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

PS don’t check the tags

As Alex puts it on his own blog:

I’ve been talking on the Pod Delusion again this week, this time about some of the processes involved in standing for election to your local council. It’s more complicated than some people realise, and my process piece explains some of the intricacies.

The full podcast is available here.

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.

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.

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.

Latterly, I’ve started showing up in the occasional episode, holding forth on leaflets, tesco and polling day.

One time friend of t’Voice and party presidential hopeful Jennie Rigg added her distinctive voice with a rant about teenagers (but in a good way) and an interview with Julian Huppert MP.

And on the first birthday of Pod Delusion, both me and Will Howells appeared on a stage together for the first time – both trying to get a serious point across and make people laugh – at Pod Delusion Live. Much fun was had by all. And there was a most entertaining acronym of “atheist”.

So, to this week’s episode, released in the early hours of Friday morning. I took some of our recording of the Equal Marriage debate at Lib Dem conference and chopped it up and made commentary, almost like a real reporter / journalisty thing. Go me. The resultant reportage is cheek by jowl with reports on “Protest the Pope”, phone hacking and a trolling masterclass.

Content on Lib Dem Voice is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial licence – and this includes our audio content. This means if you would like to take part of one our podcasts and use it to create further content, you are allowed to do so, provided you don’t make any money out of it and you credit us as the source of your material. If, for example, you would like to take the Cabinet Ministers Q&A and fisk Vince Cable’s answer on science funding, and pass it on to the Pod Delusion – that’s fine by us. I’m sure you can come up with more interesting ways of breathing new life into our content, too.

Our guest speakers were Hilary Stephenson (Director of Campaigns), Duncan Hames (newly elected as MP for Chippenham) and Paul Holmes (former MP for Chesterfield).

[powerpress]

Thanks to Alex for sorting out the recording and podcasting wizardry.

The last session at Lib Dem conference is usually reserved for the Leader’s Speech – but that was not possible this time as Nick Clegg had to fly out to the UN.

It’s quite a shock for Liberal Democrats to get to quizz cabinet ministers, but it’s something they took in their stride with relative ease. This was taped from the reserved press section – and it’s interesting that over a dozen journalists had stayed till this last minute to see what might be learned.

The questions take a wide variety of topics, and bring some interesting answers. Danny Alexander confirms that all departments will have to do equality and carbon impact assessments when preparing cuts; Vince reveals a new hobby; and there are some strong answers to strong questions about cuts to science funding.

This debate may not necessarily be of interest to the wider public, but certainly anyone who loves Lib Dem conference will recognise many of the aspects of the debate.

Highlights for me include Dr Evan Harris’s explanation, in the opening minutes of the debate of his stint as the only openly gay Lib Dem MP despite not actually being gay; the Voice’s own Sara Bedford recounting her experiences of taking young children to Pride marches (as blogged here) (19’38″); and Brian Paddick’s personal experience of his own gay marriage in Norway (40’00). Also of note, after warnings about the “Methodist wing” inhibiting change, was the queue of three speakers from Religious Society of Friends wanting to explain the stance the Quakers had decided on at a recent meeting (25’00), culminating with Lucy Care telling us that the Quakers had even discussed that, if it proved not possible to register gay marriages, they might renounce their right to solemnize heterosexual marriage.

Veterans of conference will also enjoy the unexpected reference back, the point of order raised and the chair’s attempt to cope with it. This is almost certainly inaudible on the recording, as it was barely audible in person.

A brief review of the debate is available on the Voice, and edited highlights of the debate should appear in Friday’s Pod Delusion
.

Marvel at our clipped accents and the comical costumes we wore as we take this trip down memory lane.

Firstly, Jonathan Calder unearthed some footage of the very first BOTY ceremony with guest speaker Alex Wilcock. This was way back in 2006 when the world was as a younger, kinder place.

I’m not aware of any recordings from 2007 – if you can help fill the gap in our archives, do please let me know.

So, flying forward to 2008, in March, the Campaign for Gender Balance had their own, never to be repeated CGB Blog awards.

In September that year, the fabled Zoom H2 made its first appearance at conference and captured this piece of historic footage.

2009, and another year of BOTYs can be found here.

And of course last night’s ceremony is still here.

This lunchtime, Lib Dem conference representatives gathered in the staggeringly poorly signposted Hall 1B to hear a stellar lineup of Susan Kramer, Evan Harris and interloper Will Straw from Left Foot Forward hold forth on the subject of “Fairer? For whom?” – excellently wrangled by the chairman, our own Stephen Tall.

As with all Lib Dem Voice fringe events, we were there with our trusty recording equipment for posterity, and for the readers of Lib Dem Voice at home who were not able to join us at conference. I’m sure it will also be helpful to those LibDemVoice editors who carelessly agreed to deliver training at the same time as one of our fringes.

Left Foot Forward also have their own write-up of the event.

We also live-tweeted it – and the tweets will not be displaced from our feed for a few hours yet.

And m’colleague Stephen Tall was live-blogging the session, and his words can be found here.

Helen Duffett has already brought you the stunning results, congratulated the winners and commiserated with the runners up.

All that remains is my duty to bring you, the loyal listener at home who maybe can’t be at conference this year, the recording of the proceedings.

And, technology permitting, you should find that below.

Happy listening!

Here it is as a podcast – so enjoy!

So, please, strain your ears to hear, overlook the bumps, mumbles and whispered asides, and listen to a party that really does get it on the internet.

And if there’s anyone out there can offer new media training for peanuts, do please .