With the sad news of Baby P came a sudden influx of new visitors to the Voice this week. Our article highlighting local MP Lynne Featherstone’s measured question at PMQs unexpectedly became the top link on Google for Baby P, drawing in more people than we’ve ever seen one thread before. The result is a sombre wake-up call which shows some of our more jaded regulars and editors like me just what the general public really thinks about stories like this. The posting attracted over 200 moving postings, the vast majority from people who’ve never been to LDV before. We also received solicitor letters because of it, and we are having to watch it closely.
We also covered the developing story and it caused Darrell Goodliffe to pen a piece restating the case against capital punishment.
Is it really only a week since the US elected a new president? (attentive readers: no – it’s a fortnight. You forgot to write this piece last week.) This week, we learned that a Lib Dem member from London with links to Chris Huhne wrote part of Obama’s victory speech, and own Mark Pack urged us not to get carried away about levels of turnout in the US.
We had a presidential election of our own – LDV extends our congratulations to winner Ros Scott and comiserations to the runners-up Lembit Opik and Chandila Fernando. We asked what next for Lembit? But we know what next for Ros as Needham Market’s answer to the Whitehouse prepares for a new kitten.
A number of other party committees held elections this year. Congratulations to all those who won office and best of luck in your new roles. Do please remember the Voice whenever wish to convey a message to the party at large.
We continued our new strand of bringing to our readers’ attention writing from Lib Dems in the mainstream media, and we were very happy to bring you James Graham, twice, Bridget Fox, twice, and Nick Clegg, all writing for the Guardian’s Comment is Free site, and Jonathan Calder writing for the New Statesman. All those and more can be found under our “CommentIsLinked@LDV” category.
Our guest contributors this week included Jonathan Fryer’s ongoing serial Diary of a Euro Candidate, Steven Gauge reporting live for LDVUSA, and Darrell Goodliffe sticking his neck out for our boys in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fiyaz Mughal also shared concerns about the Horn of Africa and radicalisation and Jon Hunt gave an eye-witness account of Alan Beith’s words at the Gladstone Lecture. Reports of the lecture earlier in the week had caused a few raised eyebrows.
Our regulars this week: Stephen urged the Government to try giving real power to real people, Helen highlighted Government hypocrisy regarding Post Offices and I got a little carried away about Tory tax plans.
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