Party press release:

Today Liberal Democrat Peers will be encouraging members of the public to have their say on reform of the House of Lords.

They will also ask the public to write down their views and place them in a ballot box outside Parliament during the House of Lords debate on reform of the Upper Chamber.

The Peers will also be launching their own consultation website on Tuesday, which can be found at www.lordsreformvote.org. (Lib Dem Voice editor’s note: not working yet…)

The Peers, including Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, Lord (Tom) McNally and

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A TORY candidate in Edinburgh has given up his bid to become an MSP and spoken of his “frustration” at the party’s inability to become a major player in Scottish politics.

Former hereditary peer Jamie Sempill, who was due to stand in Edinburgh Central at the May Scottish Parliament elections, said the main reason for his resignation was a business opportunity which had presented itself. He is to help organise a major international clan gathering in two years’ time.

But he said the Tories in Scotland had failed to grab enough media attention and criticised the “slightly lacklustre” performance of MSPs.

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The first results should be coming in in a couple of hours – the BBC has a page here, and the Vote 07 election programme has started and can be watched online here.

The Welsh Liberal Democrat conference begins in Swansea this Friday.  There’s a news release on Mark Young’s blog, and as if to prove that you can never have too much policy, the Welsh Lib Dems have released a “Policy of the day” every week day since… a long time ago. The most recent is number 47, and if you look at their news page they certainly have been busy. Pob lwc!

Eagle-eyed viewers of Newsnight may have noticed that the Guardian wasn’t included in their newspaper front-page round up tonight. They couldn’t include it, as to do so would breach the injunction currently in place against the BBC.

If you want to know what it says, flick over to Sky news – they’re reporting it happily. The AG has failed to win an injunction against the Guardian to prevent them reporting that Lord Levey may have asked Ruth Turner to “shape” her evidence to the police.

The official notice seeking candidates to run for London Mayor has been published, with a deadline of 23rd March – application details from London Lib Dems. The notice says “Neither of the previous candidates from 2000 and 2004 are expected to apply this time”

And the motion, now lacking lines 74-76 (or was it 72-76?) was then passed.

The official motion won the hearts and / or heads of the conference.

I understand that the Parliamentary Party were whipped to vote against the amendment, which given the tight majority may upset some delegates.

Phil Willis MP has just moved amendment 2, to huge applause and cheering, in the process accusing the movers of the ‘official’ motion of “misrepresentation” of the amendment.

It’s worth noting that Phil Willis also spoke in favour of the 50p top rate of tax at the last conference, again to significant applause – but his amendment then fell in the final vote.

Tim garden moved the FPC motion to a hall that is eight tenths full. Basic message is that amendment 2, perceived as the ‘rebel’ amendment is not the option you should vote if you believe in disarmament. His call to oppose both amendments was warmly applauded.

Amendment 1 proposes a ‘eurobomb’. Very weak applause so far.

In the last 24 hours I’ve spoken to a number of people on various sides of the Trident debate, which begins in the main hall in 1fifteen minutes. No-one is confident, everything is to play for, and there is a real sense that the speeches in the hall will swing the debate one way or the other.

This morning the movers of the official motion have leafleted voting representatives with a table comparing the motion amended and unamended, with a message that the motion unamended is nearer to a position of genuine disarmament than the amended motion.  Last night in the …