Yesterday we brought you links to discussion in Parliament about disreputable oil company Trafigura’s legal shenanigans to prevent discussion of their activities on the Côte d’Ivoire.

Today here’s a little more, courtesy of Private Eye’s blog. Ian Hislop, the editor of the magazine, appeared with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger at a select committee hearing discussing the damage injunctions can do to real, investigative journalism. An unedited verbatim transcript can be found here, with the juicy bits starting around Q850, about halfway down the very long page.

In it, Hislop talks candidly about a number of incidences where he has wanted to report but has been prevented from doing so by court action. Please don’t talk about them in the comments – our pockets are considerably less deep than those of Private Eye! Don’t mention Andrew Marr, either.

Other LDV stories about Trafigura:

• Send a “thank you” card to Trafigura
• Net mightier than gag
• Heath and Burstow table urgent questions
• Nick Clegg tweets about Trafigura

Some weeks ago we asked for your initial views about a “Lib Dem internetty meet up thing.”

Some good ideas emerged from the comments, and I am pleased to announce that after weeks of work for m’colleague Helen Duffett, we are able to set up the first of these meetings.

Some of the details are a little sketchy, but here’s what we know for sure:

Venue: Edinburgh – Scottish Lib Dem HQ, 4 Clifton Terrace EH12 5DR. Map here: http://bit.ly/5hFce

Date: Saturday 21 November 2009

Time: 10am-4pm

Facilities: Wireless network will be available, meeting room and (tbc) a smaller breakout room

Transport: Haymarket Station opposite, good bus links, parking not so good on the doorstep but is available within a few minutes’ walk. Edinburgh airport to the west of the city.

At least four of us so far are planning on making a weekend of it, and we are lining up fun politico things to do for the rest of our time on the Sunday.

To attend, you must register via this thread in our Forum

We very much hope this event will be the first of many, and next year (General Election willing) we hope to explore the other offers of accommodation made in Reading and Nottingham.

Good morning? Is it? Pah. I got the date wrong when I started writing this, and looked up all the exciting facts on Wikipedia. So, here, have some exciting facts about yesterday instead:

Good morning, and welcome to Daily View, on this, the DAY AFTER THE 943rd anniversary of the fateful day when King Harold got something in his eye in the opening foray of what turned out to be the Norman Invasion. 723 years AND ONE DAY later, George Washington proclaimed the first Thanksgiving Day whilst revolutionary fervour swept much of the world. Birthday boys today yesterday included Steve Coogan and the late e e cummings.

Anyway, more importantly than all that, it’s Thursday, so it’s polling day in a couple of local by-elections in Barnsley and Basingstoke – and also for that very rare of political occurrences, a by-election for an elected mayor. All the very best to Dave Hodgson for taking Bedford today – and do pop by his website or his town if you think you can help out.

2 Big Stories

MPs’ expenses: Tory David Wilshire pays £100,000 to company he owns with girlfriend

Ah yes – MPs expenses – the story that keeps on giving for the Telegraph.

Mr Wilshire claimed for more than three years for office assistance provided by “Moorlands Research Services”. Parliamentary expenses rules forbid MPs from entering into arrangements which “may give rise to an accusation” of profiting from public funds. But on Wednesday night, Mr Wilshire – the MP for Spelthorne in Surrey – admitted that he and his partner, Ann Palmer, were sole owners of the business.

The Telegraph has established that, between 2005 and 2008, Mr Wilshire paid up to £3,250 a month to the business. Extra invoices were also submitted and the total paid to the firm was £105,500. However, there is no official record of the company’s existence and it has never filed public accounts.

NB, this story is about David Wilshire, the Tory MP for Spelthorne, and not about the Tory MP for Wiltshire (North) who is a cad for a whole different set of reasons.

A year after the crunch, it’s boom time again for bankers

For story 2, we turn to the Times, with their exposé of of bankers’ bonuses:

Just 12 months after the global economy was brought close to collapse by reckless lending — forcing banks to turn to taxpayers for help — stock markets in London and New York are enjoying one of the strongest bull runs in decades and investment banks are preparing to announce huge profits.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

• Andrew Reeves: The big football game is back on- Paris Foot Gay vs Creteil Bebel
  An update on a story here on LDV last week.

  The Director said: “We had rejected playing this match not on the grounds of homophobia, as we have been accused of doing, but simply because the name of the club did not seem to us to reflect our vision of sport.”

  I have no idea what that means and it sounds the lamest excuse I have ever heard. Sport has nothing to do with people’s religion nor their sexuality. Paris Foot Gay seems to have been around at least two and a half years and perhaps before the Muslim team announced their refusal to play the team last week their Directors should have done a wee bit of research.

• Lansom Boy: New Wind Turbines approved

  An ill wind blows through Cornwall Council’s planning committee as councillors take an unpopular decision.

  Quite unexpectedly (at least from my expectations), the Council’s strategic planning committee last night voted to approve applications for new wind turbines at Davidstow and Otterham.

  It was a really packed meeting with lots of locals present who objected to the schemes. There were also a few people in favour but the majority of the audience were resolutely opposed.