Morning, all, and welcome to the 355th day of the year, a date which marks the 21st anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing, and the 47th anniversary of the British decision to buy nuclear missiles from the US. Today is also, you may like to know, the birthday of Thomas Becket, Jane Fonda and Tina Brown.

2 Must-Read Blog-Posts

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

And a very Merry Christmas to you too Eurostar & BA … (Lisa Harding)

So, to the people that run and work for BA and Eurostar, I would like to say a heartfelt thanks for nothing from the people of the UK. You have certainly proved yourselves to be incapable of being in the public service industry. Thousands of people’s hopes of a peaceful and restful Christmas ruined, all in the name of your own greed and lack of care for customer service. You must be really proud

Off-topic: hating Doctor Who (Giles Wilkes)

SciFi beggars belief in two ways: it assumes we will fall for any technical vision whatsoever, yet despite this that our world outlook will remain the same. Think of what higher life expectancy, easier travel and widespread literacy have done to our fundamental beliefs. I suspect that in 500 years, we will still inhabit planet Earth, but the standards will have changed so much that a time traveller would look upon us with frank disgust, and vice versa.

2 Big Stories

Disappointment over Copenhagen continues to reverberate

With Prime Minister Gordon Brown blaming the failure of the Copenhagen talks on the failures of “only a handful of countries”, the Lib Dems’ shadow energy and climate change secretary Simon Hughes has voiced his verdict:

Nobody should be deceived. Copenhagen has produced a dreadfully disappointing declaration and nothing like the legally binding agreement which the world needs. Everybody close to the Copenhagen conference knew that one meeting of world leaders would not agree an escape route from the climate crisis.

From January the UK and the European Union have to show that getting a real deal to cut harmful emissions and help the most threatened parts of the world still has top political priority at home and abroad. Resuming talks early in 2010 must be one of the first jobs for Cathy Ashton, the new European foreign affairs supremo, and for all the presidents and prime ministers of Europe.

Lib Dem candidate censured by Nick Clegg over ‘lewd’ comments

The Telegraph has the story:

Greg Stone, a Liberal Democrat candidate, suggested Hazel Blears was ‘on Botox’ and criticised Theresa May’s dress sense while writing under a pseudonym on the Guido Fawkes political website. Mr Stone was ordered to apologise by Nick Clegg, his party leader, after he was revealed as the author of lewd and offensive comments about Cabinet ministers and women MPs. Mr Stone is the candidate in the Lib Dem target seat of Newcastle East, where he is the main challenger to the sitting Labour MP Nick Brown, the Government chief whip.

Lib Dem blogger Jane Watkinson has some sharp words for Greg here.