Catchup has been away from our screens following a writers strike. In the three weeks since you last heard from me, here’s what’s been happening.
There’s been a by-election. The best place to catch up are a series of post-mortem posts, including what party chief exec Lord Rennard emailed to members, and LDV staffer Stephen Tall’s response. A wide ranging debate followed on both threads – and Chris Rennard followed closely too – and posted his own response.
Just hours later, we heard that there would likely be a by-election in Glasgow East, so I asked those calling for a change in tactics to put their money where their mouths were and suggest a strategy. Debate ensued on the thread – and still more debate continued in the hallowed halls of our members’ only forum.
And aside from Glasgow and Henley, and Crewe just a few weeks ago, we also have Howden and Haltemprice. We spent the day we heard about the news covering the arguments: Simon Hughes defended the party line and Darrell Goodliffe took the opposite view. And Alix Mortimer looked into the opposition.
Apart from the hundreds of comments on various by-election posts before and after the result, the last major comment-drawing thread was Laurence Boyce taking an outrageous policy position and then needling fellow Lib Dems in the comments.
We brought you three podcasts from the ALDC/LGA Lib Dem Group conference. My favourite was the lunchtime recording with star turns from Prof Steve Webb MP and Chris Huhne MP.
The government’s pork barrelling over 42 days happened in our catchup period. Chris Huhne wrote us a piece, Nick Clegg had a go the following day at PMQs, and Stephen Tall questioned what the Tories really think.
Finally, there’s a weekly chance to see the world through Will-tinted specs in his Something for the weekend pieces, which I can’t recommend highly enough.
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5 Comments
Trouble is Alex, the debates on here have become so dominated by Tory trolls as to be almost meaningless.
Is it time to only allow comments from people who register with a party membership number?
Such an arena already exists, does it not?
Not exactly, no. The members’ forum is only visible to party members who register. I am suggesting the comments could still be visible publicly but could only be made by people who identify themselves properly as Lib Dems.
It is, of course, entirely up to LDV how it organises itself, but I gave up paying any attention to the comments made here long ago because most of the discussions were completely devalued by trolls (although the comment pieces themselves still have value).
no, leave it as it is. lets get more controversial. We need to boost this site’s profile even higher!
I would be dismayed if LDV banned non Liberals from commenting. There are people from other parties who post on here, like ‘Passing Tory’, whose views should be welcomed because of the intelligent way they challenge us. Sure, there are illiterate headbangers occasionally, but it seems to me that because of the overall ethos of this site even people who tend to be a bit over-the-top on other sites are a bit more polite and engaged on LDV.