Today sees the 200th anniversary of the declaration of independent Venezuela by Simón Bolívar. Frankly, there isn’t much to celebrate there at the moment, the pile of notes pictured being what $100 looked like in bolivars two years ago (and it’s much worse now), and perhaps the Danes might not be celebrating the 153rd anniversary of the end of the Second Schleswig War either, given that they lost.

However, it might not all be doom and gloom, as Liberal Democrat Voice has a new Day Editor. To be strictly accurate, and because we’re proper liberals, we’re actually recycling an old one, in that I’ve offered my services up to fill the gap left by Mary Reid. You’ll notice that the word ‘replacement’ isn’t being used, as I’m hardly that, and she’s a pretty tough act to follow.

So, what can readers to the site expect? My particular interests are in international affairs, obscure corners of the Party’s bureaucracy and the House of Lords, so you might see a bit of that. I’m also a former Readers’ Editor of the site, and have ‘views’ on comment etiquette…

In today’s Liberal Democrat Voice, I’ll be looking forward to the week ahead in the Lords, and we’ll have some thoughts from Chris Key on the upcoming Budget. Also, there have been two significant elections this month in Austria and the Czech Republic, and liberal parties in each have made progress. We won’t talk about Iceland though…

Naturally, there may well be other breaking stories, and we always welcome input from our readers. If you do think that there’s something we should be covering, do let us know, or perhaps write something yourself.