Tag Archives: stephen glenn

LibDem conference accreditation: what others have been saying

By Mark Pack | Published 5th September 2011 - 9:38 pm

Despite its length, my blog post over the weekend about the security checks being carried out for Liberal Democrat conference, didn’t go through all the issues in equal detail. So here to make up for some of the areas I wrote less about are some excellent blog posts written by others:

Over on his blog, Stephen Glenn explains how slow accreditation can make conference more expensive for people by giving details based on his own situation.
Zoe O’Connell has dug out the figures which show how problematic the checks being used are for transgendered people, as they rely on

…

Posted in Conference | Also tagged #ldconf, zoe o'connell | 7 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 8 June 2010

By Sara Bedford | Published 8th June 2010 - 11:04 am

Good morning and welcome to World Oceans Day. Apologies for having missed last Tuesday’s Daily View – I was over-excited as it was my birthday – and half term!

On this day in 1999, disgraced ex-cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken was given an 18 month jail sentence, after he admitted lying during a failed libel action. The former Conservative MP admitted both charges earlier in the year, following the collapse of his libel case against The Guardian newspaper and Granada TV. Passing sentence at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Scott Baker told Aitken he had woven a web of deceit and committed an inexcusable breach of trust.

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged christine keeler, craig murray, john profumo, jonathan aitken, nick clegg, sarah teather, stephen ward | Leave a comment

Daily View 2×6: 25 March 2010

By Sara Bedford | Published 25th March 2010 - 10:25 am

A pleasant surprise this morning to wake up and find that, despite the fact I am doing the Daily View, it is indeed Thursday and not Tuesday! In celebration of yesterday’s Budget, there’s riproaring inflation of the number of posts featured in today’s Daily View. Don’t tell Vince! Is it sustainable? I doubt it, so enjoy while you can..

Thirty years ago, the British Olympic Association (BOA) voted by a large majority to defy the government and send athletes to the Olympic Games in Moscow. The Conservative government has pressed the BOA to boycott the event in a protest at the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan the previous year. Sir Denis Follows, the chairman of the BOA, said that whilst he was sympathetic to the government’s stance, “We believe sport should be a bridge, and not a destroyer”.

On this day in 1655 Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovered Titan, the largest natural satellite of the planet Saturn. During their 1969 honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged alex folkes, alistair darling, budget 2010, giles wilkes, mark valladares, paul walter, steven gauge | Leave a comment

Daily View 2×2: 4 February 2010

By Alex Foster | Published 4th February 2010 - 7:04 am

Good morning, on this misty day which in history saw three awful earthquakes – in Haicheng, Guatemala and Afghanistan.

This day is a birthday to American civil rights campaigner Rosa Parks (pictured) as well as to the American vice-president famously unable to spell “potato”, Dan Quayle.

Deaths on the 4th February include Liberace and American ~~novelist novellist~~ writer Patricia Highsmith, who wrote Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr Ripley, and – according to Wikipedia at least – the first lesbian novel with a happy ending.

Today is also Facebook’s 6th birthday. How many other 6 year-olds earned $300m last year, had new words entered into dictionaries, and caused moral panic?

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Legg Report published

Later today, Sir Thomas Legg’s report will be published on Parliament’s website. The Guardian – MPs ordered to pay back more than £1m reports:

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged afghanistan, audi, dan quayle, electoral reform, facebook, guatemala, haicheng, legg, legg report, liberace, moral panic, patricia highsmith, phil willis, potato, rosa parks, sanjay samani, talented mr ripley, thomas legg, tom ripley, toyota | Leave a comment

Parties on a war footing – but what are they fighting for?

By Helen Duffett | Published 2nd January 2010 - 7:35 pm

New Year, old sabre-rattling. Gordon Brown and David Cameron are parading their leadership credentials, with a view to capturing an entire nation – the UK, that is.

David Cameron made a speech (transcript here) in Oxfordshire today saying that the country needs a change of direction and a new leadership:

“We can’t go on in these difficult times with a weak prime minister and a divided government.”

[See the BBC website for a video clip]

You can almost hear the Tory munitions factory roar as they forge this, strengthen that and defeat the other.

And here’s Gordon Brown on New Year’s Eve:

“The Detroit plot thankfully failed. But it has been a wake-up call for the ongoing battles we must wage not just for security against terror but for the hearts and minds of a generation.”

It’s a common political (and journalistic, and marketing) technique to play to people’s fears, but what next in the Prime Ministerial arms race – Brown and Cameron appearing on the decks of rival aircraft carriers, squeezed into military uniform à la George Bush?

Neither leader, for all their fighting talk, seems to have heard of liberty.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged darrell goodliffe, david cameron, george bush, gordon brown, liberal revolution blog, nick clegg, terrorism | 1 Comment

Daily View 2×2: 4 December 2009

By Helen Duffett | Published 4th December 2009 - 8:27 am

It’s December 4th, and 210 years since the day William Pitt the Younger introduced income tax to help pay for the Napoleonic Wars. By that time, The Observer (the world’s first Sunday newspaper) was already celebrating its ninth birthday.

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What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Sally Bercow is only human like the rest of us
Mark Thompson speaks up for the Speaker’s wife’s right to speak up.
There Have Been Too Many Goodbyes….
Stephen Glenn speaks up for anonymous blogs, and laments the passing of another one.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

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MPs to go clubbing to investigate cocaine trade

The Commons home affairs committee, led by Labour’s Keith Vaz, will look at what goes on during “student nights”.

Members will look at the latest cocaine-detecting technology and talk to anti-drugs campaigners.

Labour MP Gwyn Prosser has already spent time outside a nightclub in Maidstone, Kent, as part of the committee’s preliminary research. [BBC]

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged evolution, keith vaz, mark thompson, sally bercow, the observer, william pitt the younger | Leave a comment

Scottish Lib Dem conference: your LDV reader

By Stephen Tall | Published 2nd November 2009 - 10:30 am

On Saturday, LDV reported the news that the Scottish Lib Dems were uniting behind leader Tavish Scott’s opposition to the SNP referendum on independence, ahead of a special private conference for party members. And so it came to pass, as the BBC reports:

Tavish Scott has consistently opposed a referendum, but some divisions within the party have emerged and the issue was debated in a closed session at the party’s autumn conference in Dunfermline, Fife, on Saturday.

Senior Lib Dem MSP Ross Finnie, who has been asked to lead a consultation with members about the party’s stance,

…

Posted in Scotland | Also tagged andrew reeves, brian taylor, caron lindsay, fraser macpherson, ross finnie, scottish independence, scottish lib dems, snp, tavish scott | Leave a comment

Daily View 2×2: 30 October 2009

By Helen Duffett | Published 30th October 2009 - 10:54 am

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Ministry of Justice plans to cut polling day costs

Thousands of polling stations would be closed and voting hours reduced under a plan to cut the cost of elections.

Other proposals include cutting staff, replacing polling cards with e-mail requests, increasing candidates’ deposits, fixed-term parliaments and reducing security at election counts.

The options, outlined in a working paper drawn up by the Ministry of Justice for the Treasury, are designed to save up to £65 million. They were condemned last night as a “threat to democracy that would save peanuts”. (Times)

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged linda jack, nadine dorries, nick griffin, tony blair | 1 Comment

Stephen Gately RIP: New beginning, sad ending

By Stephen Tall | Published 11th October 2009 - 12:05 pm

RIP Stephen Gately, the singer who rose to fame thanks to Boyzone, and who has died aged just 33. His solo career was not the soaring success he might have hoped when the Irish band split up – though three Top 20 singles is more than most of the rest of us will manage.

Indeed, it’s likely that Lib Dems will be among those most familiar with his work, for his debut solo track, New beginning, was adopted by the party as its theme tune for the 2001 general election (and used subsequently at many party conferences).

Lib Dem blogger Stephen Glenn pays fuller tribute here. Below is the TOTP video of New beginning:

Posted in Obituaries | Also tagged stephen gately | 4 Comments

Nick Clegg’s The Liberal Moment: your blogosphere reader

By Stephen Tall | Published 17th September 2009 - 9:55 am

Today saw the publication of Nick Clegg’s Demos pamphlet, The Liberal Moment, outlining his thoughts on progressive politics over the past century, moving forward to the future.

The party’s media office made the trusting (and canny) move to give a group of Lib Dem bloggers advance sight of the document, which means there’s already been a vigorous response around the blogosphere. In chronological order, here are the posts to date (we’ll add others as they appear):

Posted in News | Also tagged antony hook, blogging, james graham, jonathan calder, neil fawcett, nick barlow, nick clegg, the liberal moment | 13 Comments

Lib Dem MP John Barrett to stand down at general election

By Stephen Tall | Published 25th July 2009 - 8:15 pm

Here’s how The Scotsman reports it:

EDINBURGH West Liberal Democrat MP John Barrett is to quit at the next general election. After eight years in the Commons he said he wanted a change and to spend more time in Edinburgh. He was due to tell local party members of his decision at a special meeting this afternoon.

He said: “I’m now 55 and if I do the rest of this term and another one, I’m going to be 60. My health is good and I’m definitely not planning on retiring – but I would like to do something else.” Mr Barrett said it was the right time for himself and for the local party for him to move on. He said: “The constituency is in fine fettle. I had a majority of 13,600 at the last general election, the second largest Lib Dem majority in the whole of the UK after Charles Kennedy – and I always think in politics it’s good to go out at the top.”

Mr Barrett has two grandchildren living in Edinburgh, one of whom is disabled, and he said he wanted to have more time for them. But he pledged there would be no let-up in his efforts between now and the general election. “I will be working flat out for the next year doing everything I have done for the last eight years,” he said.

Lib Dem bloggers have already paid their tributes to John’s work:

Posted in News | Also tagged andrew reeves, caron's musings, edinburgh west, john barrett, mark valladares | 5 Comments

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