...]
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Almost 700 party members responded – thank you – and we're publishing the full results. Lib Dem conference representatives voted overwhelmingly to review the controversial policy known by most as the 'bedroom tax', by some as the 'spare room subsidy' and by no-one at all as the 'under-occupancy charge'. Here's how the BBC reported it: In the last of a series of debates at the party's conference in Glasgow, delegates voted overwhelmingly ...
Word reaches Liberator of an altercation at yesterday's parliamentary party meeting over briefing by those associated with Nick Clegg, to the effect that the unamended motion on the economy (debated by party conference yesterday morning) was supported 55-2 at a pre-conference awayday of MPs. We hear that this greatly displeased Vince Cable, on the grounds that no such vote took place at the event concerned and that, even if it had, not all 57 MPs were present so the figures could not have been correct. The implication was that Cable was among the two and therefore that his position on ...
posted The Blood is The Life 16-09-2013 http://t.co/SvpgUT8zpn on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) http://twitpic.com/ddqezj SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH: Stop everything you're doing! This is important... http://t.co/7jBbcKbxWF (tags: (from twitter) ) http://twitpic.com/ddqiro @2000AD holding its own amongst the heavyweight railway glossies at Paddington Station. http://t.co/bavCPkouih (tags: (from twitter) ) Dredd Day of Action coming on Wednesday! http://t.co/khF5DKmRn3 @2000AD @molcher @JudgeDredd (tags: (from twitter) ) Lib Dem Press has handed out the lines for MPs to take in interviews to journalists at conference > http://t.co/rxqXMDC8y7 ... (tags: (from twitter) ) http://ind.pn/14946c9 Oh Lord. RT @IndyPolitics: Not 'appropriate' for students ...
Tue 17th
09:55VIDEO: Jeremiah was proved right - watch Vince Cable's conference speech on the economy
Here's the new film from the Liberal Democrats: Also on YouTube.
This morning Conference debates defence, including the future of our nuclear deterrent. The main motion incorporates the idea of ending continuous at sea deterrence. There is an amendment calling for no renewal of a nuclear deterrent at all. It should come as a surprise to precisely nobody that I will be voting for the amendment. I cannot in all conscience stick my hand in the air in support of buying weapons of mass destruction whose only purpose is to kill innocent civilians. I just can't do it. It seems obvious to me that if we spent our billions on humanitarian ...
[IMG: John Stuart Mill] A court case and a Birmingham school have thrown the dilemma of clothing choices versus personal interaction requirements into the limelight again. It seems to me that the liberal response to this is fairly clear and quite easy to calculate. Let's start with some basic facts: 1. Facial expression is a vital part of communication. Some research puts over 50% of human communication as carried in facial expression. 2. Facial identification is the primary - and in most cases only - form of human identification. Liberals believe in freedom of expression and religion. But that freedom ...
The Bank of England is thinking of replacing its cotton based notes with plastic ones. The latter ones sohuld last twice as long. But a new study has found that bacteria loves some kinds of banknotes better than others. They steralised bank notes and the introduced MRSA or E.coli onto them. Euroes didnt pass E.coli onto people's skin. US dollar passed on some bacteria. But the worst culprit was the Romanian leu a ploymer plastic banknote very similar to that proposed for the UK. So if the Bank of England plans proceed we can potentially expect to see more bacterial ...
Yesterday afternoon the Telegraph published the first part of Iain Dale's annual list of the 50 most influential Liberal Democrats. It contained two members of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. First, a new entry at number 49 for our associate editor Helen Duffett: Helen Duffett acts as a bridge between the party establishment and the membership. She is credited with a huge improvement in the effectiveness and relevance of party communications. As Honorary President of Liberal Youth, Associate Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, and host of regular online Q&A sessions with Lib Dem Ministers, she is, unlike most messengers, widely ...
I was trying to get hold of a copy of Tim's speech to conference - I've been in touch with the press office twice, no joy, checked the website lots, no joy, and in the end Tim offered to send it to me himself (I assured him he probably had better things to do with his time). So I transcribed it myself. All 21 minutes and 15 seconds of it - not including the standing ovation at the end. And I was glad I did; for while I loved watching the speech at the time (and if you haven't seen ...
As a newly elected county councillor, I have been spending the summer getting to know council services better, and I recently had an afternoon on the Mobile Library bus with Ally Clarke, the Mobile Library Manager. After a slight blip due to a delayed train, I'm pleased to see the mobile bus drive into Shepreth Station to pick me up, and Ally welcomes me on board. Ally's been doing the job for an amazing 23 years, and has known some of the readers since they were small children. Nevertheless, she still has incredible levels of enthusiasm and energy - plus ...
Tue 17th
07:55By a whisker, Lib Dem leadership pulls it off in the day's crunch votes: Monday at Lib Dem conferenc...
[View the story "By a whisker, Lib Dem leadership pulls it off in the day's crunch votes: Monday at Lib Dem conference" on Storify] For my other conference news, see here.
Welcome to part 4 of my stroll through the Conference agenda. This one is actually being prepared live, so I can add in a couple of hints and tips that I've gleaned over the first few days. Handy hints 1) It is much quicker to go outside to get between the Crowne Plaza,Exhibition and Clyde Auditorium rather than take the labyrinthine, interminable corridors inside. 2) I only discovered last night that there is a corridor full of comfy, quiet sofas with power points for charging phones on the way to the Leven room in the SECC. Mind you , now ...
Last month, I mentioned the excellent proposal by local resident Kelly Marr for "Discovery Walk" in the new Waterfront area, for a series of manhole covers that depict some of the great Dundonians who have made a real contribution to the city in the field of discovery. The concept is based around the Sydney Writers' Walk - an example of a cover from Sydney is shown (right). Yesterday, a group of us met with Kelly at the University of Dundee to move the idea forward. Apart from university and City Council representatives, other organisations were represented including Dundee Contemporary Arts ...
This photograph shows part of Dundee's Perth Road, known as Invercauld Place, here leading eastwards towards the city centre. No. 153 was Sarah Campbell, a fruiterer, and No. 151 John Farquharson & Sons, 'plumber, gasfitter, tinsmith & brassfounder'. George Christe, a grocer, had a shop at No. 149, and another fruiterer was at No. 145, John (later Mrs John) Peebles. No. 143 was the grocer, David (later Mrs David) Sewart and, beyond Pennycook Lane, which led northwards to Hawkhill, was a butcher shop, which was probably what is listed in the Dundee Directory as John Birse, flesher, at No. 133. ...
Increased security at Harris Academy Following my call for increased security at the Perth Road Harris Academy site after the fire in the soon-to-be demolished building on Sunday evening, I have welcomed an assurance I received late yesterday from the City Council about the matter. A Council representative advised me : 'Robertson Construction have confirmed that they are increasing security commencing at 16:30 today running through the night until site opening hours each morning. Weekend security starts at 16:00 hrs on a Friday and runs through the weekend until the start of work on Monday mornings.' I am pleased that ...
[IMG: image] 1. Initiating a "national debate" on what girls wear. ................ 987. "Go home" vans and Section 7 detentions on his watch in the Home Office. Photo by Foreign and Commonwealth Office [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Janet and I are just back from a great week away in the Caribbean - we are pictured (right) in the lovely island of St Thomas - we also visited St Maarten and Nassau in the Bahamas. I'd like to thank member services staff at the City Council for dealing with urgent constituent enquiries whilst I was away - in their usual highly efficient and pleasant way - and to my LibDem colleagues who ensured my weekly ward surgeries ran as normal. Now back to hundreds of e-mails! Holidays seem like history very soon after you return!
The BBC report on Kirsty Williams' speech to Liberal Democrats Conference yesterday. She told representatives that Lib Dems need to stop the Scottish National Party from running the UK's constitutional agenda: Kirsty Williams told her party conference in Glasgow to campaign to persuade Scotland to stay in the UK. Scotland votes in an in-out referendum in a year's time. Ms Williams said federalism and devolution was not just a Scottish or Welsh idea but a "key Liberal Democrat philosophy." Speaking in Glasgow, she warned that the Lib Dems had to campaign harder than ever before to persuade Scotland to remain ...
[IMG: image] [IMG: image] [IMG: image] Yesterday, I was overcome by a sort of claustrophobia and had to escape the conference bubble. Fortunately, it was a nice afternoon. I was able to have a lovely stroll around Glasgow, take some random photographs and enjoy an hour lounging in an internet cafe. Here are three slightly oddball pics I took. The first, on the immediate right, shows a back street off Argyle Street. Although it's close to the centre of Glasgow, it looks like quite a backwater. The second, far right, is of a monument, again in Argyle Street, put up ...
OK this post is quite self-indulgent but as I had written the speech anyway and as the Chair of the debate on 'Making housing benefit work for tenants in social housing' and her aide deemed that they did not want a Welsh voice, I did not see the point in wasting it: Conference, we have heard many times over the last few days that when in government we need to make difficult decisions. I have been in government as a deputy minister in Wales and I know that compromises have to be made and that sometimes we have to embrace ...
How many times have Lib Dems knocked on doors at 9.55pm to get out the last remaining identified voters because "your vote really could make a difference" in this election? Today's vote on whether to keep the top-rate of tax levied on those earning £150k or more at 45p, or to pledge to raise it to 50p was much, much, much closer: conference narrowly voted for the leadership's preferred policy – 45p – by a wafer thin majority of just 4 votes, 224 to 220. The closest previous conference vote I can recall was in spring 2007 when representatives voted ...
Grosvenor Bridge takes the railway to Victoria station across the River Thames. During the latter half of the 1960s the bridge was replaced without closure to rail or river traffic.
