It’s Thursday, it’s 10.35 pm … it’s BBC1’s Question Time.

For the Liberal Democrats, perennial favourite former party leader Charles Kennedy will be responding to public questions Joining Charlie will be Ben Bradshaw, Theresa May, Dr David Starkey and Dambisa Moyo

If you’re tuning in, you can join the simultanous online Twitter debate here at #bbcqt, or the LDV debate in the thread below. Meanwhile Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson will be liveblogging events via CoverItLive at his own blog.

Welcome to a belated Daily View on this fine first day of the month. 1st October marks the 166th anniversary of the News of the World; the anniversary of the death of Ned Sherrin; and we say happy birthday to comedian Harry Hill.

Two big news stories

Earthquake hits stricken Sumatra (Guardian)

A second powerful earthquake has hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a day after the first devastating quake left more than 500 dead, thousands of people buried in rubble and a major city cut off from the outside world.

Today’s quake, of magnitude 6.9, struck in the early hours about 180 miles from the epicentre of yesterday’s more powerful tremor out at sea.

Cervical cancer jab girl Natalie Morton died from large chest tumour

You can’t help but feel sorry for this poor young woman who dropped dead from a chest tumour at school, not something you wish on anyone. But the unsavoury tabloid scramble to link her death to a vaguely controversial vaccination programme has been deeply unedifying, and hasn’t helped anyone, least of all the family and friends. The ensuing comments on all the news articles I’ve seen have been a scary eye-opening experience.

Natalie Morton, the schoolgirl who died after receiving a vaccine as part of a national immunisation campaign, died from a large malignant tumour in her chest.

Her sudden death was unconnected with her cervical cancer jab, an inquest in Coventry was told today.

See also: Mark Pack on SEO and cancer jabs.

Two must-read blog posts

Charlotte Gore on the bin strike in Leeds

I’m getting in touch with the people involved to write more about this, but in the meantime I’m drawing attention to a new Facebook group: Leeds Tax Payers against the Bin Strike. If you live in Leeds and you want people to actually take your bins away, please join up and spread the word.

(Interesting to my mind for the long battle in the comments – How does Charlotte know what she says she knows – and where she is being accused of ultra-loyalism. Also interesting because Councils across the country are facing issues similar to this as a result of “single status” campaigns to make sure that women’s work in local government is remunerated at the same rate as men’s work – which, to grossly oversimplify, means massive pay rises for dinner ladies and cleaners and pay cuts for binmen and street sweepers.

Stuart Bonar’s cut out’n’keep guide to Labour’s unfunded pledges

I’m not saying I oppose the idea of these policies, but money doesn’t grow on trees… when Lib Dems announce a new policy we spell out how it will be funded – Labour cannot just list a whole raft of costly new policies without explaining how it will be paid for.

Seen a good post lately? Why not give a link and a review in the comments.

I’ll confess I am not actually listening to the Prime Minister’s speech to Labour conference, as I have far more important things to do, including biting my nails and feeding the cats.

However, a quick refresh of Twitter shows that quite a lot of my friends are. And some of them have even been a little taken in by Brown’s ID card commitment.

If Twitter is right – and I can’t be bothered to check – he said, “there will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens in the next parliament”

My goodness, but you can drive a double decker bus through the wiggle room in the loopholes there!

• There will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens in the next parliament

So there will still be pointless, wasteful ID cards then?

• There will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens in the next parliament

All those here on visas and work permits will still have to queue up to give more personal data to the UK government than is currently demanded from sex offenders, then?

• There will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens in the next parliament

They’re not ruling out compulsory ID cards at all – just putting them on hold for a wee while.

This entirely disastrous Government IT project has wasted millions already and threatens to waste billions more. It will eventually require the entire population to travel then queue up one at a time to hand personal data to a Government that doesn’t know why it wants it, but is misguided in its belief as to exactly what problem this solution will cure. And it requires technologies that don’t exist yet.

It’s a massive (sorry Millennium) White elephant, and only one party has consistently opposed it (it was a Tory idea in the first place, even though they’ve now come around to our way of thinking). Vote Lib Dem for an end to them!

So, dear reader, what did you think of our dear leader’s speech?