The pressure on Gordon Brown to match words with deeds when it comes to human rights is growing:

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has urged Gordon Brown to boycott this summer’s Olympic opening ceremony in protest at China’s human rights record. He said the prime minister could not attend the event in Beijing “in good conscience”, given the country’s crackdown on protests in Tibet. In a letter, Mr Clegg said Mr Brown must “take a stand for human rights”. The prime minister has ruled out a boycott. The Olympic torch passes through London this weekend.   (BBC)

You can read the full letter on the party’s website.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats are ramping up their plans for a strong presence at Sunday’s demonstrations as the Olympic Torch passes through London, with thousands of supporters across London having been text messaged urging them to take part in the protests. It’ll be interesting to see how this use of mobile technology to mobilise protesters works.

Details of the protests (taken from the Liberal Democrat Facebook event) are:

You have three opportunities:

1) to join us in Bloomsbury Square from about 11.45am to collect flags, banners and placards and then to congregate at the junction of Bedford Place and Great Russell Street where the Olympic torch will pass at 12.20pm. This will be part of the wider ‘Free Tibet’ demonstration organised by the Free Tibet Campaign who are supplying some of our equipment.

2) to attend the Tibetan Freedom Torch Rally from 2.15pm to 3.30pm at which NORMAN BAKER MP will speak. It is a rally and cultural event at which the Tibetan Freedom Torch will be lit and traditional and modern Tibetan music played.

3) to join the Southwark Liberal Democrats from about 2.45pm in Potters Field Park (outside City Hall near Tower Bridge) to demonstrate as the Olympic Torch is carried from Tooley Street to City Hall.

Later today, party leader Nick Clegg will be launching the new Liberal Youth organisation - the new name for LDYS.

Here’s what the press release says:

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Or so the headline in the local rag says.

Lib Dems in East Middleton are planning to ballot local residents about the future of controversial Councillor David Murphy. The ‘mini-referendum’ will simply ask the question – “Do you believe that Councillor Murphy should be residing in South-Western Europe at tax-payer’s expense?” The Lib Dems have also revealed that Councillor Murphy has less than a week to stand down to avoid a costly by-election.

Local Councillor Irene Cooper said: “People round here are quite rightly furious at Councillor Murphy’s behaviour. I feel he should stand down immediately. I know that local people feel the same – just to make sure though we are putting it to the people. It’s not right that he claims a significant amount of taxpayer’s money for a role he is patently not doing. No-one says that Councillor Murphy has not done his bit for Middleton but I’ve forgotten what he looks like! It’s now time to go though and to avoid spending more tax payer’s money he should go next week. Failure to do so will lead to an expensive by-election or another TWO years of freeloading.”

More, including a classically robust quote from agent Dave Hennigan, over on Rochdale Online.

Last week, Lynne Featherstone launched a new battle against the establishment when she wrote to the equality watchdog following the birth of Viscount Severn, son of the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

As LibDemVoice’s army of monarchists will be well aware, when the Hon James Windsor was born, he knocked his elder sister Lady Louise back to 9th in line to the throne, just as a generation before, his uncle Prince Andrew took his elder sister Princess Anne’s place in the line of succession.

This change in the line of succession is the first to happen since the Equalities Commission was formed so Lib Dem Equalities Spokesperson Lynne Featherstone has written to them for a ruling, citing the step as a possible breach of sexual discrimination law through the recent enforcement of common law practice of male preference primogeniture in designating successors to the throne.

“This would appear to be a clear example of sexual discrimination gainst Lady Louise and an example of sexual discrimination taking place n a public institution,” she said.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour last week, she defended her actions against claims of frivolity:

To me, this is a glaring example right at the heart of British life that needs to be changed. There is an undisclosed war on women out there, and I’m fighting to free us.

The Woman’s Hour segment is still available as one of the BBC’s many podcasts. You can also find out more on Lynne’s own blog.

Alex Foster is not a constitutional expert and has only checked his Royal Family facts on Wikipedia. E&OE

Next Tuesday delegates from throughout the country will meet in the House of Commons to take part in an evidence session organised by the group, Defend Council Housing. This coincides with the Committee Stage of the Housing Bill and is designed to help lobby the Government over its continued discrimination against those authorities who have retained the management of Council Housing as a result of tenants’ wishes.

These 140 local authorities, plus the 60 ALMOs (Alms-Length Management Organisations), will continue to be discriminated against if the Housing Bill passes in its current form. Now that the Government has suddenly awoken to the housing crisis they have presided over it would be perverse if they were to continue to discriminate against half the authority areas in England on the basis that their tenants had ‘voted the wrong way’ in stock transfer ballots.

In Parliament in the past both Blair and Brown have told me that “I should celebrate ‘choice’ over this issue.” I do - but nearly half of all Council tenants have democratically chosen NOT to opt for privatisation. No one has yet been able to explain to me why, as a result of exercising their democratic choice, 10,000 Council tenants in an area like Chesterfield should therefore have £4 million of their rents and further millions of Right-to-Buy receipts stolen away by Gordon Brown this year. Especially when a ’stock transfer’ landlord would immediately be allowed by Gordon to retain all that money for re-investment into Chesterfield social housing.

It is essential that we do not fall victim to the spin that heralded Gordon Brown’s new-found commitment to social housing. It cannot hide the 10 years of abject neglect of social housing under this Labour Government. The Labour manifesto of 1997 lambasted the Conservatives’ woeful record on social housing, but things have got worse not better, and the continuing neglect has left over 1.6 million families on waiting lists - a 63% increase since Labour came to power.

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The latest issue of Lib Dem News featured an editorial column by the party’s Chief Executive, Chris Rennard, responding to comments he’d heard about the party needing to go “Beyond Rennard”. In doing so, Chris is himself kick-starting a debate about how our campaigning should evolve.

There have been a number of thoughtful responses on Lib Dem blogs where such a debate should lead us which are worth looking at:

The Canard of Rennard on James Graham’s Quaequam blog

Rennard’s Challenge on Andy Mayer’s blog

Beyond Rennard - Dangerous talk costs seats on Pete Dunphy’s Party Political PLC

We’re not going to throw the baby out with the bath water on Paul Walter’s Liberal Burblings

Beyond Rennardism: we need to win the battle of ideas, not just the fight for votes on Iain Sharpe’s Eaten by Missionaries blog.

Let me know if there’s any I missed!

Top Lib Dem campaigner Shaun Roberts has been appointed National Campaigns Officer, working under department chief Hilary Stephenson in Cowley Street.

Anthony Hook and the Anonymous Barcharter have already posted congratulatory tributes. Lib Dem Voice wishes him the best of success too!

The party has had a lot to say in recent years about this government’s record on keeping DNA samples.

This is all neatly summarized at the Lib Dem campaign microsite “Protect innocent people’s DNA.”

One key injustice is that your DNA can be stored in the national database even if you are not guilty of any crime. The database holds DNA samples of over a million people who don’t even have a police caution. 25,000 of those are children.

As the site says,

The police have the power to take and store DNA from everyone they arrest, even if that person is released without any charge.

Can we think of any high profile people who have been arrested and released without charge? How about the Labour party officials questioned about the Loans for Lords scandal?
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Liberal Democrat Voice has learned that the Liberal Democrats are just kicking off plans for a new institution - the first-ever national Community Canvass Week - coming this September 22nd - 30th. The week after our Brighton conference will see MPs, parliamentary candidates and local parties over the country hitting the doorsteps, reminding Britons why calling, listening and responding is a key part of democracy. Read more »

Over on other sites, both Stephen (Guardian) and myself (New Statesman) have pieces about the by-election results. I don’t think either of us are 100% keen on the headlines used

Hello and welcome to Ealing Conservative Councillor Phil Taylor, who has blogged thus about the Tory candidate for the Ealing Southall Parliamentary by-election:

He is clearly a controversial and high risk choice

Why is Tony Lit considered by his own side to be “controversial and high risk”? Well here’s a taster:

• Tony Lit’s selection led to an outbreak of criticism on ConservativeHome; in particular Francis Maude seems to have rather misled another would-be Conservative candidate who was told that he had decided their candidate in the by-election should be from Ealing Southall and therefore that this person couldn’t apply. Only one problem. Mr Lit isn’t either. He lives in Chiswick.
• Another Conservative member commented in the thread, “I know people on the candidates list who live in Ealing borough who weren’t even given the chance to put their names forward” whilst a third person said, “we will come a poor third in both of the by elections“.
• The claim that Tony Lit’s job stopped him from previously joining the Conservative Party doesn’t seem to hold up to close examination.
• Tony Lit is the Managing Director of Sunrise Radio, who were fined £10,000 for breaking election rules when his father stood as a Parliamentary candidate in 2001.

Interesting times…

Rumours abound (hat-tips: Dizzy and Guido) that Tony Blair will announce his resignation as an MP this week, triggering a by-election in Sedgefield to be held on the same day as the by-election in Ealing Southall.

Labour’s thinking goes that such a double-hander will dilute the Lib Dems’ by-election efforts - and as Labour are unlikely to lose both seats they could at the very least claim a “score draw”. (This was the phrase used by then Labour party chair, John Reid, after the Lib Dems’ sensationally snatched victory in Leicester South, but just missed out in Birmingham Hodge Hill. Both, of course, had been traditionally rock-solid Labour seats.)

So put a circle round Thursday, 26th July.

Lib Dem shadow home secretary Nick Clegg has hit out at Labour’s third passport price rise hike in under two years.

From October, a passport will cost £72, up from £66 now, and £42 in December 2005. In 1995, the cost of renewing a passport was just £18.

The reason for this rocketing stealth tax? ID cards, and Labour’s desperation to conceal from the public the full £20 billion costs of introducing their new compulsory surveillance system. As Nick explains:

“Last time I asked, the Government refused to justify its implausible claim that 70 per cent of the cost of ID cards would be absorbed by new passport costs. This latest price hike suggests the Government is going full steam ahead with its cynical plan to bury ID card costs inside each and every passport.”

There’s more on the Lib Dem campaign to stop ID cards here.

Ming Campbell has stepped up the pressure over the bill to exempt Parliament from the freedom of information rules by both launching an online petition and also urging people to lobby members of the House of Lords (where the bill goes next for debate).

Details at the special campaign site, www.ourcampaign.org.uk/foi