Here’s a round-up of stories we haven’t had time to cover on the site this past week…
Provisional plans being drawn up by the BBC suggest giving the Lib Dems two party political broadcasts for the elections – the same as the Green party – rather than the three the Lib Dems enjoyed alongside Labour and the Conservatives in 2008. … A party source said the Lib Dems were confident the decision would be overturned, given that they have seven MPs in the capital, 246 councillors, and in light of the party’s vote share in London at the 2010 general election.
A former Liberal Democrat activist has admitted splattering Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg with blue paint. Stuart Rodger threw an egg containing the liquid as Mr Clegg made a visit to Glasgow to meet party representatives last August. The politics student later declared that Lib Dem leader Mr Clegg had “deserved it”. He was fined £200 at Glasgow Sheriff Court after admitting a breach of the peace.
Five years ago, ministers agreed to posthumously pardon soldiers who deserted while suffering shell shock – as their condition was not recognised at the time. Now Withington MP John Leech, who tabled a motion in the Commons calling for a pardon, hopes to apply the same theory to clear Turing’s name. … Mr Leech, who has also written to justice secretary Ken Clarke, said: “If people had been aware of shell shock those First World War soldiers would not have been convicted. I think a precedent has been set that where the law was wrong, it should be made right after the facts are known.
A ROW has broken out after a party leader was barred from sitting on a council for failing to attend a meeting for six months. Darlington Borough Council’s Lib Dem leader Martin Swainston, who vowed to challenge the decision, said he was furious and believes it was politically motivated. He said he has missed meetings because he has been caring for his wife, who has been seriously ill for two years, and has confided in council officers about his problems as well as submitting apologies for all missed attendances.
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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4 Comments
Isn’t there a specific calculation for how many broadcast slots to provide? It ought not to be subject to the opinion and political bias of the BBC!
Elected representatives who do not attend meetings are not serving their electorate or the party, in my view.
Painting Clegg blue? Sticking spikes on a hedgehog? Floodlighting the sun?
And in the meantime I notice that two LD MPs have signed the letter to the Daily Telegraph demanding a change in government policy regarding the construction of onshore wind turbines. Not out of principle, but merely to prop up their vote amongst rural NIMBYs, would be my guess.
Of all the compromises that coalition government entails. Accepting the need to vote in many Conservative policies, some of which may even be good, but most rather abhorrent, in order that many welcome Liberal policies might also be implemented.
This.
Truly I despair.
Calling the party “London Liberal Democrats” on the ballot paper for the London elecions “will risk being seen as an attempt by the London party to distance itself from colleagues in coalition government,” according to the Grauniad article on PPBs. And why not? Surely the position of the London Lib Dem campaign is that it supports the party’s participation in the national coalition, but that the GLA and Mayoralty are separate institutions from Westminster, and one we are fighting on the basis of our record in the GLA..
We should do the same sort of thing for the European Parliamentary election in 2014 by describing ourselves on the ballot paper as something like “Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament / ALDE” and make as a major part of the campaign a full-frontal attack on the Tories in the EP and their ‘raving right’ allies of the ECR.