2 Must-Read Blog Posts

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

• Tories in Devon and Cornwall set themselves a target of raising £13,000 in an Obama-style online donate-now campaign, perhaps in an attempt to wean themselves off the Ashcroft millions.  How much did they raise?
• Stephen Glenn picks up on the news that Lord Paul has said he will voluntarily end his non-dom status from April, whether required to or not, and asks what it means for the Tory “they do it too” defence.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Short term prison sentences don’t work

That’s the message from a National Audit Office report, pointing out that prison sentences of less than a year fail in every respect, not keeping the public safe, not reforming the criminal and costing the public purse dear.

Would it be better for everyone to have these offenders doing unpaid work in the community rather than lying around doing nothing in a prison cell for a few months before being released to commit further crimes?

Let the Facebook panic commence

Millions of people of all ages use Facebook every day.  For children, being bullied by other children is far more likely than being targetted by predatory adults.  One tragedy need not be a sign for everyone to panic, especially when there are hundreds of risks our children face far greater than that.

The Daily Mail, of course, has no such scruples, as yesterday’s front page headline

“Who’s your child talking to on Facebook tonight?”

There’s every sign we’ll get a few more days of Facebook stories before the Mail gets bored and we all forget about it.

Meanwhile, I’ll carry on taking the simple measures to keep my kids reasonably safe on the Internet as elsewhere, whilst admitting that I can’t keep them 100% safe and that exposing them to some risk, not wrapping them in cotton wool,  is an import part of helping them grow up into well-rounded adults capable of dealing with the real world.