The link to Lib Dem Voice on Amazon is here. It will set you back a modest £1.99 a month.

Of course, if you think the content we produce here is worth £2 a month, and you don’t have a Kindle, you are more than welcome to cut out the middle-person and donate it to us directly by standing order.

You can also donate money to us indirectly by using any of the book or technology links on our blog to buy stuff from Amazon. As Amazon Associates, we take a small cut of your spend.

This time around, we weren’t quite fleet enough of foot to get any such event in the conference directory, so we will have to rely on word of mouth helping to spread the details.

After a quick chat on the topic in Lib Dem Voice’s private members’ forum, we settled on meeting at the Wellington pub, a short distance from the conference centre itself, on the Monday night of the conference week. Kickoff will be around 7.30pm.

If you’d like to come along, why not click here to let your twitter friends know.

In addition, Lib Dem Voice have our usual strong presence at the conference, with the following events planned:

Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards 2011
Join LDV and online friends for a walk down the yellow carpet to award the 2011 BOTYs. Categories,
nominations and public voting all happen in August at www.LibDemVoice.org
Saturday, 17th September, 10pm onwards
Hyatt Regency, Andante

Do we need a Coalition ‘exit strategy’? Preparing for 2015
How should the Liberal Democrats campaign as a distinct party in the next General Election? Our panel of experts explore the party’s options for 2015.
Tuesday, 20th September, 8pm
Jurys Inn, 102

Lib Dems and the Media: friend or foe, and does it matter?
“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” Media coverage of the Liberal Democrats has increased hugely since the 2010 General Election campaign – but have we got the coverage we craved?
Wednesday 21st September, 1pm
Hyatt Regency, Fortissimo

The link to Lib Dem Voice on Amazon is here. It will set you back a modest £1.99 a month.

Of course, if you think the content we produce here is worth £2 a month, and you don’t have a Kindle, you are more than welcome to cut out the middle-person and donate it to us directly by standing order.

You can also donate money to us indirectly by using any of the book or technology links on our blog to buy stuff from Amazon. As Amazon Associates, we take a small cut of your spend.

The link is directly to a fairly draw-dropping cross-party letter from chairs of Police Authorities around the country who have a fairly serious beef with the Home Secretary’s accuracy in a recent speech.

Theresa May appears to have tried to shore up support for the Conservative policy of elected police commissioners by insinuating that in London, taxpayers got a better service from the elected police chief (and Mayor) Boris Johnson, than in other parts of the country where there are indirectly elected Chairs of Police Authorities instead.

A large number of Chairs of Police Authorities are not happy at the suggestion:

This un-evidenced, London-centric assertion was either regretfully ill-informed or wilfully inaccurate. In either case we believe it to be unbecoming of a Secretary of State. It has caused not only bemusement but anger amongst police authorities and our partners across the country.

Quite simply, your allegations are completely untrue and a cursory conversation with the relevant Chief Constables, Council Leaders or representatives of local media could have confounded it.

The facts are that not only Chairs, but the full range of diverse police authority members were out listening to communities and reflecting their concerns to the police at the highest levels in GOLD meetings across the country. Authorities provided both support and appropriate challenge to forces. We worked closely with Chief Constables to ensure that they had all that they needed to police confidently, with full operational independence in defence of the public. Both in public and in private, we simply got on with the job. Police Authority Chairs were out on the front foot; convening meetings with the leaders of other emergency services, local councils, local media and community leaders, as well as visiting affected areas.

It is a matter of record that a number of Police Authority Chairs actually cancelled their leave to ensure that the police could respond to public concerns. Before any politicians could tour the streets of London with TV cameras in tow, Police Authority Chairs from across the country had agreed the mutual aid which played an indispensable role in restoring order to London and ensuring that those streets were again safe to stroll. This was done without fanfare, but quietly, in the national interest.

Read the rest of the strongly-worded letter here.

Whilst you’re on the site, you might be interested, as I was to see their map of police authorities, the e-factsheet “What is a Police Authority?” and learn that there are also two non-geographical police authorities too. There’s something I didn’t know: there’s a British Transport Police Authority and a Civil Nuclear Police Authority.

It’s terrible, terrible news, all the more vivid for me for the thought that this meeting must have been a similar sort of thing to the dozens run by our own party over the years. None of us would ever have considered Activate, or a Liberal Youth meeting a target for such an atrocity. A swathe cut through an entire generation of young political activists.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who have lost children today.

And who was Dr Pack’s choice? You will have to listen to find out.

PS don’t check the tags

The link to Lib Dem Voice on Amazon is here. It will set you back a modest £1.99 a month.

Of course, if you think the content we produce here is worth £2 a month, and you don’t have a Kindle, you are more than welcome to cut out the middle-person and donate it to us directly by standing order.

You can also donate money to us indirectly by using any of the book or technology links on our blog to buy stuff from Amazon. As Amazon Associates, we take a small cut of your spend.

If you were an MP with a boatload of postage-paid envelopes, you could probably abuse them with impunity, and send them out unsolicited to 95% of your constituents without getting any redress.

But there is one group of people who are much more likely to know the rules: people who work in politics. A subset of those are councillors. And if you are really keen on getting shopped to the House authorities, who best to try it on with but councillors of an opposing party?

So, in the run up to Lib Dem Spring conference, Labour Shadow Minister John Healey wrote a letter to 295 Lib Dem council group leaders with party political content, and was duly shopped to the authorities. It was the on the issue of the Health bill – and from the same John Healey who went to the conference hoping for a massive dust-up and appeared a little surprised at the mature discussion he witnessed. He has repaid the cost of headed paper and pre-paid envelopes, and when he was slapped on the back a second time, also managed to cough up the cost of lasering the letters.

After a fair bit of ill-tempered arguing, which appears to boil down to Healey saying the rules shouldn’t apply to him because he is a front-bencher, the shadow minister was ultimately ordered to apologise to the House.

And the moral of the story? a) don’t break the rules and b) don’t break them in front of a group of people with a ready made motive to dob you in!

The writing on the wall appears to be that gay men who have not had sex for a decade might in future be allowed to give blood.

This decision was the likely outcome of the scientific review into blood donation, when I researched the issue for an op-ed slot on Pod Delusion live. It was one of the things I mocked in front of a live pub audience.

The Advisory Committee for the Safety of Blood, Tissue and Organs (SaBTO) have been looking at the issue for over two years. If you check their website on the NHS pages you can read the minutes of the committee and a number of academic papers they are considering as part of making up their minds.

One of the “compromises” they appear to be coming to is suggesting that gay men who haven’t had gay sex for five years become eligible to donate blood.

This would have the bizarre outcome of putting the NHS in the same situation as the Anglican Church. “We’re absolutely fine with teh gays – just so long as we can be sure that you’re not actually f***ing.”

Will Howells joked at the time that it meant you could redefine “a dry spell” as “taking one for the team” – which made me chuckle then.

But joking aside, this is a disappointing decision.

Whilst it is welcome that a very small number of people might now be able to donate blood who previously were not able, I think this falls short of the sort of action we have seen in other countries, and is a disappointing outcome.

It still means that the vast majority of gay men, the vast majority of whom do not have HIV, will still be unable to donate blood. 19/20 gay men polled would be happy to do so if they were able, and would be happy to contribute to the Blood Service’s perpetual problem of finding enough eligible donors to keep the nation’s crash victims, surgery candidates and post-partum mothers alive.

That question was addressed by a meeting organised by the Liberal Democrat History Group earlier this year, with speakers our own Dr Mark Pack (who studied nineteenth century elections and electoral reform for his PhD) and the History of Parliament Trust’s Dr Philip Salmon. Here now for those who couldn’t make the meeting is a podcast.

[powerpress]

You can also read a review of Philip Salmon’s book Electoral Reform at Work: Local Politics and National Parties 1832-1841 here.

The link to Lib Dem Voice on Amazon is here. It will set you back a modest £1.99 a month.

Of course, if you think the content we produce here is worth £2 a month, and you don’t have a Kindle, you are more than welcome to cut out the middle-person and donate it to us directly by standing order.

You can also donate money to us indirectly by using any of the book or technology links on our blog to buy stuff from Amazon. As Amazon Associates, we take a small cut of your spend.

Posts

• Preview roundup
• Tim Farron’s speech at the conference rally
• What’s in the bag – Will Howells unboxes his conference bag
• Rolling News – Saturday morning – Mark Pack gives a blow by blow account
• Disability Living Allowance and NHS motions – the aftermath
• Diversity motion passes
• 10 Comments on Saturday at Conference – with (at time of writing) 13 comments from readers
• Emergency motion: tougher action on banks and bonuses
• Party Strategy: rolling highlights
• And of course conference closes with Nick Clegg’s conference speech

Podcasts

• Q&A with Business, Skills and Innovation team
• Nick Clegg Q&A
• Nick Clegg’s speech in full
• Full podcast of diversity debate
• Full podcast of our fringe “Who runs the internet?”

Libel law reform campaigner and former MP Evan Harris, website pioneer Mary Reid, James Blessing of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) and Jim Killock of the digital rights champions Open Rights Group debate recent issues about free speech and the internet with chair Mark Pack.

You can find my written review of the debate here.

You can play it by scrolling down and clicking the “play in another window” link.

And if you’d like to CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY, you will also find the published text here.

Hear him as he talks about Lords reform and tuition fees and takes questions within topic from speakers on the floor.

And did he really forget he was in charge of the country? Find out by clicking the “play in another window” link below.

You can hear the session in full by clicking the “play in a new window” link below.

Coming up later today: our podcasts of the Nick Clegg Q&A and a recording of our own fringe meeting, which is happening right now.

There were only a handful of people opposing the motion, led by Sophie Bridger, a candidate in the general election for Glasgow. She said what was proposed was against key Lib Dem values. It would entrench unfair advantage and tokenism. It would undermine the status quo where everyone gets a fair shot. It would even, she said, make a mockery of the selection process.

It sounded familiar to me – and Alistair Carmichael put his finger on it towards the end of the debate. “Sophie – I’ve heard that speech before. Jo Swinson made it in 2001. She might not make the same speech now. I agreed with her in 2001, but now I have changed my mind because in the last decade we simply have not seen the progress we expected.” (And if Jo wants to get in touch to let us know whether Alistair summed up her 2011 views, that would be welcomed)

Alistair is not the only one who made those points. Tim Farron too thought that twenty years ago he would have opposed any positive action – but that now the proof is clearly there that it is needed to end the bias. And he pointed to existing successes in our own party and others: zipping at the first regional Euro elections led to lasting change in the gender balance of our European Parliamentary Party. The Labour party’s All Women Shortlists radically increased the number of women and even the Conservative A lists have had lasting change.

Adding her voice to the “it is time” brigade, Sal Brinton also said that 25 years ago she would probably have taken Sophie’s position. Even ten years ago, when she saw the launch of the Campaign for Gender Balance, and Miranda Piercey’s campaign within the then LDYS to encourage younger women to speak at conference as a stepping stone to greater activism within the party, she might have taken that view. But now, with a humiliatingly low percentage of women in the parliamentary party, and beaten on diversity by both other major parties, was the time to take real action in the Liberal Democrats.

The new provisions for the party will be to establish a Leadership Programme which will give them access to parliamentarians, a comprehensive training and support package, as well as mentoring and coaching. Those on the list will – if they apply – be guaranteed a place on shortlists before going ahead to be voted on by local parties who are selected. The list will have at least 30 people in it by the end of 2011, and will be made up of at 50% women, 20% from BAME backgrounds and 10% for those with disabilities.

Of course, even writing a list of people who need extra help is going to be contentious, and representations from DELGA ensued. What about LGBTQ people, poorly represented in parliament? Ed Fordham moved an amendment on behalf of DELGA which was accepted by the movers, and subsequently voted through. He had a vivid picture of the status quo in selection of a school disco with a clear divide: the middle-aged, white men in suits and ties doing dad-dancing at one side of the hall, who get selected for all the winnable seats; and the diverse gay, black and female candidates who get selected for the unwinnable ones. Later in the debate, Chris Ward continued the demand for action for LGBTQ people: these are the people disproportionately likely to be bullied to suicide in school age years, and a group of people still desperately in need of positive role models wherever possible. It was offensive, Chris said, that the movers of the motion had excluded the LGBTQ – and it was just as bad whether it was intentional or not. DELGA’s amendment also made the important point that those who were economically disadvantaged should also be recognised by the programme.

The party’s lack of progress particularly on racial grounds was highlighted by a number of speakers. Anuja Punj Pashar told us she had worked with many faith and ethnic based groups in her community and within the Civil Service – many of whom were amazed to hear of her decision to join the Liberal Democrats. She also made the telling point that she had been actively courted by the Conservatives. She had been approached by the Labour party. But no-one from the Lib Dems ever knocked on her door: she had to come to us. Speaking in the interventions, Cllr Michael Bukola recounted his experience of knocking on doors with a black face and a yellow rosette: he was met with suspicion and discontent from members of the black communities, who asked him “You really don’t get this, do you?”

With more experiences from local government, Cllr Daisy Benson drew on her success with a talented councillor programme. The training and support she received there directly enabled her to take on a significant role with her council, and now she is responsible for a budget leading into millions and a significant staff. Mark Pack made the important point that the percentage of women in local government has stabilised at a disappointing 30% and has not changed much in 20 years. Continuing to do what we have done in the past will not cut the mustard in future.

Perhaps the most trenchant point made throughout the debate was that this has to be a grassroots movement. Whilst it is important to get a more diverse parliamentary party and increase diversity in representative roles, perhaps the most important locus of action is within our membership. Just as we are insufficiently diverse at the highest levels, we are insufficiently diverse amongst our grassroots membership. We are all responsible for recruiting more members to our movement.

UPDATE: A podcast of the debate is available here.

With attempts to control the internet ranging from drastic actions of dictators in the Middle East to democratic debates in the US Congress over an internet ‘kill switch’, and not forgetting the continuing debate over the Digital Economy Act in Britain, The Voice’s fringe meeting tonight at the Liberal Democrat spring conference is looking at who has control over what on the internet:

Who runs the internet? Wikileaks, piracy and censorship

Libel law reform campaigner and former MP Evan Harris, website pioneer Mary Reid, James Blessing of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) and Jim Killock of the digital rights champions Open Rights Group debate recent issues about free speech and the internet with chair Mark Pack.

Meeting Room 6, Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, 119 Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 2JE
12 March · 20:00 – 21:00

Hope to see you there.

Know other people who are coming to conference who may be interested in this meeting? If so, please let them know about it by sharing this post or our Facebook event with them – many thanks.

UPDATE: A podcast of the event is now available and Mary Reid has blogged her own opening contribution.

To amplify that, we can now bring you an almost full recording of the debate. Thrill at procedural niceties! Coo at the applause for Baroness Williams! And bask in the self-righteous glow from delegates that no other party still has debates like this.

Apologies that the recording starts halfway through Paul Burstow’s introductory speech. It took longer than expected for me to wake up and eat breakfast clear security at City Hall.

The file can be accessed by clicking the “play in new window” link below.