Welcome to the 30th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (9th-15th September), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.
And two stories dominated this week’s listings: mayors and Ming:
1. Brian Paddick: He’s Not the Messiah, He’s a… Very Distinguished Police Officer on Alex Wilcock’s Love and Liberty blog.
Everything you could possible want to know about why Alex is excited by one of the Lib Dems’ three mayoral hopefuls.
2. Brian Paddick for mayor? on Anders Hanson’s blog.
Another endorsement, with some caveats (answered by Mr Paddick in the comments).
3. Lib Dem Mayoral Candidate……..Brian Paddick or Fiyaz Mughal? on Linda Jack’s Lindy Loo’s Muze blog.
Linda is in two minds (though there are three candidates – Chamali Fernando is also standing).
4. Ming Campbell: does being a Liberal Democrat mean never having to accept the result? on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog.
No is the answer – but being Liberal Democrats does make us arsily contrarian sometimes.
5. The Candidate For You? on Alex Wilcock’s Love and Liberty blog.
Another short piece by Alex pithily exploring the London mayoralty choice and the US presidential choice and the Lib Dem blog of the year choice and…
6. Oh, Ming – you could have said it so much better on (ahem) Stephen Tall’s A Liberal Goes A Long Way blog.
Later reprinted here.
7. “Shaaaappps!” (Thunk) on Alex Wilcock’s Love and Liberty blog.
Ahh, a welcome return to Ealing Southall and the comedy genius that is top Tory campaign guru, Grant ‘1234’ Shapps.
Here’s another five which tickled my fancy, this week all taken from those short-listed in this year’s Blog of the Year awards:
8. So was I a Christian child? on Bernard Woolley’s Clowns to the Left of Me blog.
Explaining why we know there are 5,098,930 “Christian children” in England’s schools.
9. Day 2444: America Declares Victory (and prepares to scarper) on Millennium Dome, Elephant’s Very Fluffy Diary blog.
“I think it is PRETTY OBVIOUS to everyone (and that especially includes President Armageddon-jab in Iran) that we have reached that stage of the conflict when one of the powers decides to make a discrete series of STRATEGIC ADVANCES in the direction of THEIR OWN BORDERS, quietly leaving the locals to SLAUGHTER each other until they can pull themselves into a settlement.”
10. Shouldn’t the law deal with abusive drunks? on Duncan Borrowman’s blog.
Was Norman Lamb right to suggest drunks should have to pay for their own treatment. Duncan has his doubts.
11. Magisterium Committee conclude business on Don Liberali’s Liberal Mafia blog.
The Don’s unique take on the London mayoral race.
12. Dave’s Big Idea: Zac Goldsmith Backtracks on Chris Keating’s The Diary of Chris K blog.
A great opening line: “It doesn’t matter how rich your daddy is, you should ALWAYS put an executive summary in your reports.”
And that’s it for another seven days – next week will be a Golden Dozen conference special.
* Stephen Tall blogs at ‘A Liberal Goes A Long Way’.
One Comment
The first round now over, it was interesting to see the contrasting styles of the three candidates.
The idea of Brian Paddick being in a gold suit conjured up images of Big Bird from sesame street, colourful, obtrusive and featherweight but still his speech was funny and well delievered.
Fiyaz by all accounts was off message and one particular paper indicated that his campaign ended when he began speaking.
Chamali was adjudged by the press to be impressive and wooed an all too familiar flip flop audience but she needs to work on on looking older and tougher under intense questioning!
Paddick still has to convince us he is not undercover, as in the case of most of the top brass, especially that of the Met,
they trust nobody and nobody trusts them. Fiyaz must continue to differentiate himself as that is his strongest point. Chamali needs grey hair and a height extension.
The second round of hustings will see Brian return from holiday and book writing, Fiyaz fresh from the Cab and Chamali from court, what JOY !!.
The party desparately needs to select a candidate who is siginifcantly different to the other two. If we do not as in the words of Lord Rennard, ” The air war will have no fire.”
Ironically, we have been gifted an opportunity to attack the Tories while Dave is running for ideas but be warned, Boris is a fool but with popular appeal.
Let us not forget Policemen are not top of the guest list for dinner invitations so let the party have a real voice and give the favourite, Paddick, an ideal christmas adoption by the conservative party. They need paddick more than we do and Boris would welcome him as his number 2 as afterall they wanted him to be their candidate too !!