Welcome to Catchup, bringing you the tastiest nuggets of LDV from the last fortnight, apart from Conference, which we caught up here.
We started the period with a debate about fairtrade. Good? John Pugh MP thought so; Julian Harris wasn’t so sure.
We learned where thousands of Lib Dems will be trekking to conference over the coming years.
We learned the Government had caved on individual voter registration – and Mark Pack explained why that was a good thing.
Our peers came out top. Ros Scott unleashed hell. Bob Russell MP campaigned to save pubs.
Guest contributors included Hywel Morgan, pointing out a rather ridiculous mistake by the BNP, Charlotte Gore thought Modern Liberty was rubbish, Geoffrey Payne kicked the bankers. York Membury gave us a historical perspective of life after Labour and Joe Taylor urged Lib Dem councils to ditch their in-house propaganda sheets. Whilst on the subject of local government, we also had two pieces on the subject of alternate weekly collection from Iain Coleman, who made it work in Cambridge, and a piece from the FT saying Lib Dem AWC plans cost them 24 seats in Waverley in 2007.
Laurence Boyce generated more heat than light when he decided to quit the party – over 70 of you had opinions about whether he should climb down off the parapet or jump; a good number of you had something to say about this week’s Question Time and a number of you had suggestions about how to improve the nation’s sales personnel after Mark Pack listed the worst sales calls he’s had recently.
Perhaps the most striking piece of writing this week was Karin Robinson’s beer fuelled rant in which she told us – “Yes you can!” and a number of us popped up in the comments to doubt whether actually we could.
It’s been a twitter-heavy fortnight: we urged you to tweet at conference and we reported back when you responded by the thousand. Even twitter-sceptics like our dinosaur editor-at-large Stephen Tall were secretly impressed.
CommentIsLinked@LDV
We linked to Jonathan Calder in the Guardian
Vince Cable warning about China
James Graham keeping his pecker up
Numerology
@LibDig Pig #13
94% of conference reps fooled by Kate Winslet
Golden Dozens: 108, 107, 106.
Haggis Neeps and liberalism #2
In our private members’ forum
Aberdeenshire expulsions
Postponed election technicality
Private landlord campaigns
Ron Paul foreign policy analysis
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12 opening scenes from Malcolm in the Middle
Reform drop council by-election candidate Irene Davidson
HERA - Harris Education and Recreation Association updates #dundeewestend
Lyell Yardarms
Mick Scholes
Dominic
Andy Chandler
3 Comments
where was the piece about the climate scientists conference in Copenhagen. Have we forgotten our Green Tax Switch campaign?
Is Simon Hughes asleep?
CATCH UP ON THE NEWS FROM BEDFORDSHIRE:
Oh dear! More bad press coverage for the Conservative Party in Bedfordshire today.
According to the local sunday paper Eric Pickles recently visited the city of Bedford to calm things down following infighting and mass resignations from Councillors, however, note the comment from one Councillors below.
It looks like everything in Bedford is still in a Pickle.
Tory bigwig orders local party to show united front:
Local tories have received a high-level warning to stop rowing in public.
The warning was delivered by Conservative Party chairman Eric Pickles during his visit to Bedford last week.
Cllr Nicky Attenborough During his visit, Mr Pickles addressed a meeting of local Tory councillors.
An insider at the meeting said: “Mr Pickles was talking to the whole group about local matters and then he looked straight at leader Nicky Attenborough and said: ‘I do not want to hear of any more public arguments between Tories’.
It was definitely directed straight at her.
“All of us went very quiet. Nicky left the meeting early so we didn’t get a chance to speak to her about it.”
Cllr Attenborough said: “What amused me was that Mr Pickles said that every Sunday he listened to The Archers and then turned to the pages of Bedfordshire on Sunday.
“He saw your article about donations from Lord Ashcroft two weeks ago and the quotes from ‘A Tory Insider’ and was not amused.
“He said quite categorically that no matter how upset Conservative county councillors may be over the unitary decision, we should not wash our dirty linen in public.
“He wanted peace and love to break out in Bedfordshire and it doesn’t seem that there’s much chance of that.”
Link to article: http://www.bedsonsunday.com/bedsonsunday-news/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=401805
Laurence Boyce generating more heat than light?!
Shurely shome mishtake??!!