Brian Haw’s milestone

Just a quick note to congratulate Iraq war protester Brian Haw. According to capital news website Londonist, yesterday saw his 3,000th day of continuous protest against the invasion.

3,000 days ago today, Brian Haw left his Redditch, Worcestershire home and took off for London, where he parked himself across the road from the Houses of Parliament and began a one-man anti-war protest. It was June 2001, and Haw was protesting against British and American sanctions on Iraq; September 11th, the deployment of troops in Afghanistan, the Iraq invasion of 2003 and the global marches against it, the July 2005 bombings, all were mere glints in the eye of suicidal madmen or hubristic politicians. It’s difficult to overestimate how prophetic Haw’s protest was.

I for one salute his tenacity.

Unpleasant Tory campaign vignettes

This week in the Guardian’s diary column Esther Addley is standing in for Hugh Muir, and she’s chosen a book of the week, True Blue: Strange Tales from a Tory Nation, by Chris Horrie and David Matthews.

Very unpleasant trends are emerging in two vignettes that paint Tory activists as racist and anti-Semitic. Who knew?

The first scene takes us to Richmond:

during the election campaign of 2005, when the book’s undercover authors were canvassing for the local Tory candidate against the Lib Dems’ Susan Kramer. Given a telephone cold-calling script, they were puzzled to find instructions to tell voters that Kramer was an “outsider” and, perplexingly, Hungarian (Kramer was born and raised in London). Why? “She’s a Jewess,” said a party activist, “but we aren’t allowed to say that. We get told off if we say that. So all we can say is that she got off the train from Hungary.”

And then in the London mayoral campaign, we have a charming anecdote:

[Ray] Lewis insisted he had a good idea of what the new job would involve, “which is more than you can say about Boris!”, before doing an impression of his new boss: “Crikey, Ray! What are we going to do? Gosh! Crumbs! Have you got any ideas? Golly!” Cue raucous hilarity, topped only when Lewis joked about a conversation about the local Conservative candidate, Shaun Bailey, who was also present and, like Lewis, is black. “I’ve just been speaking to a lady and she asked: ‘Which one is Shaun and which one is Ray – it’s hard to tell you apart.’”

The book is available on Amazon – and if you use this link you’re helping raise funds for the Liberal Democrats: True Blue: Strange Tales from a Tory Nation. Perhaps a kind reader out there would care to buy a copy and review it for us in greater detail?

Damian’s DNA

As the Guardian reports:

Damian Green, the Conservative frontbench immigration spokesman whose arrest during a Home Office leaks inquiry sparked a parliamentary storm, has won a four-month battle to have his DNA, fingerprint and police records destroyed.

The Metropolitan police told Green’s lawyers he is to be treated as “an exceptional case”. His DNA sample and fingerprints, taken when he was arrested, will be deleted within “a number of weeks”.

Meanwhile, for everyone else in Britain, different rules apply, despite a clear ruling from the European Court of Human Rights.

To Green’s credit, he does not want to be a special case: “I want every innocent person who has been arrested and whose records are being wrongly held to be treated the same as me.”

Interview with Durham campaigners

Last week I was up in Durham on a singing week in the Norman cathedral there. While I was there, I took the opportunity to meet with a group of local Lib Dem campaigners for the latest in our LDV interviews.

In Durham, they’re smarting from local government re-organisation; still proud of what Lib Dems achieved whilst running Durham city council; champing at the bit to build more social housing; and adamant the Lib Dems should not resile from their commitment to abolish tuition fees.

Hear all that and more by clicking play below (or here if you are reading this syndicated somewhere else). You can also download it for use with your MP3 player. Why not listen to the conference next time you’re out delivering leaflets? If you use iTunes you can search the podcast directory for Lib Dem Voice; for other podcast software, you can use this RSS feed of LDV’s audio content.

Tweets on 2009-08-19

  • Off to Broadway to see "Babylove" from the London gay film fest on tour. #Llgff #
  • RT @ramtops: reminder: Ukulele Orchestra of GB on Proms tonight, Radio3, 22:00. Enjoy! #uogb #proms #
  • Haven't seen a French film in years, and it's quite a while since I've been in Broadway. It's in the the Paul Smith designed screen. #
  • http://twitpic.com/ee4yb – Tuning in to uke prom with flying V and hyperactive kitten #uogb #prom #
  • http://twitpic.com/ee7kb – No, no kitten, it's in D major – don't forget the F# #
  • @rfenwick this will prob be my one and only time on Radio 3 this year, too #
  • Holding my ukulele aloft. #
  • I haven't been practicing Ode to Joy enough – I can't play it that fast 🙂 #
  • @rfenwick somehow manage to miss choral evensong pretty regularly, but when I have heard it it's been too ultramodern for me in reply to rfenwick #
  • @rfenwick I'm in the "we need at least one early music night" wing of my choir. #
  • Encore! #Uogb #prom #
  • @rfenwick we're back in St Paul's next year, 2nd week August. #
  • @helenduffett how good have you gotten at Uke fingerpicking? #
  • http://twitpic.com/eejlv – Someone's taken hyperactive kitteh and replaced him with sleepy kitteh. #
  • Oh dear… getting a little obsessed with that Billy Joel song about always being a woman. #
  • I just deposited money into my Swiss bank account. #spymaster http://bit.ly/playspy #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

The week in Facebook groups

Not  a week goes by without a dozen invites to various groups on Facebook.  (Well, maybe the week my ISP turned my email off without warning…) Here’s a selection that have crossed my path in recent days:

We agree with Vince Cable and Compass. Lets have a high pay commission.

Ever since the collapse of Northern Rock, Vince Cable has led the way in support of demanding an end to excessive pay and bonuses for greedy bankers who are more interested in short term profit than the long term interests of the economy.

Recently the Left Leaning think tank Compass has proposed a “High Pay Commission” to stop this kind of nonsense. We welcome Vince Cable’s support of this proposal and urge political leaders from all political parties to do the same.

According to Vince Cable; “There is no justification for massive pay and bonus awards in financial institutions, the most important of which are guaranteed or owned or have been rescued by the taxpayer”.

It’s not the first time that Compass have spread their net to include Lib Dems; but I have to say I’m a little angered at them taking my council email address and writing to me every day.

We’re supporting Jonathan Fryer to become an MEP in 2014

Nothing beats a good bit of organisation.

Jonathan Fryer responds: “Thank you so much everyone for your support duing this year’s campaign. We put in a tremendous amount of effort and it is sad that this time, it didn’t quite pay off. But being an MEP is the only job I really want and with your help, I will get there in 2014!”

Take back power!

This group’s 2,000 strong membership is demanding:

Help us reform parliament in Britain and Change Politics for Good: I want the right to sack my MP I want to know MPs can’t be bought off by party donors I want the right to find out what government is doing I want the power of government to be cut down I want my vote to count Visit TakeBackPower.org and read the full plan for reform: 100 Days to Save Democracy. Sign the petition, spread the word and join the campaign online

The 100 days may be over, but the demands are still unmet.

Liberal Democrats for the Single Transferable Vote

The Single Transferable Vote electoral system has long been the electoral system of choice for Liberal Democrats across the UK, but it is unfortunate that the Party leadership seems too ready to compromise on this policy and sign up to the inferior Alternative Vote Plus system.

‘Liberal Democrats for the Single Transferable Vote’ is a group for Liberal Democrats who believe our Party and its members, supporters and activists shouldn’t compromise at this early stage for the Alternative Vote Plus system.

This group wishes to influence the Party leadership by arguing that Liberal Democrats should campaign to influence the voters of the benefits of the Single Transferable Vote system.

As the Acronystas say, STV MMC FTW.