It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for the latest news from Ethiopia, but first the blogs from the UK. Today we also have a special Luciana Berger update (never let it be said she’s going for the quiet competent candidate approach).
It’s also good to note that Liberal Democrat MPs have not been remiss in keeping up with the latest Twitter craze. Step forward and take a bow, Mr Rennie.
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:
- Chris Huhne says the Electoral Commission investigation into Bearwood Corporate Services Limited should now come to a conclusion: Steve Beasant reports on Chris Huhne’s letter to the Electoral Commission asking it to make a ruling ahead of the general election
- What the Lib Dem policy on homeopathy is not: James Graham on the party policy that was quickly withdrawn
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
The opposition: weak organization, lack of preparedness, appallingly low finances
Ask me what the distinctive trait of the opposition is in this year’s election apart from the provocative imprisonment of Birtukan Mideksa, and my response would not be amidst the proverbial list: weak organization, lack of preparedness, appallingly low finance (pundits estimate that only slightly over half a million US dollars is available to the entire opposition this election season, excluding the miserly electoral board finance) and an assortment of other secondary factors. (Abugida)
UK Provides £20mn For Ethiopia’s Emergency Food Appeal
“The emergency funding is being provided in response to the Ethiopian government’s latest humanitarian assessment, which estimates that 5.2 million people urgently need food aid to survive,” said the UK embassy in Ethiopia.
The UK funding will be channeled through the UN World Food Programme, to enable them to purchase and distribute food…
In January 2010, the British Department for International Development (DFID) announced an additional £200m to continue funding the innovative and successful safety net programme in Ethiopia.
“Alongside providing for people’s immediate needs, DFID is also helping to deliver major improvements in Ethiopia’s health, education, water, agricultural services, and economic growth,” said the embassy.(Ethiopian Journal)
Sunday Bonus
Yup, it’s Luciana Berger again. Fresh from knowing less about Liverpool’s history and traditions than even me, she’s again shown an apparent lack of understanding of Liverpool. This time the cause of her trouble is Twitter where it was spotted that she was following The Sun. Given the still very raw emotions in Liverpool about The Sun’s coverage of the Hillsborough football disaster, it’s no wonder that’s resulted in rather negative comment. She no longer follows The Sun on Twitter.
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3 Comments
I know you “don’t do polls”, but I’d have thought today’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times would have been worth at least a mention:
CON 37 (-2) LAB 35 (+2) LD 17 (+1)
Re. Luciana Berger – the negative comment which you refer to above came from a single Twitter member, RT’d by another and then gone to town on by Lib Dem Andy Reeves.
It irks me that you (the Lib Dems) see fit to try and draw in the emotions surrounding a terrible disaster, not just for Liverpool, but for the entire country, by this childish attack. Luciana Berger was only a small girl at the time of the Hillsborough disaster, and may or may not know that many Liverpool people have boycotted the Sun for years following negative and inaccurate reporting at the time of the disaster.
It’s hardly a crime to follow The Sun on Twitter though – politicians do (and should) look at all sections of the media to see what they are saying and reporting – the YouGov polls carried frequently at the moment in The Sun being a classic example of why this is important (and I note in your comments above a link to today’s poll in The Sun’s sister paper, another part of the News International organisation The Sunday Times) (You also quoted The Sun in your post on 15th Feb – about Lib Dems being more likely to own a sex toy http://tinyurl.com/yg9acr2 ).
I don’t know what Luciana knows about Liverpool, but I do suspect that there are many more important things to know about Liverpool than the recording history of Gerry & Pacemakers, and who a football manager who died before she was born was. I suspect that the electorate are aware of that.
So I think your attempt to smear both Ms Berger and the memories of the dead at Hillsborough on the strength of of what is AT WORST a small slip on twitter (I would argue not even that) is very misguided.
I think the above comment is quite an ignorant view of the Luciana Berger situation.
This is a person that dumped her council seat in London because she saw an opportunity to be shoed into a seat in Liverpool. What irks me, is that she has shown not one bit of understanding of my city and whats more not even the willingness to learn about it.
Of course the people of Liverpool wont go and vote on anyones understanding of who Bill Shankly is. However the fact she DIDN’T know sums the whole thing up.
She.knows.nothing.
Following the Sun Newspaper on twitter is another example. If she was indeed savvy enough to actually look like she cared for Liverpool, she would have never allowed herself to be caught being associated with that awful publication.
Its not playing on Hillsborough (a tragedy I know quite a bit about) it’s pointing out that she’s clueless.