Author Archives: Alex Foster

LIBERAL Democrat leader Nick Clegg has been blocked from holding a meeting at Pershore Care Centre

The Evesham Journal has all the details.

It seems the case that councils are all to ready to overlook their rules on political meetings when its ministerial visits to highlight achievements, and much less forgiving when it’s opposition parliamentarians visiting to highlight problems.

The government has a plan to sort out prison crowding.  It appears representatives of Britain’s justice system are unimpressed.

I was particularly chuffed with

o Parliament has been extremely poor in not predicting the impact of its own legislation or acting on any predictions of prison population it has made, and improvement is highly desirable.

The last 24 hours have seen many suggestions from readers about the conduct of by-elections.

Now it seems that the opportunity to put these suggestions into practice is coming up quicker than expected.

David Marshall MP has told his local Labour party that he will stand down because of his worsening health.

The results last time:

…

Party leader Nick Clegg made his first speech on foreign affairs today at Chatham House.

The highlights are given in the press release on the party site, and his words are covered by the BBC here.

We’ll bring you the full text when the technology permits, and when the bulk of the Voice team aren’t on trains. The speech focussed on Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, but for now, here’s Clegg’s views on the Lisbon Treaty

Like the French and Dutch voters who rejected the draft EU Constitution in 2005, Irish voters have given few pointers to the EU leaders on how to decipher their grievances – they are disparate, and point in several directions at once.

But this is no excuse for carrying on regardless.

That would only confirm in the minds of millions that the EU is ploughing ahead without any concern for the reservations of European citizens. Pro-Europeans – above all others – must not take this path.

Sitting at my computer, the breaking news of the Government’s win on the 42 day detention vote comes through to me via Twitter.

joswinson: angry that the Government have just won the 42 day vote with a majority of just 9, only winning due to the support of the DUP

News reaches The Voice of the death of Peter Thurnham who was a Lib Dem MP for just a few months after his defection to the party in October 1996.

You can read more about his career, and tributes from colleagues, in the Manchester Evening News

Magistrate’s blog contrasts the views of an official of the Prison Officer’s Association with the views of an insider.

Of course, if you really want to know what life is like in prison, visit one. Most prisons have links to the community around them. Many faith groups are involved in prison visiting. Nottingham’s Prison does outreach work with young offenders in a bid to prevent them ending up incarcerated. And the National Association of Official Prison Visitors would be happy to hear from you if you would like to volunteer.

Don’t miss the remarks of our own Lib Dem MP for Taunton, Jeremy Browne, who spoke at great and caustic length in the discussion on the finance bill, heaping scorn on Labour and Conservative members alike. The link to online Hansard is here – he begins towards the bottom of the page and you have click “next section” to continue reading.

Amongst the gems: