Caron's Musings

#PAD photos 22-28 January 2012

2012-01-29T15:18:00.000Z

We went to the second last performance of this year's panto at the King's in Edinburgh. Allan Stewart, Grant Stott and Andy Gray were as funny as ever.

I have been singularly rubbish at taking photos this week so here are some views of the subtle and not so subtle lighting Bob has put into his new DJ haven.

And my favourite drink of the moment is...

Review: The Iron Lady

2012-01-27T14:55:00.129Z

For the first time, I took advantage of being at home in the middle of the day and went to the cinema on Wednesday. The film that inspired me to do so was one about possibly the most controversial British politician of my lifetime. Venerated, in quite a scary way, actually, by the right, loathed with a passion by the left.

She let me down, badly. When she uttered those words of St Francis of Assisi about bringing light and harmony and peace that day in May 1979, I as an 11 year old bought it. When she then proceeded to cause more division and encourage the promotion of self at the expense of social responsibility, I felt so disappointed. When she refused to take action against apartheid and other human rights abuses, I was pretty disgusted.

So, it's fair to say that there's no love lost between me and Mags to put it mildly.

I'd read that the film was more about her Dementia than her record as Prime Minister. I also knew that Thatcher is a lot more popular in the USA than she is here. I wasn't looking forward to seeing her portrayed in a sympathetic light but felt strangely compelled to see the film. I fully expected to come out of the cinema raging.

I hadn't, foolishly, taken the talents of Meryl Streep into account, though. I always knew she was versatile. I mean, anyone who can pull off the harrowing Sophie's Choice, the imperious Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, and be a credible Donna in Mamma Mia is undoubtedly a talented actress. And now, in the same film, she plays both an inflexible, unlistening, head of Government, surrounded by men who often reluctantly do her bidding, who thinks nothing of sinking a ship that's sailing away from the theatre of war and an old lady coping with the disorientation of Dementia, living an isolated life, surrounded by women who care for her. In the flashbacks, Streep has that clarity and conviction in her eyes. In the portrayal of the older Thatcher, her eyes have confusion in them. It's incredible.

We see the very young Thatcher (played by Alexandra Roach) patronised by men as she tries to win selection for a Tory seat. Her background as a grocer's daughter and her gender are clearly holding her back and there's a telling scene where she's sent off with the ladies after a dinner. Every woman in politics has gone through something like this at some point. For most of us it makes encouraging other women a priority. For Thatcher, it seemed to breed resentment to come out much later.

For every scene that induced anger - the Falklands, the refusal to depart from her Monetarist policies, the miners' strike, her intransigence over the poll tax, there was another immediately afterwards which made you laugh at Jim Broadbent's portrayal of Dennis, or marvel at Michael Pennington's brief but pretty much spot on scenes as Michael Foot. Streep invokes sympathy for the older Thatcher, widowed, alone and confused. Without giving too much away, there are a couple of really mawkish scenes but, blow me, was there not a tear in my eye? I really must try and toughen up a little.

Streep's portrayal of the present day Thatcher is based on assumptions and a good script, not actual fact. Even so, it feels intrusive, a bit close to the bone, to be watching something like that while she's still alive. I actually found myself agreeing with David Cameron on that point.

It was an excellent film that evoked strong emotions in me - the old anger stirred within my breast, shall we say, but I also felt sympathy for the strange and disorientating world a Dementia sufferer inhabits. For one person to get across confidence and clarity and confusion and grief within one film and one character was amazing and Streep would be a worthy winner of the Best Actress Oscar.

Leadership programme hopefuls and new MEP among signatories of candidates' plea to Clegg on Welfare Reform

2012-01-27T12:55:00.049Z

Today's Guardian carries a report that more than 50 Liberal Democrat candidates at the last election have written to Nick Clegg to ask for a rethink on welfare reform.

This shows that many within the Party are unhappy with measures like the withdrawal of contributory Employment and Support Allowance after one year, something I've written about many times.

And this is not just Gareth Epps being awkward, either. Among the signatories to the letter are Greg Judge, Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Shas Sheehan and Layla Moran, four of the participants in the much vaunted Leadership Programme as well as Daisy Benson, who darned well should be on it. We also have our newest MEP Rebecca Taylor who takes over Diana Wallis' seat after Stewart Arnold decided against succeeding his wife. Stephen Glenn also told me where to find the actual letter rather than just the Guardian report so thanks to him.

The letter says:

Dear Nick

As you are aware the House of Lords voted in favour of 3 amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill, protecting important benefits for sick and disabled people.

The amendments, regarding contributory Employment and Support Allowance (cESA), were:

The amount of time a person can receive cESA will be extended to at least 24 months, instead of the Government’s proposed 12 month limit.
Cancer patients will be exempted from the time limit.
The ‘youth provision’ of the benefit will be protected, meaning that young disabled people who cannot work will still be entitled to cESA without having made National Insurance contributions.

The amendments were passed with significant majorities, but they must still be approved by the House of Commons.

Contributory Employment and Support Allowance is a benefit given to people who have had to stop work due to ill health or disability, but who are well enough to return to work at some point. It is only given to those who have paid sufficient National Insurance Contributions during their working life.

Some disabled people will be able to return to work, but many will need more time and support to do so. The Department for Work and Pensions estimate that 94 per cent of disabled people will take longer than a year to find work. This means that many who remain unemployed after these 12 months will lose all benefit support. That would mean that, by 2015/16, 700,000 people would be affected and 280,000 would lose their entire benefit payment – currently £94.25 per week.

We are deeply concerned that the Minister, Chris Grayling, has already indicated he intends the Welfare Reform Bill to pass without the amendments on cESA when the Bill returns to the commons.

At Federal Conference we passed a motion which said we should not have an arbitrary time limit on cESA. Although the amendment extends the current proposal from one to at least two years, we do not believe we should let the best be the enemy of the good.

We, including many who stood as Liberal Democrat candidates at the last election, some who have been selected on the Lib Dem leadership programme, councillors and selected 2012 London candidates believe you and Lib Dem Parliamentarians should uphold party policy and principle and only support the Welfare Reform Bill with the amendments passed in the House of Lords.

It's clear that this isn't a north south thing either - this letter has the support of candidates from Linlithgow to Poole, from Coastal Suffolk to Wirral West.

I had precious few replies from my e-mails to our Peers, but Shirley Williams told me she had had over 500 e-mails on the subject of the ESA time limit.

This isn't enough, though. A letter from candidates trailed in the media won't make the difference. Our MPs need to hear that we want them to get the Government to pull back from the brink and not to overturn the Lords Amendments.

It's time for Liberal Democrat members to start contacting MPs in much larger numbers. The crucial votes take place next Wednesday. Will you do your bit in trying to persuade our MPs to oppose the measures that our Conference voted so strongly against? In fact, if you have a Lib Dem MP, tell them how strongly you feel about these changes. They will take notice if their inboxes and mailbags are full of correspondence on this issue.

Please contact our MPs yourself and spread the word to ask others to do the same if you feel that these reforms are way too harsh on sick and disabled people.

Holocaust Memorial Day - Jo Swinson's reflections on her visit to Auschwitz

2012-01-27T11:58:00.001Z

In September 2009, Jo Swinson MP went to Auschwitz as part of an educational trip with Scottish secondary school pupils.

This is her moving video account of her visit. It breaks my heart to think of the brutality that took place. I really don't understand how human beings could send other human beings to their deaths like that. This is a harrowing film that should remind us of where such detachment and cruelty can lead. Watch and work out what you are going to do to fight for human rights across our planet.

I had a letter published in Total Politics

2012-01-27T10:57:00.013Z

The February issue of Total Politics carries, for the first ever time, a letter from yours truly.

It's all about Scotland and independence and that sort of stuff and was literally put together in five random moments.

In reply to David Torrance’s article on the SNP’s success (TP, January), it would be churlish not to acknowledge the skill with which the SNP crafted their winning campaign last May.

Their messaging and use of technology unpicked a voting system designed to create coalitions. It’s disappointing that they have since returned to negative campaigning, picking fights with judges and Westminster to undermine the union. Having ignored independence in the run up to the election, they now talk of little else. Anyone who questions their approach is accused of talking Scotland down.

They know they can’t guarantee that we would be better off outside the UK so avoid specifics. Voters will demand more than just a slick campaign. Conversely, the pro-UK parties will have to do more to add passion to their case, to connect with the voters. If both sides step up to those challenges, we’ll have the high quality campaign we deserve.

Caron LindsayScottish Lib Dem activist and blogger

Why Liberal Democrat Conference is good for you

2012-01-27T08:55:00.003Z

In 5 weeks' time, the Scottish and Welsh parties meet for their respective Spring Conferences. The Welsh are going to Cardiff while the Scots head north to the beautiful highland capital of Inverness. As everywhere which meant anything to me as a child is within 20 minutes' walk of the Conference venue, I'm delighted to be going there. Although it seems a long way north, it only costs £10 return on the bus or £22 on the train to get there.

Just one weekend later, Federal Conference takes place, for the first time ever, in Gateshead.

So, why, I wondered allowed on Facebook the other day, do Liberal Democrats like going to Conference? Here are some of the replies I received:

Why I like going - meeting up with old friends, listening to some of the debates & speeches, coming away feeling things are good (which invariably happens!)

Just a great chance to catch up, hear what is going on, make an input, cross-question the politicians.Gives you a chance to contribute to the democratic process. People are concentrated on Lib Dem ideas, not the agendas of others. Always come away with my mind buzzing with ideas.

I like meeting other Lib Dems being from Lib Dem Siberia.Talk to politicians, contribute on policy, meeting people I know online in real life.

Love policy debate - the opportunity to shape what we do. Also, general banter and drinks
I always leave inspired to go do stuff because people are talking about the kind of stuff they're doing locally. Also, I like how social it is - I get to see friends that I don't normally get to see because they live so far away. They're MY main reasons for going but the actual conference is really useful too - fringes and training events are really helpful and I end up taking back loads of ideas and enthusiasm. The policy debates are interesting and it's great to be involved in shaping the party's policies (and the government's policies as well now!)

Conference is somewhere I can be myself. In every possible way!

When Paddy was running for the leadership of the newly merged party he had this line about the Liberal Party fitting him like an old overcoat. Going to conference is a bit like getting that overcoat out of the cupboard and putting it back on.

One of the best bits is finally finding out what someone you'd known for years via their blog actually looks like.

Feel free to add your own answers in the comments. Please don't confess to anything on anybody else's behalf, though, and, specifically, don't spill the beans about what happened that year in Pitlochry.

Vibrant conferences, full of debates and ideas, are just what we need as we head into local election campaigns in Scotland and England as well as the London Assembly elections. I always come home from Conference exhausted, but strangely invigorated. Being with the Lib Dem family really is good for the soul.

Cheap registration ends for Scotland tomorrow and Wales next week. You can register for Cardiff here, Inverness here and Gateshead here.

Not yet persuaded? Then Stuart Bonar's video from last year's Federal Conference in Birmingham gives an excellent insight to the event.

There are worse things than the Chicken Pox, Michael Moore

2012-01-26T21:02:00.000Z

12th September 1995.

I woke on what was already going to be an ordeal of a day, headed for the bathroom and as I passed the mirror realised that I spots were appearing all over me, almost multiplying before my eyes.

That's what happens when you let the only member of the family who hasn't had Chicken Pox look after the child who's just come down with it. Around 3 weeks before, we'd been up for the weekend when my beautiful niece Laura, then just two, came out in spots. My sister was starting a college course the next day and nobody else but I could stay home with her.

The reason I remember the date so clearly is that this was the morning of my beloved Granny's funeral. Warned starkly by my mother not to get any spots on my face before the service, I searched for scarves and long sleeved tops to cover up the offending sight.

I felt lousy. And continued to do so for a good fortnight. It actually took about 6 months for me to feel properly well again.Where Laura had about 40 spots on her entire body, I had that many just on my right shoulder. This is a nasty virus that hits adults far worse than children.

And see when the itch started...... I don't know why but I persevered with Calamine Lotion alone. Nowadays you just dose your child with Piriton to get them through, but for some reason I either didn't know or you didn't use it for that.

The whole thing was a deeply unpleasant experience. So, when I heard that Secretary for State for Scotland Michael Moore had come down with it, I was full of sympathy. I know I'm pretty soft hearted anyway, but I really do feel for him because I know what he's going through.

He needs to respect this virus because it is really nasty, so will have to rest. Every hour spent vegging out in front of West Wing DVDs takes a day off the worst of the illness. Ok, so I have no scientific evidence to back that up, but I do know if you do too much, you'll be iller for longer..

But, there are worse things than having Chicken Pox, as a glance at today's Metro will show.Sloppy, lazy, inaccurate journalism at its best.

Knowing Mike as I do, I suspect that the horribleness of the Chicken Pox is for him nothing compared to being called a Tory.

Vince whets our appetite for Nick's tax cuts speech

2012-01-26T09:01:00.000Z

In the second very encouraging example in 4 days of Them Inside the Westminster Bubble communicating with us lesser mortals a bit better, the Almighty Vince sent an e-mail to party members this morning to give us the heads up about a speech being given by Nick Clegg later today in which he will make the case for quicker tax cuts for low earners.

This is exactly what the Liberal Democrats are for and the e-mail links to a site which gives lots of proper concrete examplesof how much we're helping ordinary people. Remember the Tories' big idea on tax was to cut it for rich, dead people.

It's pretty hard to get out of bed on these horrid, cold, dark, Winter mornings. However, Vince and Nick have made me pretty happy this morning.

I will return to the speech later, but for now, here's Vince's e-mail:

Dear Caron,

As families face more of a squeeze, today Liberal Democrats are arguing for greater tax cuts for hard working people.

Between now and the Budget, Nick and Danny and I will be arguing for faster tax cuts, giving you a reward for hard work. And Nick will be setting out our case in a speech today.

Given the budget constraint we have to raise money for the tax cut elsewhere and have plans to raise an equivalent amount from the wealthiest taxpayers.

At the last election the Liberal Democrats promised to raise the personal allowance for ordinary taxpayers to £10,000. I am proud that the Coalition has committed to doing so over the course of this Parliament.

For millions of ordinary hard working people, that means paying £700 less in income tax each year. Low earners, mostly women will benefit from being lifted out of tax altogether.

But times are tough and quite simply, Liberal Democrats in Government want to help families who are currently being squeezed by moving more quickly.

Whether it’s targeting an extra £7bn from tax evaders and avoiders, taking an extra £2.5bn every year from the banks in a balance sheet tax, or the announcement I made on Monday to curb the excesses of executive pay, this Coalition is taking important steps to deliver a fairer economy.

And we have already made a big difference, click here to see how.

We are building a new economy, one that benefits the whole country, not just bankers in the City of London. Making the tax system fairer is crucial to that. This is a huge task that will make Britain a fairer and more liberal country for generations to come.

Yours,

Vince Cable MP
Member of Parliament for Twickenham and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills

And to the lovely people who are improving the comms - a great big cuddle from me to you. Thank you and keep up the good work.

Love Equally March on Valentine's Day in Edinburgh

2012-01-24T10:53:00.000Z

So, how are you going to spend Valentine's Day?

How about spending some of it in the company of like minded people marching from Edinburgh University to the Scottish Parliament in support of Equal Marriage?

Starting at Bristo Square at 2:30, the march, organised by the Scottish Youth Parliament, NUS and the Equality Network, will head for Holyrood.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to go. The schools are out, Bob's on holiday and we had a mind to go away for the week, but we'll be there if we change our minds.

There's more information about the event on its Facebook page. Please feel free to share with everybody you know.

The only disappointing thing is that it won't have Colin Firth and Hugh Grant - but surely someone can write a suitable spoof of a Curtis film to help publicise the event on You Tube or something....

Nick could learn from Barack's State of the Union preparation

2012-01-24T09:15:00.001Z

I spent some time yesterday evening geeking out on the White House website in advance of tonight's State of the Union address. This is the annual prestige occasion when the US President addresses both houses of Congress on where the nation is at, and on his priorities for the coming year.

The coverage on the White House website is something that I think Nick Clegg could learn from in three particular ways:

Telling people exactly what's going to happen and when. Videos outlining the traditions behind the State of the Union and the planned coverage and what will happen afterwards;
Providing the facility for people to watch enhanced coverage on the web or their phone - with graphics illustrating the President's points as he makes them;
An immediate web panel of senior advisers afterwards taking questions via Twitter.

Obama is clearly using the mechanisms of Government to their best advantage there. Clegg's opportunities in this country are yet to be maximised, I think.

However, we can't use Government to publicise the one annual occasion when all eyes are on him - his Autumn Conference speech.

Maybe we should be looking at what lessons we could learn from the great campaigning minds around Obama. I can see some You Tube videos with people anticipating the speech and what could be in it. Not difficult to collect in these days of smartphones shooting HD video.

I don't know if we could do the live web streaming. My guess is not, but we should have video with graphics for people to watch later.

And, finally, a webchat with Farron, Shirley and Paddy immediately afterwards.

The follow up actually continues all week, with Obama doing a hangout on Google Plus on Monday.

What do you think? When Nick has something to really say, we should look at how we can enhance the follow up. Have a closer look at how the Obama team does it. If nothing else, it'll feel a bit like an episode of the West Wing.

Why are Paddy and other Lib Dem Peers picking this Welfare Reform fight?

2012-01-23T13:15:00.023Z

So, Liberal Democrat peers are preparing to stage a second major rebellion on the Welfare Reform Bill. The first, before Christmas, helped to defeat the Government's plans to cut Housing Benefit for those in houses with one spare bedroom.

Paddy told Sky News yesterday that he was intending to vote against the Government's plans to introduce a cap on the amount of benefits a family can receive of £26,000 in a year. Nick Clegg presented this yesterday as fair on the Andrew Marr programme. He said that it the system had to be seen to be fair to taxpayers, many of whom would find it hard to imagine that someone on benefits was given the same amount as anyone else earning £35,000.

Well, for a start, someone on benefits would have to have a pretty large family and live in a very expensive area to come close to getting the full £26,000 in benefits. What annoys me most about this is that Child Benefit, which the family earning £35,000 don't have to pay tax on, will be taken into account as income for benefit recipients. That to me is pretty regressive.

The tabloid press love to show examples of large families living in expensive houses getting a fortune in Housing Benefit. Well, what if you and your large family rent a house that suits your needs and then you lose your job. Now, you could be out of work for over a year in today's climate, no matter how hard you try. My husband couldn't have tried harder way back in 1994, and it still took him 10 months to find a job at half his previous salary. Bear in mind that if you're on Housing Benefit you don't automatically get all your rent paid. You only get a Local Housing Allowance based on average rents in the area, and you only get the amount for the size of property you are deemed to need up to a maximum of 4 bedrooms. The rates for Local Housing Allowance have already been cut by the Coalition. It used to be based on an average of the lowest 50% of rents and this has been reduced to 30%. We, the taxpayer, are not financing very many palaces, you can be sure of that.

Iain Duncan Smith says nobody will be made homeless by these changes. He is talking utter nonsense. He is not in a position to guarantee that. Is there really sufficient affordable housing for everyone who'll need it? Will market rents come down as the Government wants or will landlords just not bother renting to people on benefits. How often do you see "no DSS" on adverts for rented properties?

So, Paddy is right and our peers have good reasons for opposing this measure. I just find the whole thing a bit inconsistent, though. Why are they making a fuss about this and not on cuts to Employment and Support Allowance. 40 percent of people in the Work Related Activity Group will lose their benefit of £94 a week come April if their partners earn more than £7,748 a year after tax OR work for more than 24 hours a week. Explain to me why a cap at £26,000 is not justified while it's acceptable to take nearly £400 a month off a family on a low income?

I really, really don't get it. Not only have our peers voted in favour of time limiting ESA, against very recent party policy, but they haven't come forward to explain why and that annoys me, to be honest. At Conference, they should be closely questioned as to why they have made the choices they have. People I like, respect and trust voted in favour of these measures, but I really don't understand why.

The way it's looking the cap will be defeated in the Lords. I'd be surprised with any other outcome. This will no doubt spawn a whole load of scrounger stories in the Daily Fail, written by journalists who have probably never had to live on benefits, or had difficulty finding somewhere affordable to live.

The day Nick Clegg made me cry and other personal tales - over at Ellen's Mental Health Carnival

2012-01-23T09:55:00.030Z

Ellen, over at In a Bun Dance, is doing something very important today. She is hosting a Mental Health Carnival, where she posts contributions from bloggers who have faced the particular challenges that mental health conditions throw at you.

She's done it because:

Mental illness, of all shades, just doesn't get talked about enough. There's still a stigma, so anything that raises understanding and awareness has to be good.
Blogging can be hugely therapeutic in matters of mental dis-ease. It really helped me when I was in the grip of depression, therefore, I was delighted to highlight bloggers who talk about their experiences of it.

And people don't talk about it nearly enough. In fact, many still worry that admitting a vulnerability will have a detrimental effect on their career. In fact, I may well have thought twice about talking about my own issues if I'd had any ambitions for a parliamentary career.

For me, this sort of openness about mental health issues is important in three ways. Firstly, as Ellen says, to break down the barriers, challenge the stigma. Mental illness strikes capable and talented people every day. In great numbers. For every five people you see today, one of them may well be suffering inside.

Secondly, it serves to comfort, reassure, inspire those who are struggling. Believe me, it can be a real battle just to keep yourself alive when you are in the pit of Depression with no obvious way out. If someone reads something that makes them realise that they aren't alone, that there is hope, and there are things that you can try to deal with the symptoms,

Thirdly, it should make us all aware of the need to make sure that there are sufficient resources to give everyone suffering from a mental health condition the support and treatment that they need. My contribution to this event is recycled. When Nick Clegg announced last year that £400 million was to be spent on giving a million people access to talking therapies, it made me cry because I knew how that would literally save lives. That post was one where the political met the personal as I wrote about my lifelong association with the black dog. Last week, I was delighted to be able to tell Lib Dem Voice readers that half a million people had already benefited and that Nick's work to break down the barriers and stigma around mental health was continuing.

So head on over to Ellen's blog today, read the moving accounts people have written and take from them inspiration, a resolve to try to ensure better services and a better understanding of the reality of many people's lives.

The Question: what would you do if you knew you could not fail?

2012-01-22T19:55:00.002Z

Apologies for the links not being right - I'm doing this on my iPad and I Aven't quite worked out how to do it properly. I'll fix it in the morning when I get ack on the laptop.

Anyway, The Question is a meme set up by Stephen Chapman at The State of the Nation UK . He wants bloggers to answer the same question on the same day. This month it's 'what would you do if you knew you could not fail?

Where do you start with that? I thought about literary success J K Rowling style as a means to getting loads of money to do good with. Jennie had a similar idea, though.

Then I thought about going to Israel to get them to stop treating the Palestinians so appallingly to bring peace to that Region.

But what I actually decided upon was being able to really get it into boys' heads that the images of how women should look that they are bombarded with are complete nonsense, created with the express aim of making money for somebody; that pornography which portrays women as receptacles is dangerous & if they actually listen to their partners, everyone will have more fun; that there is never any excuse for mental or physical violence (of the non consensual variety, anyway). The potential for that to create happier, more fulfilled individuals, who then have more energy & motivation to make the world a better place, is very appealing indeed.

Update: and of course I forgot to come and put the links in. Thanks to Stephen Glenn for nudging me for my lack of etiquette so apologies all. Anyway, here's Stephen's answer to the Question.

Clegg's e-mail signals start of fight back against Labour

2012-01-22T18:55:00.000Z

Better watch out here - there's a sign of some joined up thinking from 'them indoors' in the Westminster Bubble.

Hot on the heels of Nick Clegg's mostly successful interview on Andrew Marr this morning an e-mail appears from him carrying on the themes. I'm glad to see the signs of a more aggressive tone with Labour. We have been putting up with too much of their hypocritical nonsense for too long.

A good sign - but we still need a decent, fast rebuttal system otherwise ales statements about us go unchallenged and become accepted fact by default.

Here it is for you to read:

Dear Caron,

Nearly two years ago, Liberal Democrats chose to do the right thing in the national interest at a time of crisis. We put tribalism aside and the good of the country first.

We didn’t come into politics to make cuts, but with the economy on the verge of collapse we knew we had to take the difficult decisions necessary to get the deficit under control and the country back on track.

And how did the Labour Party react?

They attacked us viciously. They refused to apologise or take responsibility for the mess they created. They opposed every cut and they indulged in cynical scaremongering.

In Sheffield, David Blunkett warned of ‘post-Soviet’ meltdown with people fending for themselves. It was the politics of fear and it was a disgrace.

But now, after nearly two years of opposing every cut, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls say they won’t reverse a single one. Yet they still say they oppose them.

Confused?

They have gone from being in the wrong place to being all over the place. From denial to disarray.

Many of our excellent councillors lost their seats last May because of the vicious attacks of their Labour opponents. We must not let them get away with it again.

Liberal Democrats approach this May’s elections with a track record of proud, progressive achievements in Government:

Lifting a million of the poorest workers out of tax and cutting taxes, not for the rich but for 23m basic rate taxpayers;
Making the well off pay their share by raising Capital Gains Tax, a new £10bn bank levy and keeping the 50p top rate of tax;
The most generous rise in the state pension for a generation;
A revolution in the way we support the children who need help the most when it matters the most, in the crucial early years and throughout their school lives;
More apprenticeships than Britain has ever had before;
And from this April, the Youth Contract, an ambitious £1bn programme to make sure every 18 to 24-year-old has the opportunity to earn or learn.
Clearing up Labour’s mess is not easy, but right. Let’s take the fight to them as May approaches.

You can see my interview on this morning's Andrew Marr show here.

Yours,

Nick Clegg MP

Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister

Clegg: "We must be bolder on fairer taxes but we're winning the argument"

2012-01-22T10:49:00.001Z

Nick Clegg was interviewed by Andrew Marr this morning and, as has become my tradition, I've tweeted my way through it and preserved my commentary for you all to read.

He came across very well in the interview. You see, I first knew him a long time ago, and he talks to Marr in the same genuine and open way as he did with all of us way back then. He's being himself, which is something you don't often see with politicians at his level.

In my view, Marr didn't quiz him hard enough on welfare reform and particularly the cuts in benefits for the sick and disabled. It's not difficult to find evidence that these measures are a bad idea so a bit of laziness on Marr's part there. I'd have been interested to hear how Nick would have answered them.

The only criticism I'd really make about what he said was his use of that awful phrase "hard working families". It's quite a narrow phrase and doesn't take account of those people, who need looking after, who can't work for reasons of illness, caring responsibilities or there being no jobs.

However, Nick was pressed on taxes, fairness, the benefit cap, NHS reforms, bankers' bonuses and passed all those tests with flying colours. The thing about Nick is that he generally has a go at actually answering the question put to him. Often politicians use phrases like "let me be clear" as a deflection technique, but Nick actually means it.

There were three things that I felt were really important in what he said.

First was his clear passion to see greater fairness in the tax system. You can tell he's as fed up as we all are with the fact that bankers are still getting massive bonuses while the rest of us suffer, but he highlighted that this was a result of Labour's "irresponsible capitalism" giving them contractual entitlement to them.He talked about how the Coalition had done what it could to curb them. Asked by Marr on the Mansion Tax, he said that it was in our manifesto and if implemented would generate revenue to take taxes away from the poorest. He said that the Liberal Democrats were winning the argument on these issues.

Secondly, he said that the issue of how to deliver fairness in a time of austerity was a crucial issue for progressive parties everywhere. He pointed out Labour's failures in that regard - they, he said, had completely ducked the issue.

Finally, he was passionate about the Youth Contract, saying how he had pushed through government a far more ambitious plan to tackle youth unemployment than that offered by Labour. He clearly understood the effect of not getting a job, talking about the long term scarring of sitting at home filling in application after application and getting rejected.

The most amazing thing about the whole interview was that Spidey, who has not always been, shall we say, effusive in her praise for Nick, was talking about loving him forever.

Anyway, here are the tweets from the show.

#PAD photos 15-21 January 2012

2012-01-22T10:00:00.001Z

Anna built this virtually single handedly

Junk mail - the takeaway leaflet arrived inside the gym leaflet

Bob at his new DJ station

I was not impressed with the rather mean topping on this Morrisons pizza

More whirling dervish than puppy - Maya has a new vest

Brian Taylor at the Big Debate - but he made me sad because he wasn't wearing brightly coloured braces. I had some very negative feedback on Facebook about the fact that he's from the BBC and wasn't wearing a tie - but some people need to get a life:-)

Social Liberal Forum meeting in Glasgow

SNP's "take out the trash day" concession

2012-01-20T19:28:00.000Z

Good news this evening - the SNP have announced that they accept that the Electoral Commission should oversee the independence referendum.

It's a welcome concession from them, made easier by the reasonableness of Michael Moore, who made it clear he would allow the Commission to report to the Scottish Parliament. It's nice to see people behaving like grown ups for a change.

The timing of the SNP's announcement - pretty much after close of business on Friday, put me in mind of that great West Wing episode, "Take out the trash day" where Josh Lyman explains to Donna that Friday is a good day to put out multiple stories that they're not "wild about" because "nobody reads the paper on Saturdays".

You can see the scene here on You Tube.

I'm sure the SNP didn't want to make a great big fanfare of their concession and so slipped it out quietly. By Monday all people will be talking about are the two outstanding issues, now that Westminster has stopped grumping about the date. Still to be decided are the single question referendum condition and the SNP's wish for 16/17 year olds to get the vote.

I want to go into both of these in more depth later, but I'll leave you with Professor Matt Qvortrup's comments in the Times today in which he says that such referendums are "rarely a good idea". My preference has also been for a home rule/devo max outcome, but you have to listen when one of the most renowned authorities on the subject urges caution. If it doesn't appear on the referendum ballot, it can still happen, and fairly quickly, by consensus.

But, enough for now. The SNP have done well to agree to the Electoral Commission supervision and we should welcome it.

Chris Davies is still very angry with Diana Wallis

2012-01-20T18:42:00.002Z

a href="http://www.libdemvoice.org/top-of-the-blogs-the-lib-dem-golden-dozen-257-26716.html">

Last night, I wrote about North West Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies' strong reaction to Diana Wallis' resignation as MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, just a few days after he supported her bid for the presidency of the European Parliament.

Today, he's launched an astonishing attack on her on his website. Chris has never been one for holding back about stuff but his comments are strong even for him. He says he feels deceived, that "even by low standards of bad losers this marks a new descent.

If Diana's husband, Stewart Arnold, takes her place in February, as he is entitled to do, being second on the list, it's going to be a bit awkward in group meetings, that's all I can say. Chris says if Arnold takes the seat, we will be tainted because it looks like a huge stitch up.

I tend to agree with Paul Walter that you can't really start rewriting rules now. Every other time an MEP has resigned, they've been replaced in the same way, based on the selection results. I wouldn't like to see a situation where a candidate is put off from standing simply because of who their spouse is. That would be unfair. It's up to the members of the Party to decide who their candidates are. Sometimes you wish that could be different, but it is a principle of our party.

Of course, Stewart Arnold does not have to take up the place in which case it would go to third placed Rebecca Taylor. I would probably have preferred that the arguing had taken place behind closed doors.

Here are Chris Davies' comments in full.

“One day Diana Wallis was campaigning to become President of the European Parliament, pledging to fight for more openess and transparency, and on the next she apparently decided that it wasn’t good enough just to serve as an ordinary MEP.

“Even by the low standards of bad losers this marks a new descent. I deeply regret having been one of those who supported her presidency bid. As a Vice President in the Parliament she did some good work, but athough I have known her for 13 years I now feel deceived about her true motives.

“Her constituents in Yorkshire and the Humber, and Liberal Democrat party workers in particular, deserve a better explanation of her actions.

“Her husband has been her paid parliamentary assistant since she was elected in 1999. Five years ago he narrowly secured 2nd place in the selection contest for her seat and this means that he may automatically succeed her. It could be a case of revolving doors; she leaves, he arrives.

“This may be within the party’s rules but many people will think it doesn’t sound right and some will say that it stinks. I would agree with them. This would be a gift to eurosceptics who accuse MEPs of being out of touch and interested only in feathering their own nests, and we will all be tainted as a result.

“Yorkshire and the Humber is represented by two Liberal Democrat MEPs. The other, Edward McMillan Scott, crossed the floor to us from the Conservatives because he believed that fundamental principles were being betrayed.

“It is good to know that Liberal Democrats in the region have a man of principle to represent them.”

As to what lies beneath Wallis' shock resignation, Darren Ennis over at MHP blog says that her candidacy for President as an independent could have (but hasn't in fact) cost her colleague Sharon Bowles her job as chair of a key Parliamentary Committee. Her position in the group was definitely weakened by her candidacy and perhaps she has just decided she didn't want to deal with it and spat the dummy. It just seems odd that someone should be so full of challenging the established order one day and within a week is sloping off home.

Is there more to it than dummy spitting? Only one person knows, but I think the party is entitled to an explanation.

I don't think either Diana Wallis or Chris Davies have been particularly helpful to the party these last 24 hours. It wasn't fair of her to just resign without discussing it with colleagues - in fact, it was rude. And would it not have been better for Chris to make his comments about the succession initially in private?

Our MEP group seems to have disintegrated into soap opera. That is not a good thing.

Does Alex Salmond think we're daft? Volume 1

2012-01-20T09:39:00.000Z

So, I've been wanting details about life in an independent Scotland for a while.

Yesterday, we were treated to Alex Salmond's vision for defence.

Now, this is the same Alex Salmond who trashes Westminster at every single opportunity. He's been particularly critical about the Coalition's defence cuts, particularly as they affected air bases at Kinloss, Lossiemouth and Leuchars.

So, I almost choked on my Earl Grey when I read that he'd said this:

"The configuration of the Army in Scotland, the mobile brigade, which is the outcome of the defence review, looks exactly like the configuration you'd want for a Scottish defence force - so that's one naval base, one aircraft base and a mobile armed brigade."

This was the same guy who marched to save RAF Lossiemouth, who took himself off to London yto make the case to then Defence Secretary Liam Fox for the retention of two air bases in Scotland. Now he tells us that we only need one.

You have to wonder what would have happened if the SNP had won their overall majority in 2007 and won an independence referendum in Autumn 2009. Actually, that referendum would still be being challenged in the courts because there's no way that Labour would ever have volunteered to give the SNP the power to make it legal. But that's by the by.

So, the newly independent Scotland, led by Alex Salmond, with the Coalition barely being a twinkle in anybody's eye, would have closed two air bases and cut the Armed Forces because that's "exactly the configuration you'd want for a Scottish Defence Force". Who would have thought it?

Chris Davies slams fellow Lib Dem MEP Wallis over her shock resignation

2012-01-19T17:08:00.001Z

a href="http://www.libdemvoice.org/top-of-the-blogs-the-lib-dem-golden-dozen-257-26716.html">

Two days ago, Yorkshire and the Humber Lib Dem MEP Diana Wallis stood for the Presidency of the Parliament and almost, but for one vote, came second. That was as good as a result as she could have hoped for. Given the way these things are usually stitched up between the two main groups, she was never going to win.

The whole Liberal Democrat party will be shocked to learn of her resignation as an MEP, effective 31st January. This leaves the way clear, as in any other list seat, for the second placed person on the list to take over her seat. That person is Stewart Arnold, her husband, who also works for her. It has not yet been confirmed whether he will take the seat.

A statement on her website said:

"I have been in the European Parliament twelve years and I think that is time enough. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time and it was truly a huge privilege; especially to serve as a Vice President of Parliament for the last five years. However, I think all of us, whatever our professions, need to turn a new page from time to time.

"At the mid-term of parliament many members come and go, so accordingly this moment following upon my unsuccessful bid for the Presidency is a good time to take stock. I undertook that bid for reasons that I deeply believe in but such a course of action is bound to lead to reflection. I want to take a break from politics and to take time and assess what next.

"I have been at the service of the people of Yorkshire and the Humber for twelve and a half years. I will always be grateful for the trust that was placed in me to carry out this role, but now is the time for someone with fresh eyes to take over.
"I remain a committed pro-European Liberal Democrat."

North West Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies was scathing about her decision to go, telling The Parliament website:

"I am appalled and feel betrayed by her decision. To stand for election for the presidency one day and then resign the following day is quite unbelievable.

"It is an insult to her constituents and a slap in the face for the constituents who supported her in the last European elections.

"There will be some people who will regard this as quite unprincipled."

"I have known her for 13 years but I now think my assessment of her character was wrong."

An unnamed Lib Dem MEP was quoted as saying that her move had all the hallmarks of a stitch up.

Her constituency colleague, human rights champion and newly re-elected Vice President of the Parliament Edward McMillan-Scott was much more generous, paying tribute to her work. Sir Graham Watson and group leader Fiona Hall also were sympathetic.

One person who got it completely wrong, though was a Tory Yorkshire and Humber MEP, Godfrey Bloom, saying:

But trying to shoehorn her husband into her old salary as she resigns really is a working definition of nepotism in my opinion. One Wallis is as bad as another.

"The Lib Dems are always screaming in favour of gender quotas. Diana Wallis has gone all quiet about that now. Jobs for the boys now - you could hardly make this story up."

Gender quotas? Us? He's got that one wrong and he clearly doesn't know that we haven't used zipping since 1999. If Arnold were to take her place, he would have to face reselection on a one member one vote basis, before the next election in 2014.

No doubt there will be more to follow on this, but I thought I'd let you know what was happening.

Trump's representative brands elected councillor "a disgrace"

2012-01-19T10:47:00.002Z

Whatever you might think of the controversy over Donald Trump's golf course in Aberdeenshire (and I was and am firmly on the side of its opponents), surely you can't help but be concerned about the appalling behaviour of the tycoon's representatives.

The low point was threatening to make an 85 year old woman pay legal costs and branded her son's home a slum. This week, when plans for a supremely ugly club house were approved by Aberdeenshire Council by some margin, George Sorial, Trump's representative on earth, had the cheek to abuse Cllr Debra Storr, calliing her a "disgrace" and saying she'd be out of a job come May.

Now, whatever party she's in, whether I agree with her or not, Debra Storr has been a friend of mine for a very long time. She's a fundamentally good person who will always act in a principled way to do what she thinks is best for the people she represents. I will not stand by and hear her called names in public by anyone, let alone the arrogant representative of a rich tycoon who doesn't have much respect for the democratic process or community engagement. There can be no doubt that Debra was extremely robust in her criticism of the plans for the clubhouse, as she has been about the entire development. but that doesn't matter. Rich men should not be throwing their weight around like that, end of story.

And now it seems that, after all the disruption caused by Trump and his cohorts, he may be about to walk away from building his promised hotel and holiday homes because of a proposed wind farm in the waters off the coast. Clearly the benefits of renewable energy are lost on him.

All of this could have been avoided. All he had to do 4 years ago after the original rejection was to submit a slightly altered plan and this could all have been resolved easily. Instead, there's been an almighty and ongoing dispute which has left its scars on the local community which may now not get the benefits it was promised.

It may well be acceptable in America to slag off political opponents for all sorts of spurious reasons, like the fact that they speak French, but we shouldn't put up with it here. I am annoyed that the leader of Aberdeenshire Council was prepared to allow one of the councillors in her authority, regardless of who they are or what's gone on in the past, to be publicly abused in this way.

We all end up poorer when rich men think that governments at any level are inconveniences to be bossed around.

Caron plays away.....

2012-01-18T19:59:00.000Z

.... on Liberal Democrat Voice every Wednesday now.

They haven't quite given me the key of the door, but the boys are putting up rather well with my ditsy ways.

I had a bit of a crisis this morning, though. There I was, mid merengue in my Zumba class, and I just had this terrible panic about the Nick Clegg intiative on mental health I'd set to post while I was out. I was scared that I'd misread the Telegraph article I'd quoted and my boasting about half a million people helped should only have read 50,000. Thankfully that was not the case, but the panic I'd had about having forgotten to tag the article properly was, unfortunately, entirely justified.

I am enjoying my little bit of moonlighting - even when I suddenly remembered, too late, that my break in Liverpool took in a Wednesday when I was supposed to be running the site. Woops. Just as well I had my iPad with me. The article from Michael Moore I published that day was composed in my hotel bedroom while I was listening to streamed Beatles music.

Today's been a fantastic day - great pieces from Graeme, who writes Predictable Paradox, young Mr Potter, Tim Farron, Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore, the Hon Lady Mark and many more. Lots of controversy over internal party democracy and the independence referendum. If you haven't been there already, go and have a look.

I know that I'm just a newbie and getting used to all the buttons, knobs and twiddly bits involved in driving such an esteemed site, but I know it takes me ages just to put one day together. A very small team used to do this unaided seven days a week. How on earth did they manage? Chocolate can only keep you going for so long.....

It's quite daunting to join such an established team, but I'm loving it. And if you are a party member and want to contribute something to my Wednesdays, just let me know.

"The Liberal Democrats privately expressed surprise..."

2012-01-16T17:28:00.000Z

That sentence comes from this Guardian article which reports on the, wait a minute, let me find the right words, supremely idiotic, inappropriate, insensitive idea from Michael Gove that we should spend £60 million of our hard earned taxes into a new yacht for the Queen to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, and how we should push the boat out (sorry) on celebrations to cheer us all up a bit.

Well, I'm sure all these people who are losing their jobs, or the disabled people whose benefits are being cut, would be delighted to see that.

Surprise?

Is that really all?

I really hope that that was code for "The Liberal Democrats told Michael Gove to go away and boil his head."

And it seems from Nick Clegg's reaction that that is pretty much what we did do. Again the Guardian reports that he said:

"I suspect more people in the country would think, given there's very little money around, that this isn't top of their list of priorities for the use of scarce resources."

This whole saga is almost like a joke in some ways. Surely to goodness a Cabinet Minister couldn't have meant that as a serious proposal. Was the whole episode just cooked up to give us all something to be outraged about.

If we want something real to be annoyed about, we might want to read Spartacus Stories. This new blog is a follow up to the Spartacus report I wrote about last week. This casts doubt over the rationale behind the Government's proposals to reform Disability Living Allowance by cutting it by 20% by 2015. Peers vote on these measure this week.

The Guardian (again) reports that Nick Clegg and others have been trying to do something about the Benefit cap which is also up for debate in the Lords this week. While this is to be welcomed, I would like to have seen our people do more to fight against the cuts in sickness benefits.

Peers should expect to be questioned on their decisions at Party Conference in March. Some good people voted with the Government on these changes and I want to hear their reasons for choosing to vote with the Government rather than with the policy decided by Conference.

"People think Guantanamo is closed"

2012-01-16T14:29:00.000Z

Students in orange boiler suits took to the streets in Edinburgh on Saturday to remind people that last week marked the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the US's military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. This is where 171 men are held, most without any charges being brought under a brutal regime where there have been reports of torture.

Among them is Shakar Aamer,a British resident who's been there almost since the start. He's never been charged with a crime and was cleared for release initially 5 years ago. Why on earth has he not been returned to his family?

Amnesty have produced a report to mark the anniversary which makes grim and unpleasant reading.

I spoke to one of the students who had organised the event and she told me that many people were surprised to find out that Guantanamo was still open. They thought President Obama had shut it.

It just goes to show how important awareness raising events like that are.

Apart from the students in boiler suits, who posed here for me....

..... there was a performance by a local peace choir.

If you're interested in taking further action, you could write to foreign office minister and Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne to ask him to ramp up the pressure on the US to get Shaker Aamer released.

Also, again if you haven't already, make sure friends know that Guantanamo is still open for business.

Labour's "attack dog" silenced, so why does Joan McAlpine still have a job?

2012-01-16T09:48:00.000Z

So far, only the Sun in its usual inimitable style, appears to be reporting the story I heard on Good Morning Scotland that Tom Harris, pugnacious Labour MP for Glasgow South has been forced to stand down from his post as Labour's New Media Adviser. This is because he put out a You Tube video satirising the comments by Alex Salmond's parliamentary aide Joan McAlpine that the unionist parties were "anti Scottish."

The video was yet another Hitler parody. The Guardian wrote a couple of years ago about how this phenomenon of using that scene from the movie Downfall to satirise current events was getting a bit old. In fact it's not the first time it's been used to make fun of events in Scottish politics. Just after the SNP won Glasgow East, that scene was subtitled to make it seem as if the news was being brought to Gordon Brown and his subsequent tantrum. It wasn't just comparing Brown to Hitler, but was highly offensive to the people of the constituency who had just rejected Labour. A few months later, there was another one after Labour held Glenrothes depicting Salmond as Hitler.

The difference with "Joan's Downfall" of course was that neither of these previous efforts had any clear links to anyone in either the SNP or Labour. We all watched them, we may or may not have guiltily laughed at some elements, but we couldn't pin them on anyone. Tom brazenly published this one on his You Tube channel.

I had a conversation with Tom Harris on Twitter last week about how I wanted the referendum debate to be conducted in passionately positive language. He disagreed with me, saying that "attack dogs" were needed. I'm not convinced raising the temperature of the debate is particularly helpful. although certainly the SNP's plans need to be robustly analysed.

Tom is many things, but stupid is not one of them. I suspect he knew exactly what he was doing and that he would have to resign for it. But how big a tragedy is that? New Media Adviser? It's hardly ruling the world, is it? Thing is, he associates himself, on new media, with something pretty tasteless. Within hours, before there is even that much of a fuss, Johann Lamont has him in and tells him to sling his hook.

This does not compare well with the SNP leadership standing full square behind Joan McAlpine. Her comments were much more divisive and sinister. If anyone was ever more deserving of the sack, I've yet to come across them.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Harris had done this on purpose to underline the distinction.

Kenny Farquharson wrote in yesterday's Scotland on Sunday of the importance of playing nice during this long referendum campaign:

Our politicians have a responsibility to acknowledge this danger and commit to conducting themselves in a way that minimises such antagonism. With the eyes of the world and the eyes of history upon us, each side should bear in mind that no matter which vision of Scotland’s future wins out in the end, it has to be a united Scotland that gets on with the business of making it work.

Gerry Hassan suggested that those on the Nationalist side should do more to understand those coming from the other point of view. And I'd add that a bit of reciprocation is also necessary.

We all have to live with each other when this is over. This referendum can't be allowed to fracture and polarise our society, our communities, our families or our friendships. We can't allow our lives to be poisoned by intemperate and personally offensive language.

Whether Tom Harris' latest stunt is contrived or not, Joan McAlpine, guilty in my view of much worse and unrepentant, should not still be in a job as close to the First Minister as she is. Salmond's condoning of her behaviour is a strong signal to others who hold the same view that they can do what they like without fear of sanction.

Girl's inspirational story gives insight into Autism

2012-01-15T16:00:00.000Z

My friend Sandra shared this amazing story on Facebook.

It charts how a girl with Autism at 11 suddenly started to communicate with her parents by typing on her computer.

She's provided amazing insights as to how autism feels on the inside.

The love for her and belief in her of her parents is unconditional and so strong. They've also been able to provide her with intensive therapy from a very young age.

How many autistic kids in this country can get therapy like that, though? Parents can struggle to get even a basic education that meets their needs. This should make us think again.

PAD 8-14 January 2012

2012-01-15T10:00:00.002Z

My nice new reading space in the conservatory. Not that I've had the chance to use it yet.

It begins!

Latest Amazon Haul

Anna's minestrone soup - delicious

The moon and a streetlight through the trees outside our house

Even taking rubbish to the dump can be pleasant if you get a sunset like this on the way back.

Students from Edinburgh's Amnesty International group protest highlight the 10th anniversary of the detention camp at Guantanamo opening.

To see oursels as ithers see us

2012-01-14T11:55:00.000Z

I'm not a great one for quoting Burns, after he urged henpecked husbands to take a switch to their wife, but this line from To a Louse seems to fit.

If you haven't already seen it, this Taiwanese take on this week's independence row is absolutely hilarious. They certainly seem to understand Scotland well - because we have spaceships fuelled on Irn Bru in our streets all the time, don't you know?

And did you know that the referendum had timed to coincide with the 700th anniversary of Mel Gibson's death?

When this was pointed out to the makers, they simply said "it's funnier this way."

Can't argue with that.

Amnesty Scotland protest against Guantanamo Bay

2012-01-14T10:43:00.000Z

Taking people from their families, transporting them to the other side of the world and locking them up without hint of charge or trial for years on end.

Who would do that?

Sickeningly, still the good old US of A.

Obama promised to shut the place, but has only protected US citizens.

Amnesty's campaign to protest against the US's grim military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay comes to Edinburgh today. From 12-3, they will be encouraging people to sign their global petition at the corner of Princes Street and North Bridge.

I'm going to go in for a wee while.

If you're wondering why it's an issue, watch Amnesty's video.

Treating people in this way is absolutely wrong and, frankly, does nothing to stop terrorism.

How very dare you, Joan McAlpine!

2012-01-13T11:24:00.001Z

I make absolutely no apology for saying that the Liberals, the Labour Party and the Tories are anti-Scottish in coming together to defy the will of the Scottish people and the democratic mandate that they gave us to hold a referendum at a time of our choosing, which, as the First Minister said, would be the latter half of the parliamentary session. The sight of those parties cosying up on the sofas of various Scottish television studios will really alarm the people of Scotland.

Joan McAlpine MSP Official Report, 12 January 2012

I have to say I was livid when I first saw Joan McAlpine's comments that those who don't agree with all the details of the SNP's plans for the independence referendum were "anti-Scottish." To suggest that I want to act against the interests of the country I love, where I was born, which I yearned for so much it actually hurt during the 11 years I had to live away from it, simply because I don't agree with SNP plans for the independence referendum is outrageous.

They say you should sleep on things before you say react. Well, I have, and I'm still livid, hurt and saddened at this poisonous attack on political opponents. I really can't stand this sort of thing, no matter who it comes from.

I have defended the SNP on several occasions against jibes from Labour that they were not patriotic. It literally makes my flesh creep when this sort of stuff is used as a political weapon. Can we not just all accept that we all love and care for Scotland, whatever view we have?

Nobody doubts the SNP's mandate to hold a referendum on independence, but if wanting that poll to be fair, clear and legal, expecting both my Governments to work together to achieve that, makes me anti Scottish, then, really, what is the world coming to?

What's more worrying is that senior figures in the SNP have tolerated this sort of language. Nicola Sturgeon defended her on Question Time last night and even the brightest of their new generation, Humza Yousaf, while saying that he wouldn't have used that language himself, didn't rebuke her anywhere near enough on Call Kaye this morning. That is more of a problem to me than the remarks themselves. Nicola referred on Question Time to those who talk Scotland down - that's pretty much become code for anyone who disagrees with SNP policy. So much for them listening and being inclusive.

If the SNP allow this sort of language to go unchecked, as my friend Allan pointed out on Facebook yesterday, it could be the biggest impediment to them being successful in their referendum. I don't quite agree with him on that because I think the evidence will prove the benefits of the Union but he has a point.

But, sadly, the story doesn't end here.

As the debate unfolds over the coming weeks, there will be a clear dividing line between patriots and nationalists.

This came from new Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, in the same debate and has gone largely unnoticed in the media. To my mind, that's just as bad. I don't want to hear this kind of stuff from anybody.

How rubbish are we going to feel after 3 years if the debate has been full of bitterness and poison? I want to come out of this process uplifted by ideas expressed in a passionate and positive way. This kind of row suits the SNP, though, - for yet another few news cycles they are not challenged on the mechanics of independence, its practical effect on our daily lives. Sadly, I have a horrible feeling the run up to the referendum will be permeated with such comments.

Joan McAlpine is turning herself into the Jan Moir of the SNP. She's exhibited the same sort of narrow minded intolerance that Moir does with her ill informed rants. If she can't sincerely apologise and withdraw her remarks, then she really should be sacked from her job as the First Minister's Parliamentary Liaison Officer. I won't be holding my breath for either of these things to happen, though.

Come the day after the referendum, we're all going to have to get on and live together, whatever the result. There will be a winning side and a losing side. The divisions will need to be healed. That process will be much easier if we avoid corrosive language, conduct the debate with civility and mutual respect, acknowledging each others views, right to hold them and genuine love for Scotland. It'll get passionate, angry and fiery at times, but there are limits to what's acceptable and we should all make efforts not to cross the line.

Rennie highlights Salmond's disrespect for Parliament

2012-01-12T09:13:00.000Z

It seems that our esteemed leader, Mr Rennie and I had similar thoughts about our First Minister's grandstanding on the news last night, bursting forth with information about his preferred date for the referendum.

My second thought* was along the lines of "what a bloody cheek, he should have told Parliament first."

And so I tweeted:

This is a special pet hate of mine because I used to get very, very annoyed when Labour ministers used to announce their plans on Andrew Marr or some other media outlet. It just smacked of disrespect for the Parliament the Government was accountable to.

Like Snow White's stepmother, enraged by the cool performance of another, Salmond clearly decided drastic action was necessary, not quite thinking through how it should properly be done. It's the same sort of mentality that a referendum overseen by a group of people chosen by his government will do fine, regardless of whether it's actually legal or not. When you have an office, you have to be really careful not to exceed its powers.

Salmond's news interviews, where he appeared in front of a cosy fire and saltires at Bute House, and his announcement of the referendum date appear not to have been expected by his MPs who were in the Commons listening to Moore. It had all the impression of being done completely on the spur of the moment. Why the need for the high drama? Why not just make a statement to Parliament on Wednesday lunchtime?

I was quite glad to see that Willie Rennie thought Salmond had not shown Holyrood its proper courtesy.

Yesterday he raised a point of order in the Chamber.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Yesterday, Scotland’s ministers at Westminster set out the United Kingdom Government’s proposals for a fair, legal and decisive referendum in two statements: one to the House of Commons and one to the House of Lords. They took 47 questions from members of Parliament. In Scotland, the First Minister announced his date for the referendum, not to the Scottish Parliament but to Sky News—although Brian Taylor disputes that fact outside.

Given that the decision relates to what the First Minister called the biggest question for Scots in 300 years, and given that the Scottish Government is always concerned about the respect agenda, has the Scottish Government made a request to make a statement to this Parliament today? Is there any reason why you, Presiding Officer, would not be able to respond positively to such a request if it were made by the Scottish ministers?

Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick said she'd not had any request for a statement.

Willie said afterwards:

“This shows the SNP’s disrespect for the Scottish Parliament. Instead of choosing to make a statement to the Scottish Parliament on Scotland’s biggest question for 300 years, Mr Salmond instead chose to make his statement to the media.
“With the SNP’s majority in Parliament, it is obvious that they feel they can do anything.
“The bulldozer is out of the garage.”

* my first thought was to be reminded of Princess Diana going out wearing a very sexy dress the night Charles admitted adultery to Jonathan Dimbleby in a clear (and successful) attempt to steal the limelight.

+++Breaking News Lords reject one year time limit for ESA

2012-01-11T19:30:00.003Z

As you might know, I have been very concerned at the Government's proposals to limit contributory Employment and Support Allowance for those in the Work Related Activity Group to one year.

Well, the BBC News Channel has just reported that the House of Lords have defeated this proposal - and by a fairly whopping majority, 234 to 186.

Let's hope the Government has the sense not to try to bring this back and finds another way to save the money that doesn't involve taking it off people who are too sick to work.

I don't know if and how many Liberal Democrats were involved in this, but as soon as I found out, I'll let you know.

Ok, an update. It turns out the Government were defeated 3 times tonight on the time limit (which appears according to the Guardian to have been increased to 2 years), to exempt cancer patients from the limit and to ensure that young disabled people are allowed to claim Contributory ESA even though they've never worked. The Government had wanted to remove that entitlement.

There were fewer Liberal Democrat rebels than I would have liked to see. I am particularly disappointed that 51 peers voted against the express wishes of our Conference for a one year time limit. I suspect that they will say that the 2 year limit was as arbitrary as the one year limit, though.

Bearing in mind that these votes may well be repeated in the Lords, I would advise that we need to be very nice to them, because we want to change their minds. So let's not be too angry, listen to what they have to say, because they are good people.

Anyway, the rebels on the time limit were Jenny Tonge and Dee Doocey, on the Cancer exemption Eric Avebury, Jenny Tonge, Shirley Williams, Tim Clement-Jones and Dee Coocey and on the disabled youth entitlement Roger Roberts, Dee Doocey and Jenny Tonge.

The Independence Referendum - praise for Mike Moore

2012-01-11T16:43:00.001Z

There's a fair bit of praise out there for the Secretary of State today.

Mr Moore made a good fist of things yesterday. His tone was conciliatory, measured, reasonable and, above all, it presented what looked like a cast-iron legal case for allowing Mr Salmond to conduct a binding referendum — but only if he agrees to including only one question on the ballot paper, restricts the voting to the over-18s and allows the Electoral Commission to oversee the poll.

Alan Cochrane, Telegraph

Given that Mr Moore has struck a measured tone and Mr Salmond is relatively conciliatory, there must be room for the two governments to negotiate. The Scottish people will expect their governments to work together to agree to the test of their opinion all are agreed will happen.

Scotsman Leader

Michael Moore's statement to the House of Commons on the question of how a referendum on Scotland's constitutional future may be held was clear, composed, sensible and modest. In other words it was everything that the last few days have not been. The Prime Minister in particular has not distinguished himself in recent times. Perhaps it is fairer (it is certainly kinder) to presume this was just as innocent a cock-up as any Prime Ministerial cock-up can be; regardless is was a desperate piece of floundering that made Mr Cameron look something of a chump.

Alex Massie, Spectator

Mike Moore launches independence consultation in statesmanlike Commons statement

2012-01-10T20:59:00.000Z

Today belongs to Michael Moore. After a torrid few days on the Scottish political scene, he told the House of Commons this afternoon that he was launching a consultation aimed at "empowering the people of Scotland to participate in a legal referendum".

In the view of the Westminster Government (and as I wrote earlier the highest echelons of the SNP and proper lawyers), the Scottish Government does not currently have the legal power to hold a referendum. We've been hearing for days that the UK Government was therefore going to take over the whole thing, dictate terms, basically run the referendum. Maybe that's what David Cameron wanted to do, but thankfully the Lib Dem insistence on reason won the day. For Mike didn't have some sort of High Noon style showdown. He announced a consultation, open till 9th March, open to all Scots to complete. I suspect you'll be hearing a bit more of that on here over the next few weeks.

The document asks people for their views on issues like timing, the question(s), whether it should be supervised by the Electoral Commission and who should have the vote.

While Mike was still on his feet in the Commons taking a good hour's worth of questions, Alex Salmond, in a blatant attempt to grab the headlines for tomorrow, went live on the news and announced that the Government intended to hold the referendum in the Autumn of 2014. The whole thing put me in mind of that moment in in 1994 when Diana went out in an amazing dress as Charles gave his interview to Jonathan Dimbleby. Except, clearly, Eck isn't quite as sexy.

I also thought it was a bit rude of the First Minister to so hurriedly announce the date on the news, rather than to his own Parliament. There was no reason he had to do it then - it could have waited until tomorrow.

If the SNP's preferred date sticks, that's almost 3 years away. I am almost at the end of my tether after 8 months of bickering and snidiness. If I'm going to save my sanity, this campaign has to up its game in terms of quality, positivity and passion on both sides.

Anyway, as has become my custom, I've compiled my tweets of the occasion along with some others into a Storify thingy which is below. Now, I know I've made a couple of howlers, when my brain wandered, but I'm sure you get my drift. Successional clearly means successful. You might like my conversation with Tom Harris, Labour's self-styled attack dog about the need for a positive campaign.

I'm sure that Mike Moore will have won over a lot of respect today for a very people centred, positive performance which compares well with the First Minister's Diva antics.

Reasonable Rennie remembers who actually matters in the referendum

2012-01-10T15:08:00.001Z

What an awful 48 hours we've had in Scotland.

We should really be talking about the heartbreaking and appalling report on child poverty this morning. We should be bringing forth our ideas and listening to people who know what they're talking about on how to give kids a better start in life. These aren't just numbers. For 1 in 5 kids not to have enough food, or warmth, or clothes, or books, or toys, whose lives are so difficult they don't have that freedom, that joy of just being a child, is just awful. Every single politician should write down these facts about child poverty on a fluorescent piece of paper and pin it on their office wall. And every day as they head home they should think about what they've done, what idea they've had to deal with it.

We're not concentrating on that, though. Certain of the political elite are kicking lumps out of each other on an issue on which there is actually more agreement than they would like to let on - the legalities of the forthcoming referendum.

David Cameron's inept, ill-advised and imperious interview on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday just struck all the wrong notes. He should have been locked in that tartan lined cupboard I wrote about a few months back. Sometimes I wonder if he wants to the Union to survive or not.

It could all have been so different. You see, everybody knows that the Scottish Parliament doesn't really have the powers it needs to hold an unchallengably legal referendum. The SNP's chief strategist Stephen Noon knows it. Amid all the bluster in his post yesterday, you can see that he does. He talks about mischievous people with deep pockets challenging the legality of a referendum. If he can see that it's on dodgy legal ground, then you can bet your life Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon are well aware of the fact. Nationalist blogger and legal genius Lallands Peat Warrior knows it too and you'd be well advised just to take his word for it when it comes to the law.

Now, the UK Government could just have left the SNP to deal with all the legal challenges from the people with the deep pockets. That would just have been a total waste of time and money when actually the destiny of Scotland is something that should be decided by the people in the ballot box, not by judges in a courtroom.

Either that, or they could have waited for the SNP to ask for the power to hold the referendum to be devolved. It's funny that they haven't, cos they've demanded every other power under the sun. But they understandably haven't wanted to admit the reality of the situation and the thought of asking Westminster for any favours would not have sat easily with the First Minister.

So, an offer by the Westminster Government to give the power to hold this referendum actually gets the SNP Government out of a big hole. And they know it. You might think they'd be more appreciative.

Of course, rather than have a grown up dialogue about this, Cameron decided to go throwing his weight around, Nicola Sturgeon made hyperbolic accusations of dictatorship, Labour peers try to give the vote to Scots who live in England for no other reason than they think it strengthens their cause and Tom Harris went into his most annoying mode on Twitter. Seriously, by the end of yesterday, I would happily have locked Harris, Sturgeon, Cameron and George Foulkes ina room and made them watch Celebrity Big Brother on giant screens until they could learn to play nice.

How much better would it have been if the powers had been offered and that offer discussed in an atmosphere of mutual civility and respect? Is it really too much to hope for that politicians behave like grown ups?

Actually, no. Because Nick Clegg, Mike Moore and Willie Rennie get it. They have been pretty reasonable. Rather than get in on the bunfight yesterday, Willie was reminding us all who mattered - the people, and how important it was that Scotland's future should be decided in the ballot box, not the Judge's chambers.

“It is in everyone’s interests, including the SNP, that the referendum is legally sound. Scotland’s future should be determined by the voters, not the courts. “I accept the SNP have a mandate to hold a referendum on independence but they have failed to recognise the clear legal issues that arise from the Scottish Parliament holding a constitutional referendum. “To avoid the strong possibility of a legal challenge some cooperation with Westminster is essential so that a referendum has the legal force and effect necessary to be seen as legitimate. “We do not want a situation to arise when this issue of vital importance to the future direction of Scotland is finally decided in the courts rather than at the ballot box.”

On Good Morning Scotland this morning he continued with his fair and reasonable line:

In just over half an hour, Mike Moore will make his statement on referendum issues to the Commons. I don't expect that he will be anything other than reasonable. It simply isn't in his DNA.

Where Cameron waded in with all the subtlety of an elephant who'd been on the cooking sherry, Mike, Willie and Nick Clegg, it appears, have been trying to clear up the mess. The Guardian reports that the Liberal Democrats were less than happy with Cameron's efforts and made sure that the 18 month time limit was kicked into touch. This is another good example of how effective we are within that Coalition.

I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of time limit - this power is presumably being given for this referendum only. A temporary devolution of a power by definition has to have some sort of expiry date. For me that date would most sensibly be at the end of either the Westminster or the Holyrood Parliament in 2015 or 2016.

The idea that the Electoral Commission, which is good enough to oversee every other poll on these shores should be side-stepped for the referendum, is utterly ridiculous. We don't need another Commission set up by Salmond to run it. That does not seem right or fair in any way and it looks dodgy even if it isn't.

Anyway, I shall come back to this one much later after the statement. I wish they wouldn't put these things on at School Run time.

My e-mail to Liberal Democrat Peers on ESA #wrb

2012-01-10T08:55:00.010Z

I knocked this up in about ten minutes in between getting the kids' breakfast yesterday morning and taking them to school.

I am writing as a Liberal Democrat member to ask you to vote against the Government’s proposal to impose a one year time limit for contributory ESA for people in the Work Related Activity Group when it comes up in the House, currently planned for Wednesday of this week.

I believe that this is wrong for a number of reasons. I spoke at a fringe meeting on this issue, run by RNIB Scotland, at Scottish Conference last November. Their incoming chair, Ken Reed, asked us to imagine being blinded in an accident tomorrow. He said it would take a year to get used just to being blind, let alone having to compete in an ever more difficult labour market. Four years as an MP’s caseworker convinces me that there are many people, with quite serious conditions who are not well enough to work, who have been put into WRAG, despite the Harrington reviews.

I personally know a number of people who have worked for their whole lives, only to fall ill in their 50s. They stand to lose £400 a month which they can’t afford to lose. Had they been on benefits when they fell ill they would still qualify for income related ESA. This does not fit in with the Government’s stated aim that work should always pay.

The income limit for income related ESA is not very high – well below average earnings. Being ill can be costly – for example, if you can’t move around much, you’ll need to keep your house warmer. If you need regular hospital treatment, transport costs can quickly mount up.

Liberal Democrat conference has made its position on this issue quite clear. Last September a motion was passed overwhelmingly which called on Liberal Democrats in Government to oppose arbitrary time limits for contributory ESA.

I hope that you will agree that the above factors make a compelling case for voting against the proposed time limit.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Best wishes
Caron Lindsay

Have you done yours, yet?

If you want to know why, read my post at Diary of a Benefit Scrounger and you can use the list of e-mails that some helpful soul has put in the comments. It literally couldn't be simpler and it could make the difference.

What should the Spartacus Report mean for the Welfare Reform Bill? #spartacusreport

2012-01-09T13:43:00.001Z

Disability campaigners, including Diary of a Benefit Scrounger author Sue Marsh have today released a report, Responsible Reform, which is highly critical of the Government's plans to reform disability benefits.

Under the plans, Disability Living Allowance will be renamed Personal Independence Payments, one level of support will be removed altogether, the qualifying period you have to be ill for before you can claim doubles from 3 to 6 months and there's a new assessment procedure. And we know how well the assessments for Employment and Support Allowance work now, don't we? Not.

The Report, Responsible Reform, alleges that the Government broke its own Code of Practice on Consultation by not giving enough time for responses, doing it through Christmas and introducing the completed Bill to Parliament before the consultation was complete.

While that's not good practice for the Government, the Report does reveal that the vast majority of responses to the Consultation, not released but obtained by its authors under Freedom of Information, were totally against the Government's plans. If they had done the consultation properly, frankly, I doubt it would have made much difference.

The Report analyses the responses in some detail. Many of course come from disability charities and organisations who clearly know what they are talking about. That they object to a 20% cut in benefits over 5 years is hardly surprising. They wouldn't be doing their job properly if they agreed to a cut for their clients. What surprised me was that one of the best, most articulate, well informed responses came from Tory London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Responsible Reform also challenges the figures that form the basis of the Government's rationale for the reform, that the amount spent on DLA has gone up by 30% over 8 years. They argue that the rise is in fact only 13%.

The report also highlights discrepancies between the actual responses they've obtained and the Government's assessment of them in its official response to the Consultation.

Sue Marsh took part with the relevant minister Maria Miller on the Victoria Derbyshire show this morning on Radio 5 Live. You can listen to the exchange here:

Maria Miller seems very keen to imply ta high level of fraud on DLA, but doesn't provide much in the way of hard evidence to back that up. In fact Sue says that the rate of proven fraud is in fact 0.5%. Responsible Reform cites the Benefit Integrity Project, an exercise aimed at determining whether benefits were being appropriately paid way back in the 90s which came to similar, low fraud conclusions.

I think that our parliamentarians should be arguing for a rethink of the Government's plans and that the Bill should be put on hold while the evidence is re-examined. Sue Marsh was keen to make the point today that DLA is a benefit which is aimed at keeping people in work. Few people would argue that it works perfectly. Indeed, our own now Sir Bob Russell last year highlighted a particularly stupid decision to refuse DLA that meant a man with no use of his legs couldn't get to work because his mobility car was taken away. The Government has failed to convince people that its reforms will stop these wrong decisions being made.

I guess one thought that's crossed my mind several times recently is that you can see the different approach taken by Tory and Lib Dem ministers. The State Pension had its biggest ever annual increase this year thanks to Lib Dem minister Steve Webb's "triple lock". However, over at the Tory wing of the Department of Work and Pensions, we end up with time limited ESA and flawed proposals for disability benefits from Chris Grayling and Maria Miller.

The Welfare Reform Bill has much to commend it in terms of the Universal Credit which will end the poverty trap which keeps people on benefits because they'd lose money by taking a job. That reform can't come at the expense of ill judged cuts to benefits for the sick and disabled. Today's publication of the Spartacus Report, backed by charities such as Scope, the Disability Alliance and Mind, calls into question the Government's rationale for this reform and as such it's important to look at this again. Alternatively they can come up with evidence to reassure disabled people that their needs will continue to be met. They haven't, however, managed to do that so far.

All sorts of lovely reasons to vote Republican

2012-01-09T09:55:00.001Z

An oldie but a goodie.

ESA Time Limit - 2 days to act! Write to a Lib Dem Peer now

2012-01-09T07:35:00.000Z

Diary of a Benefit Scrounger has picked up my post from the other day about writing to Lib Dem peers ahead of the vote on time limiting contributory Employment and Support Allowance in the House of Lords, scheduled for this coming Wednesday. What's really useful is that a lovely and beautiful person has, in the comments to that, put in a list of peers' e-mail addresses, ready to cut and paste.

We know that this can be effective - the votes on the Welfare Reform Bill have been very tight, and changing the minds of even a couple of them could make the difference.

There are two main reasons why I feel they should change their minds:

Firstly, entitlement should be on need, not an arbitrary time limit. The threshold at which you are no longer entitled to income related ESA is very small and well below average income. To take nearly £400 a month away from people who are sick is simply not on. Remember what Ken Reed, chair of RNIB Scotland, said last year at our Scottish Conference. If you were blinded by an accident today, it would take you a whole year to get used to that, let alone thinking about finding a job.

Secondly, Liberal Democrat Conference has made it clear that it wants Liberal Democrats to oppose arbitrary time limits.

Mike German, our leading peer on this issue wrote an article on Liberal Democrat Voice the other day which didn't tackle this issue at all, nor has he come back and attempted to justify it. Maybe because that's simply not possible. If you read the comments on that piece, you'll see one man describe how his wife, who had a stroke 3 years ago, has been put into the Work Related Activity Group against opinion of every professional who works with her. They will lose £400 a month from April. He makes the point that had she been on benefits prior to her stroke, she would still be entitled to ESA, so their income must be really low for her to lose it now. So much for this Government's aim of making work pay.

We have very little time left to make a difference. Write to those Lords now.

#PAD photos 1-7 January 2012

2012-01-08T11:48:00.000Z

Last year I started taking a photo a day (hence PAD) and posting it online. I did a weekly summary here. It only lasted until the end of March. I hope I'll be able to do better this year.

Here is the first week's offerings

New Year's Day Trifle

2nd Shaggy Puppy Dog

3rd Neat Puppy Dog after her first grooming

4th Tian Tian having a disco nap

5th - replacing a long since lost treasure of my childhood

6th Last view of the Christmas Tree for another year

7th Edinburgh Playhouse for We Will Rock You

SNP get all hot and bothered over Nick Clegg saying independence is an extreme option

2012-01-07T12:47:00.000Z

First of all, let's look at what Nick Clegg actually said when he came up to Scotland yesterday:

“I would describe myself as a devolutionist, someone who believes in a strong Scotland, in a strong United Kingdom, but where Scotland increasingly takes on more and more of its own powers and responsibilities.

“All the evidence suggests that is the mainstream of opinion and the extremists are those who either think that we need to yank Scotland out of the United Kingdom tomorrow, or those who say there should be no further change at all,” Mr Clegg said.“Well, I don’t agree with either of those two extremes.

“I and my party are very much situated in the centre ground of Scottish public opinion, which says let’s retain the strengths of being part of the United Kingdom because we are stronger together and weaker apart in a very uncertain world.

“But, within that, give Scotland more and more authority and power to do its own thing.”

It all sounds pretty reasonable to me.

You see, tearing apart the UK is not just something simple that can be achieved in a few seconds, like pulling off a sticking plaster. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but the SNP are strong on rhetoric but light on the detail. And if you look at the options available for Scotland's future governance, there is no arguing that independence is not one of the extremes. I mean, you can't actually go beyond it, can you?

It's so much easier for the lazy SNP press officer to jump up in horror and complain that the nasty great unionist oppressor is calling them names than it is to actually explain how an independent Scotland would work, and be achieved. I mean how exactly do you divvy up the pensions system, the benefits system and set up new equivalents in Scotland? How do you police Scotland's new border? What about defence? We all remember Inverclyde SNP candidate Anne McLaughlin not having the first clue about how many air bases an independent Scotland would have.

The fact that the SNP have had literally decades to work this stuff out and aren't sharing the results of their deliberations with us does not bode well for the future.

David Torrance recently reminded us in Total Politics magazine how the SNP barely talked about independence in the run up to both 2007 and last year's election to avoid scaring the voters. Since winning their majority in May, of course, they've talked of little else. They've done it by picking fights with Westminster at every opportunity, but haven't included that many facts in with their rhetoric.

Trying to pretend that independence is just an option we can casually ease ourselves in to is absolute mince. They want the voters to think that splitting up the UK is just a walk in the park.

The SNP think that they can win the referendum by a mixture of sparkly optimism, playing the victim, blaming Westminster for everything. It's in their interests to keep the focus off the detail. And having a go at Nick Clegg is a good way of going about it.

It's also a good way of deflecting attention from the real reason for Nick's visit - to promote the UK Government's Youth Contract. Willie Rennie has been trying ever since it was announced to get the SNP to say they'll support it and they've been, guess what, pretty evasive.

Willie said yesterday:

“The Youth Contract is a great example of how the Coalition Government is working to help Scottish young people at this tough time for the economy.

“Recent figures have shown that youth unemployment is rising faster in Scotland than across the rest of the UK so the Scottish Government should embrace the youth contract as a way to reverse this worrying trend.

“Today’s young people are the next generation of taxpayers that will help get the economy back on firm ground. We need measures that help them to get up and get on and the Youth Contract is a vital part of this process.

“The Youth Contract is the right policy at the right time and I’m pleased Nick Clegg could come to help promote it today.”

Having said all of the above, I actually do think that who says something can be as important as what they say. By having Nick use the "extremist" line, however right it is, it gives that lazy SNP press officer a shot at goal. Nick should maybe have talked up the possibility, touted before Christmas, of enabling legislation to clear up any doubt about the referendum result, something that if it happens will come from a Liberal Democrat Secretary of State. He could have concentrated on all the things the UK Government are doing to benefit Scotland. He should have concentrated more on us not being a unionist party.

There's no doubt that independence is an extreme option, and that line needs to get out, but I think it would have been better if Willie, not Nick, had said it. The SNP wouldn't have had the same possibility for comeback and as it is they have successfully managed to detract a little from Nick's visit.

UK Ministers have every right to talk about Scottish matters and express their concerns about independence. They need to have a wee think about the wisest and most effective way to get those messages out, though.

The first two items on Reporting Scotland tonight

2012-01-06T19:57:00.002Z

1 The worrying kidnapping of Red Cross aid worker Khalil Dale in Pakistan. The profile showed someone who has spent his whole life working in war zones. He had taken part in a BBC documentary where he talked of watching people starve to death in Somalia. Let's hope he is released safe and well, soon.

2. And I'll accept that my reaction to this second story is exacerbated in the context of the above. Ambulance workers have turned down a settlement which would have given them a one-off payment of £1500 then £100 every time their meal breaks were disturbed by a call out. These discussions came about because of the death of Tomintoul woman Mandy Mathieson from a heart attack. The ambulance called for, even though it was not far from her house didn't leave till the staff has finished their break.

I have to say I find that one hard to understand. I barely had a lunch break in the 4 years of my last job, simply because that's when people tended to come in to see me because that's when they were available. It was just how things were. I have no doubt I could have asked them to wait, but that didn't seem right especially as most people had serious, stressful issues to deal with.

It makes me wonder what life as ambulance crew is like if they can turn down what appears to be a generous offer. Is there an unpleasant management style in the Service? What lies behind it? I had a look at the rates of pay for paramedics and I have to say I was surprised that they earned so little given the level of skill they have to have and the diverse range of trauma, from heart attacks to delivering babies to horrendous road accidents they deal with. They seem to get between 21 & 34 thousand, but that higher figure is only for senior paramedics.

I am not sure it's wise, though, for ambulance staff to conflate the meal break issue with other grievances. If more lives are lost, the public will find it hard to sympathise with the service. However, flexibility on this will reassure the public and more likely win support for the other stuff. In an emergency, every minute matters. Nobody knows that more than paramedics. If they show no flexibility on this, they put lives at risk. That's the bottom line.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

You've got to love the Lib Dem Press Office.....

2012-01-06T17:28:00.000Z

....who, in response to Ed Miliband's unfortunate Twitter spelling error, tweeted

Nicely done, I thought. Let's just hope they never make any mistakes like that........

This led to the #edmilibandgameshows game on Twitter. Best I could do was Family Fortunes, The Weakest Link and Pointless.

This shouldn't detract from what prompted Ed's tweet in the first place, the sad death of Bob Holness, much beloved to most of us of a certain age for his daily game show Blockbusters. I loved it when I was a teenager. Or maybe when I was a bit older than a teenager as well. He really treated the teenagers like human beings, like grown ups and wasn't condescending like so many presenters were at that time. I loved the game as well. I always used to win, of course, but then I wasn't under pressure in the studio. It's so easy when you're sitting at home.

It's very sad to see these famous people from my youth all disappearing like this.

Scottish Blogs on Wikio, or Ebuzzing or whatever it calls itself - Jan 2012

2012-01-06T16:24:00.043Z

It's still just the Super Severn Scottish political blogs on Wikio as we kick of a New Year. I didn't get round to doing the list last month, so I've no real idea who was where.

Wikio, or EBuzzing as it seems to be calling itself is, if you don't know, a way of ranking blogs depending on how influential they are based on links to them and tweets. I tend to take a fairly simplistic view of their methodology. When I go up, it's great and when I go down it's rubbish. It works for me.

I'm hoping this will be the year we get Nicola Prigg on the list and Bellgrove Belle. Set in Darkness has been a bit quiet of late, but could do with being on there too.

This list trumps the Lib Dem list in one major way - I'm the only woman out of 12 on that, whereas half our Scottish blogs are written by women or have female contributors. This is a good thing.

Lallands Peat Worrier has had a healthy rise of 10 places this month - just goes to show what can happen when you reveal yourself to be more rock star than Robespierre. Subrosa, too, has had a good month, too, with the biggest rise of 15 places.

If you haven't already, register your blog here.

1. Caron's Musings (23) Up 5

2. Alex Massie (29) Up 12

3. Underdogs Bite Upwards (43) Up 1

4. Lallands Peat Worrier (50) Up 10

5. Better Nation (55) Down 4

6. A Burdz Eye View (57) Down 3

7. Subrosa (59) Up 15

Racism is rightly unacceptable - so why do we tolerate blatant, unadulterated sexism on prime time tv?

2012-01-06T14:40:00.000Z

Well, I seem to have stirred up a wee bit of a hornet's nest with my post on Diane Abbott yesterday. I still think that, in the scheme of things, her one tweet, while ill judged, was not the end of the world. In fact, as James Graham pointed out, an opportunity to point out a few things about how power elites work was lost.

Where it comes to racism, or suspected racism, it seems we have a very low tolerance threshold. And that's right, to be fair. People shouldn't be castigated for the colour of their skin. End of.

If we accept that principle, then we must also accept that discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexuality should be equally unacceptable.

You would think, then, that examples of sexism or homophobia would stir up the same sort of froth. Sadly, they don't.

I wasted two hours of my life watching the Celebrity Big Brother launch show on Channel 5. This was not because I wanted to, but because I know that this is what my daughter's friends are going to be talking about for the next 3 weeks and I wanted to have a look at the sort of messages they will be getting.

We have to look at this in the whole context of the messages young people grow up with. If they happen to watch the news, or Question Time, they'll most likely see male dominated panels discussing the issues of the day.

If they watch the X Factor, they'll see the male judges being talked about in terms of their careers and achievements while the women are talked about in terms of whether they get on or not or what they're wearing.

If they open the Sun newspaper, they'll see a picture of a half naked woman as if that's what women are for, for men to gawp at.

They'll see a plethora of media articles castigating women for being too fat, or too thin. Stepping outside your house without make up on is treated as though it is a crime.

Whole industries have sprung up around telling women that they need various treatments in order to be acceptable to men, from depilation to facelifts to boob jobs. The merest sign of a wrinkle turns people into a pariah and the porn industry treat having sex with fat women as some sort of fetish. Most bizarrely, women are now being told they need cosmetic surgery on their vaginas. I loved the idea of the "Muff March" against this practice which took place in Harley Street last month.

So, if you're a young girl, if you don't have anyone telling you different, you'd grow up thinking men rule the world and women aren't good enough on their own and have to spend their lives constantly changing their appearance to be acceptable.

Then, like most your age, you decide to watch Celebrity Big Brother. You see one male contestant, who's already boasted about having the names of 7 women he slept with during one holiday tattooed on his bum and who's already been booted off a talent show for taking drugs, talk about how he'd happily have a "sh*g" in the house. Is it not pretty distasteful to talk about sexual partners as pretty much disposable receptacles? Especially when a woman who talked in the same way about men would be branded as a harlot and castigated by the Daily Fail.

And then we have the female contestants. There are 7 women in that house. Four of them are glamour models. What does that tell you about the agenda of Channel 5 owner Richard Desmond? Another is only there because she had an affair with her brother in law who happens to be a footballer.

Obviously as a liberal, I'm not in favour of banning this sort of stuff, but I do think it needs to be challenged because it is holding girls back. Our sexist, image obsessed culture puts so much pressure on young girls and women and stops them from fulfilling their potential as human beings. It puts them under financial pressure too - how can you get the "perfect" body if you're in a minimum wage job.

Speaking to young people, they tell me that racism is taken extremely seriously at their schools, yet sexist, homophobic and disablist comments are just left. That can't be right.

Celebrity Big Brother concentrates so much that is really obnoxious and repulsive about our culture. We really should take a lot more notice of where our kids get their role models and ideas about life from.

Racism, or even the merest suggestion of it, sends us into a frenzy, but we seem to be immune to crass and unadulterated sexism on our tv screens. These two events, taking place within a few hours of each other, just shows how far we have to go to achieve a liberal society where people truly are free from conformity.

Jo Swinson this week urged advertisers to think what they were doing in terms of the messages they were giving young people. I think she should also turn her attention to tv companies and talk to them about the messages they are sending out.

Why is Diane Abbott the top headline on BBC News?

2012-01-05T16:03:00.000Z

I've been busy with blog posts, Alvin and the Chipmunks and children today, so the furore over Diane Abbott's tweet had kind of passed me by. I knew someone had said something but, frankly, I wasn't interested enough to look.

I can't avoid it now, though, being that it's the top headline on the BBC website. Heavens above, unemployment and poverty are increasing, the House of Lords is about to discuss a big cut in benefits to the sick, the global economy is on the brink of a very large precipice and so on - and we're talking about an admittedly over generalised tweet from an MP.

Even having read it, I can't actually get that wound up by it. It's a bit crass on the surface, but I get where she was going with it. It's about how power elites use their power and is nothing to do with race, gender or anything else. I certainly don't think it's worth the mockrage it's attracting online.

I rarely disagree with Mark Thompson, but I think his demands for her to apologise or be sacked were unnecessary. I am appalled at the way Ed Miliband has simply demanded an apology without giving Diane a chance to explain what she meant - and I think she would have been able to give a credible explanation backed up by historical fact for what was going through her mind. We have to remember, though, that Miliband's reaction comes in a week where is authority as leader is being challenged so it's likely he felt he had to be seen to be "strong". Sometimes being strong involves backing the people on your own side. I'm not wildly impressed that, rather than giving her the space to explain herself, he sent Chuka Umunna to give her a public dressing down. Remember all the furore about Ken Clarke's comments on rape last year? I don't recall Theresa May being sent out to tell him off publicly. He dealt with it himself to the extent that I forgave him.

I'm not wildly chuffed with Nick Clegg for getting in on this act either. It was a waste of his time - but at least he was in the camp of getting her to explain her remarks.

Twitter's great - and a really good place to share ideas. I feel, used properly, that it can bring politicians closer to ordinary people. Used properly means a normal conversation flow and in any normal conversation flow sometimes things come out in not quite the way we meant them. We need to be a bit more tolerant when people make that sort of mistake. Come on, we all know Diane Abbott. She is no racist bigot. Can we not just remember our experience of her over 20 years or so and not get all hot and bothered about 140 or so characters tweeted in around 30 seconds?

I tend to agree with much of this post from Dorian Lynksey. Lots of food for thought in there - one example being this bit about Twitter:

I don’t want to get into the ridiculous mob mechanics of Twitter outrage, which can be as bad on the left (witness pandagate) as it is on the right, except to note that the “gotcha” strategy is a surefire way to ensure that no politician ever expresses themselves on social media except in the bloodlessly inoffensive style of Ed Milibot’s feed. It seems we desperately want politicians to drop the platitudes and speak openly, except when they do, in which case they need to apologise and resign.

There, that's my unscheduled mid afternoon rant over.

Six days to get rid of the 12 month time limit to ESA

2012-01-05T11:55:00.000Z

Next Wednesday, 11th January, the House of Lords will be debating the Welfare Reform Bill. It's expected that the controversial clause time limiting contributory Employment and Support Allowance to one year for those in the Work Related Activity Group, those people who are judged to have a limited capacity to work. This change does not affect the sickest and most disabled people in the Support Group.

At the moment, if you receive contributory ESA (based on your NI contributions), you get around £90 a week and are eligible for that until you reach State Pension age. Now, you will lose your entitlement to it after a year. So, if you work for 40 years and pay tax and NI for all that time, you will only, when you need it most, get a year's support if the Government plans become law. This will take effect in just 3 months' time.

That means that people who are too ill to work will effectively have to rely on their families to support them. Being ill is a pretty expensive business - if you need to have regular medical treatment there's transport costs affected with that. Also if your mobility is affected, you will need your house to be warmer. Not want. Need.

I think depriving sick people of the support they get from the State based on an arbitrary time limit is wrong. It flies in the face of everything I believe as a liberal in terms of looking at the person and what they need.

Most people, thankfully, do recover from illness within a year but some don't. It certainly took me two years after contracting Glandular Fever to feel remotely human again and it's left me with continuing health problems. Luckily I didn't need to claim ESA, but if I had, I am fairly sure I'd have had problems proving eligibility because of the fluctuating nature of the condition. If Sue Marsh, who suffers from really severe bowel disease, has trouble convincing the authorities that she's ill, then we have to suspect that the system is very flawed. Sue isn't my only example. Four years of working as an MP's caseworker provided me with many examples of the wrong decisions being taken and overturned after a lengthy and stressful appeals process.

The best argument I've heard against the time limit was put forward by Ken Reed, the new Chair of RNIB Scotland. He and I were speakers at a fringe meeting on welfare reform chaired by Secretary of State for Scotland Mike Moore at the Scottish Lib Dems' Autumn conference. Ken said that if you became blind as the result of an accident today, it would take a year just to get used to being blind, let alone being ready to get back into the labour market.

At our Federal Conference last Autumn, we passed a motion which called upon ""Liberal Democrats in Government to oppose an arbitrary time limit on how long claimants can claim Contributory ESA". To me, that means that our people in the Lords should vote against the time limit. The views of Conference are pretty unequivocal and the motion was passed with very little opposition.

If you haven't done so already, please get in touch with Liberal Democrat members of the House of Lords. A full list is here. Tell them briefly why you think this time limit needs to go.

Bear in mind that previous votes on the Welfare Reform Bill, including the one where 14 Lib Dem peers defeated an element of the Housing Benefit proposals, have been very, very close. It is possible for this vote to be won. We members can encourage that process so I would urge you all, again, to write to as many peers as you can, to give them an indication of the strength of feeling in the party. Please feel free to copy and paste this post into e-mails, tweet it, share on Facebook and spread the word in as many ways as you can think.

We don't have long, but if we don't get rid of this time limit, sick people will start to suffer in less than 3 months' time. That should be enough motivation for us to devote some time to this today.

Nick Clegg, Mark Pack and Chocolate - all in 5 minutes on the Today Programme

2012-01-05T10:27:00.002Z

There are lots of ways for Party members to communicate with our leader. We can send him an e-mail. We can ask him questions at Conference or at his meetings with members around the country. Our Mark Pack, though, chose a novel approach. The points he made in an interview just before 7 this morning were put to Nick Clegg at 8:10.

Now, I am moderately rubbish in that I wasn't up early enough to listen to Mark and I was trying to tweet something else when Nick was being asked about what Mark said, so I'm really only giving you half a story. I vaguely heard something about his comments on a poll which showed only a quarter of Lib Dem voters in 2010 had stuck with the party, something he tackles in his latest e-mail to party members (sign up to get this direct here) combined with his repeated calls for the party to see its members and supporters as active participants in the political process. In response, Nick acknowledged that we needed to do more to explain what we were achieving in Government, highlighting things like taxing bankers' bonuses and dealing with high executive pay.

I thought it was quite ironic that Mark's name was brought up in conversation not long after Nick had mentioned chocolate. He talked about not being a starry eyed supporter of the EU who thought it could do no wrong. He cited the example of it taking 15 years to define chocolate as one of the things which meant reform of the EU was vital.

All in all, I thought Nick did very well this morning. He got his points across well when challenged, even though the interviewer went out of her way to interrupt him and not give him space to answer the question. He was asked about the IFS figures which showed the Government's reforms affecting the poorest most and he tackled this on two fronts. First of all, he pointed out that the IFS analysis didn't include the effect of things like the Pupil Premium (which is, actually quite hard to put a cash value on because the effects won't come through for a very long time), and the extension of free childcare for the poorest families. Then he talked about how people who play by the rules feel really angry to see big companies getting away with avoiding their taxes and how he wants an anti avoidance rule written into the tax system. He also made it clear that he wants to shift away from taxing effort and enterprise and more on to taxing wealth.

Anyway, I have, as has become my custom, accumulated my tweets via the magic of Storify for you. My tweets clearly upset some, but I don't really care. I suspect they weren't supporters anyway, somehow.

Scotrail fail yet again

2012-01-04T10:42:00.000Z

Our business focus is on you, the passenger. Our staff are trained to ensure you have a safe, comfortable and enjoyable journey, and you should find them helpful and courteous at all times.

If you have a problem at a station, please speak to a member of our staff, who will always be willing to help you. Our staff can be easily identified by their uniforms and name badges.

During times of severe service disruption, ScotRail will deploy Customer Action Teams to help station and ontrain staff provide the best possible information and customer service for our passengers.

During service disruption we aim to:

• Get you to your destination station.
• Or arrange alternative transport where possible.
• Or return you to a suitable station if you can’t continue your journey.
• Or make other arrangements, such as overnight accommodation, where appropriate.

This is what the Scotrail Passenger Charter says.

Aye, right.

Nobody's saying that they were dealt an easy hand after yesterday's storm, but, yet again, they have spectacularly failed to provide information to commuters stranded at rail stations.

When Bob went up to Livingston North this morning to try to get a train into Edinburgh, there was not a single announcement on the tannoy and the noticeboards appeared to be broken. He had to ring me to find out what was happening and what was on Journey Check online bore little resemblance to what happened in real life. Trains that were supposed to appear did not and, much later, trains that were not supposed to appear did.

After an hour and a half on a cold platform, Bob gave up and came home. One train had been and gone but, even though there was room for more people in the carriages, they couldn't get on because of passengers blocking the doors and refusing to let them embark. It was ridiculous and that should have been managed better by the train staff.

The piece de resistance of the traditional Scotrail Farce of Fail is yet to come, though. Bob went up hoping to catch the delayed 9:49 train. He and other passengers were following its progress on their Smartphone app when, suddenly, a coach appeared in the car park on the other side of the station. The driver came over and said that there were no trains running all day and people were supposed to get the bus. Those who were tracking the 9:49 decided to stay, but 80% of the passengers waiting climbed the stairs and walked all the way to the other side. Just as they got there, the train they were waiting for pulled in so they all started running back. The Scotrail Grand Old Duke of York style of passenger management is still going strong this year, sadly.

Some passengers were left stranded and didn't manage to get either the train or the bus due to this incompetence.

Bob is now at his work, a journey that would normally take 21 minutes, after 3 hours of trying. Better information and management, not the most difficult things in the world to get right, would have made this a lot easier. The depressing thing is that Scotrail fail every single time. They never seem to learn anything and they don't seem to care.

Please don't get the idea that Mitt Romney is a moderate.....

2012-01-04T08:55:00.000Z

A Facebook friend of mine last night summed up my feelings about the Republican caucuses in Iowa perfectly when he said:

Looking forward to finding out what flat earth, anti-woman, homophobic, creationist, global warming denier the Republicans vote for in #Iowa

Truth is, any of this bunch is enough to give any self respecting liberal, anyone who cares about equality, the absolute creeps.

The most radical of them favours same sex civil unions, but would still implement a constitutional ban on abortion. He only got 1%.

A quarter of the Republican voters of Iowa voted for a man, Rick Santorum, who doesn't think abortion should be allowed in any circumstances and wants the US Constitution to bar same sex marriage. In contrast, the so called moderate, Mitt Romney who polled just 8 votes more, only thinks that the Federal Government should not recognise same sex marriage and states can decide for themselves whether they can ban abortion. Bearing in mind that most Americans don't travel much outside their home state, that could make life very difficult for women who find themselves unexpectedly, or dangerously, pregnant.

Every single Republican would repeal Obama's healthcare reforms, which stopped insurance companies denying cover to sick people and ensured that the poorest had some access to health care. I literally don't understand how anyone can defend denying medical treatment to someone on the grounds that they can't pay for it.

We can't be sure, until November 6th, that the guy the Republicans choose (and it will be a guy, I think, given Michele Bachmann's thankfully poor performance in Iowa) will lose to Obama. Any of them would be an awful prospect as President. Even if the nominee is not officially part of the Tea Party, he'll be advocating pretty much their agenda.

As far as the GOP contest goes, we'll have to wait to see whether Santorum's surge in Iowa will have an effect on the New Hampshire vote next week. He's pretty much in the margin of error of oblivion there at the moment with around 3% in the polls while Romney's lead is widening. The former Massachusetts governor is polling somewhere between 35 and 40%. Just over a month ago, he had Newt Gingrich giving him a run for his money. However with the latest poll showing that 16% of voters are still to make up their minds, if Santorum can get enough of the anti Romney vote behind him to give his campaign momentum, it would put him in a good position as the primaries head to the more socially conservative states.

The challenge for the Obama Campaign is to get their message across - at the moment they are trumpeting 5 major achievements: Putting Americans back to work (challenge of that one is to make people feel he's on their side as the economy continues to falter), making college affordable, reforming Wall Street, repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell and the biggie, affordable healthcare. He needs to come up with a positive vision for his second term while making sure that the grassroots organisation that won him the last election is in place. If people going to vote for him, they need to be registered and the sooner that happens the better.

I suppose we should spare a thought for the friend of mine who put a bet on Rick Santorum winning Iowa and who lost out by 8 votes. He clearly read the runes correctly.

If we are lucky, though, the Iowa contest will have seen the end of Rick Perry, who changed his position on abortion after undergoing what he described as a "transformation" after ~~watching a DVD~~ watching his poll rating sink. He's suspended his campaign after winning just 5% of the vote.

Anyway, one contest down, just another 45 weeks of excitement to go........

Lib Dem Voice's Liberal Voice of 2011 - Vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton

2012-01-03T18:55:00.099Z

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis will not be surprised that I found Liberal Democrat Voice's shortlist for the Liberal Voice of 2011 profoundly depressing. Why? Purely because there is only one woman on it, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Much as I love my dear colleagues at Lib Dem Voice, I really can't let that one pass.

One woman out of nine nominees is pretty poor, especially when this has been a year of very rich pickings. They could have chosen Michele Bachelet, the head of the new UN Women agency who has hit the ground running in the organisation's first year highlighting the need for women to be involved in the emerging democracies and working to stamp out violence against women.

What about any one of our three Nobel Peace Prize Winners, who won for their "non violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace building work".

What about Eman Al Obeidi, whose shocking disclosure to journalists in Tripoli highlighted the sexual violence and repression used by Gadaffi's troops?

What about Mona Eltahawy, the journalist recently arrested and sexually assaulted in Egypt?

I can't really argue with the presence of Bouazizi, Ai Weiwei, Nick Davies and Hacked Off on the list. Bouazizi's act, however, was one of desperation. Its consequence was the overthrow of some horrendous regimes in the Middle East, but if you are looking for a Liberal Voice, you have to go for someone with a sustained record of putting liberal values into practice. We want to find someone who works to prevent the situation where people have to take their own lives in such desperate acts because they see no other option. A View from Ham Common is supporting Bouazizi and certainly when he called for us to vote for him in the Time Magazine Person of the Year poll, I did so. He's not the Liberal Voice of the Year, though.

I find it extraordinary that, on this list with world leaders and globally recognised names, we find Mark Littlewood. Why, just why?

And I have real reservations about the Occupy Movement - I've heard reports of sexual violence and very unequal values in the running of specifically the Edinburgh camp.

I've never voted Tory in my life and, much as I love Ken Clarke, I'm not going to start now. I forgave him for his comments on rape and he has been very sensible on sentencing, but he's not a liberal.

Which leaves us with Obama and Clinton. I am not going to pretend for a minute that I am entirely satisfied with the human rights record of the US administration. However, if they tried to do the things that I think they should do, like get rid of the death penalty, they simply wouldn't be able to. The voices of opposition from the states would be overwhelming. That battle has still to be won. The administration's record is not perfect by any manner of means, but it's darned sight better than any Republican could or would have done. A phrase that keeps popping into my mind these days is that the best mustn't be the enemy of the good. Voltaire was right. Sometimes you just have to live with baby steps towards your ultimate goal.

It's Clinton, though, who has constantly striven to put women's issues front and centre of what she does. Sadly, we don't get the boys talking about women's rights, but Clinton is speaking and doing loads to make women's lives better. She's been working with UN Women, highlighting the need for a greater economic role for women, for more women in politics, putting together a joined up strategy for women's peace and security. It's all good stuff. And this is something she believes with a passion. 17 years ago she went to China and told the authorities there in no uncertain terms that that they needed to sort out women's rights there as this video shows:

Working for equality for women is a very liberal thing to do. Her actions could benefit literally millions if not billions of women now and in the future. That's why my vote instinctively went to her. I hope you'll support her too.

My heart goes out to Stephen Lawrence's family as racist thugs finally found guilty of murder

2012-01-03T17:25:00.000Z

I think every parent suffers anxiety at some point at the prospect of losing their child. We all worry that some pathogen or malevolent force will take them from us. Just the thought is enough to teach us the meaning of shivers down our spine. We know, though, that that awful feeling is tiny in comparison to what those who have actually lost a child have to go through.

I have nothing but respect for Stephen Lawrence's parents, Doreen and Neville. They know that their beloved son was murdered in cold blood by a group of racist thugs who took exception to the colour of his skin.

Stephen Lawrence was born on 13 September 1974 and was murdered on 22 April 1993. That's 18 years, 7 month and 9 days.

From his death, 22 April 1993 to the day two of his killers were found guilty, 4 January 2012 is 18 years 8 months and 13 days.

It should not have taken that length of time for these Gary Dobson and David Norris to be brought to justice. But not only did the Lawrence family suffer the excruciating pain of losing their son, they were then let down by the State so many times.

It just goes to show, though, that people need to persevere, to keep going when they know that they have suffered an injustice at the hands of the state. Mistakes are made and it takes so long for them to be recognised, even when the evidence is clear. It matters not to the establishment that the people affected by their mistakes are going through hell. They have to be forced to realise it and to change their ways.

It's the dignified persistence of Neville and Doreen Lawrence that led to the public enquiry that branded the Metropolitan Police "institutionally racist", law changes and now today's verdict.

I feel for Duwayne Brooks, who must have gone through hell reliving that day yet again during the retrial. He's an inspiring character. To go through something so traumatic and still embark on a life of public service is worthy of huge amounts of respect.

Stephen's family and friends will feel to a certain extent that justice has been done, although there were others there who have not yet been convicted. These last few months will have put them back in touch with a really raw pain and we can't overestimate how hard that will have been for them.

Brian Paddick, friend of Duwayne Brooks and Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate for London, had this to say:

“It is a great relief that after so many years people have been brought to justice for the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence.

“Many lessons have been learnt and changes made as a result of this case, but there is much more to be done before all Londoners have trust and confidence in the police.”

Yes, some justice has been done, but that doesn't mean the almost two decade ordeal of Stephen's friends and family is anything like over. Keep them in your thoughts tonight.

Alesha Dixon quits Strictly for Britain's Got Talent

2012-01-03T14:55:00.028Z

So, the Glitterball has barely been packed away and already we know that there will be at least one big change on Strictly Come Dancing this year - we'll need a new judge. Alesha Dixon is quitting the show after 3 years to join David Walliams, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell on the judging panel for Britain's Got Talent.

I'm not going to shed any crocodile tears over this news. I like Alesha and supported her to win, but I've not been impressed with her as a judge. She always overmarks and doesn't have the technical background of the other judges. She has a huge sense of fun, though, and I think she'll be great and much better suited to the randomness of BGT.

Expect the tabloids to be full of reports of feuding with Amanda. There's nothing the British press seem to like more than a good old catfight. They could never imagine that two professional women could just get on and do their job and not actually care about how much attention they get from Simon Cowell, or whether they get to sit next to him. You mark my words, come the live shows and Amanda's return from maternity leave - or maybe even before, the press will be full of "catfight" type stories. It's all deeply depressing.

In terms of Alesha's replacement on Strictly, however much I'd love to see Arlene Phillips return, I doubt it'll happen, especially as she's busy with So You Think You Can Dance. For me, it's a no brainer. It has to be Karen Hardy. The former pro dancer who won with Mark Ramprakash in 2006 has choreographical know how second to none, as viewers of It Takes Two are only too well aware.

I doubt they'll tell us until nearer the series launch in September, but if it's not Karen, I'll be very disappointed.

2012: My story so far

2012-01-03T13:42:00.000Z

So, Happy New Year everybody. Did you survive the celebrations without incident or hangover?

I shouldn't be writing this right now. We should be at the Winter Wonderland in Edinburgh, but it's blowing a pretty major gale out there so we can't. And it's the last day tomorrow, so we'll miss it. Serves us right for being so lazy throughout the holiday - but we needed it.

Our Hogmanay celebrations did not go according to plan either - which was, basically, lounging on the sofa in our jammies and heading to bed just after the Bells. However on that occasion the change in our plans could not have been more welcome.

We'd gone round to my parents for dinner on Friday night. There isn't really much better food on this planet than my mother's fillet steak and garlic potatoes, washed down with some very acceptable Rioja, Eton Mess made with raspberries, then a lovely squishily delicious piece of Brie followed by coffee and my Dad's Remy Martin. We went home replete and happy very late and hadn't expected to see them again until probably yesterday.

On Saturday morning I innocently posted about the enormous hunk of fillet steak I'd bought for our New Year meal with friends. My niece commented "lucky you" and I suggested that they should just head down here. About an hour later I got a text to say that they were doing just that - packing themselves and their two dogs up to stay at Mum and Dad's for New Year.

So we all gathered in the evening. Luckily Zaika, the best Indian Restaurant in the whole world is in Livingston so we decided to have a takeaway from there. The funny thing is that although my parents go there often and we are reasonably regular customers, we've never been in together. You have to hand it to the staff there for attention to detail. We went to pick up the mammoth order, which my Dad had phoned in in his name. When they saw us load it into our car, they actually double checked that we were taking away the right order. We were very impressed.

Bob (as the only sober one in the house) was despatched to ASDA because my poor niece didn't have any Cider and, thankfully, he got there just as it was closing to save the day.

The evening passed with fun and games and when the Bells finally came, we all got up for an impromptu Auld Lang Syne - which was brought to a sudden end as we realised that my parents' puppy had her head in my glass of Amaretto.

Ok, so we had to save the puppy from drunkenness, but we could not have had a better start to 2012.

Morning dawned and I started the cooking process. I've made this New Year meal practically every year we've been together, following on from the tradition my mother started some time in the late 70s. Boeuf en Croute - fillet steak wrapped in pate and pastry served with peas, bacon and mushrooms in a cream sauce with little croutons on the top and mashed potato. Followed by a proper, traditional Delia Smith trifle.

I know I should probably do the proper mushroom and onion thing with Boeuf en Croute, but. because I only make it once a year, I want it to taste the way it "should". I was worried that I'd criminally overcooked it, but, thankfully, when I cut into it, the steak was mouthwateringly rare. Fabulous for me, but I had a frying pan on standby for my friends' piece.

We all had a lovely meal and then decided to play Just Dance 3 on the xBox. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I comprehensively stuffed the opposition two out of three times. Ok, they may have had more to drink than I, or were 6, but these mere trifling facts should not be allowed to diminish my achievement. Boogie Wonderland and This is Hallowe'en were the songs which provided me with this triumph.

Yesterday, we (at least those of us who weren't ailing from an over indulgence on the wine) went to Mum and Dad's for lunch - beautiful silky lentil soup with home made bread followed by Christmas cake ticked all the right comfort boxes.

We also took this lovely photo of Maya the puppy before her first encounter with the groomer...

After waving the northerners off for a snowy journey home, we came home and watched some really appalling drama about the life of J K Rowling on Channel 5 before I stockpiled the tissues and settled down to watch Pat's demise on EastEnders. I had thought that once this episode was over, I'd never watch it again, but the reappearance of David Wicks might tempt me.

I'd fast forwarded through many of the Christmas episodes purely because they were so violent and horrific. I found myself in complete agreement with Lisa Northover's post on the dangers of there being so much domestic violence on that programme. It's just not healthy. However, Pam St Clement's acting as her character passed away was absolutely excellent and it was worth watching.

After finishing the leftovers from New Year's Day (and there is still trifle left), I rounded off the evening with a Snowball. There has to be some room for tackiness in every celebration, although the addition of a squeeze of lime juice of course renders this classy and sophisticated.

When we lived in England, we always found the rush back to work at New Year highly uncivilised. Thankfully we have an extra bank holiday up here just to ease ourselves in. And before you think we're getting something you're not, we don't have Spring Bank or August holidays. Anyway, too soon, this is Bob's last day at home with us as he heads back to work tomorrow.

This afternoon, we think, will bring Harry Potter Cluedo and hopefully not too much more battering by the winds. My friend's kids' playhouse looks very precarious at the moment...

And well done to Lily Greenan on Twitter for coming up with the name "Big Gail" for this storm. A much better name than Bawbag, I think.

Robert Brown is standing for the Council in Rutherglen - and has discovered Twitter

2012-01-01T11:12:00.001Z

Regular readers will be familiar with the fact that the author of this blog is almost as big a fan of former Glasgow MSP Robert Brown as she is of Paul McCartney and Doctor Who.

We were all devastated to lose him from Holyrood this year but it's great that he's now decided to stand to be a councillor in Rutherglen. He has huge Council experience, 15 years of it, prior to being an MSP.

He has a new website and has even joined Twitter.

The people of Rutherglen could not wish for a better Councillor. This blog will be following his campaign very closely and we wish him well.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:00:00.001Z

Here's hoping that 2012 brings everyone reading this health, peace and happiness in their lives.

12 Predictions for 2012

2011-12-31T18:54:00.001Z

Somehow I managed not to make any predictions for this year, but I thought I'd dust off the old crystal ball and see if it's still in good working order. Here are a dozen things that might happen in the year ahead.

1. The SNP will wimp out on full equal marriage, allowing it in civil ceremonies but not for religious.

2. Obama will win the presidential election against Romney, but it'll be a close run thing and our hearts will be in our mouths for most of the time between Labor Day and 6th November.

3. A Liberal Democrat Cabinet seat will change hands, and will not be a resignation on principle.

4. Jo Swinson will become a minister.

5. The coalition will last the year, but there will be more public differences of opinion between ministers particularly over immigration and human rights.

6. The Eurozone will limp on, narrowly avoiding catastrophe on a weekly basis, but with real hardship for people as many economies, including ours, go into recession.

7. The Government will not win the vote on time limiting Employment and Support Allowance in the House of Lords and will have to rethink the policy.

8. A date for the referendum on independence will be set.

9. British sportswomen will outperform British men in the Olympics, which will have plenty of rows and the odd cock up attached to them.

10. Labour will not make up any ground in the polls and Ed Miliband's position will be at best under threat by the end of the year.

11. The 2012 F1 World Championship will be decided on the last race between Vettel, Button and Webber. Raikonnen and Schumacher will both win races and challenge for podium positions during the year.

12. Steven Moffat will relent and give Karen, Rory and River a happy ending.

McCartney in Liverpool - what You Tube has to offer

2011-12-31T15:55:00.000Z

Ok, nothing beats being there, but You Tube has a good selection of videos of the evening and they bring back some memories and some goosebumps. Here are some of the best I've found so far.

Specifically for my friend Allan and fans of George Harrison and Ukelele playing - Ram On

Here Today - including the Cilla Black story and booing

Penny Lane

The Word - All you need is love

The pyrotechnical Live and Let Die

Band on the Run

The fabulously trashy Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da

Wonderful Christmastime

Mull of Kintyre

Thanks to all the people with better recording facilities than I have.

My 2011 in Blog Posts

2011-12-31T13:00:00.138Z

With just 11 hours of 2011to go, I thought I'd give you a flavour of my year. It's had huge highs and horrible, horrible painful lows.

Now, we have enough notice of when the year's going to end. Maybe next year, I'll have the end of year post pretty much in the can by the beginning of December and not rush to complete it at the last minute. Yeah, sure that'll happen.

Let's get the horrendous bits out of the way first.

Heartbreak and Big Girls Do Cry written the day after the worst election night ever. And this is my analysis of how those pesky Nats pulled of their overall majority.

But then if we thought that was the worst thing that was going to happen in 2011, we were sadly mistaken. Just 4 weeks later, came shock and deep sadness when we lost our friend and Campaigns Director Andrew Reeves. The First Day without Andrew Reeves was a post that was incredibly painful to write and if there are typos in it, they lie uncorrected as I still can't get all the way through reading it.

The start of the year was all about the election and the run up to it. Themes that continue, though, and will be debated in the year ahead, are the shockingly bad idea of merging all Scotland's police forces.

There was a brief lull in preparations for Andrew and Roger's wedding.

I like to take on the Daily Fail when I can - and they got it badly wrong in domestic violence in January.

Bill Aitken showed misogyny was alive and well in the Tory Party.

If you have a pet rabbit, you may one day have cause to be grateful to me for telling you how to dose one.

When Dave found his Dog Whistle, I was there to report it - and the differences between the PM and his deputy.

It was good to have been at a hustings, for Breakthrough Breast Cancer, where everyone performed well.

2011 was the year I branched out into other media. In March, I went on Callum Leslie's Freshair radio show. and later on did two lots of Radio Scotland interviews, one in the immediate aftermath of the election and another when Willie became leader. I also wrote for a proper grown up paper too, as well as Liberator magazine.

After the election it was time for a rebuild. We had a nice shiny new leader and the papers said nice things about him. The party talked - and listened to wise people like sadly former MSP Robert Brown. We fought a parliamentary by-election with a fabulous candidate, Sophie Bridger, who played a blinder in the tv debates getting the Tory to admit we'd made the UK Government fairer. By the end of the year, we were back to winning ways. That's a lesson to all our candidates in the Council elections - where we work, we win, so get out on those doorsteps.

The things I was concerned about most during 2011 were welfare reform, specifically Employment and Support Allowance. I really want the Government to change the time limit aspect and their silly plans for cancer sufferers. I spoke to a fringe meeting at our conference on the subject and was "insulted" by no less a person than the Secretary of State for Scotland. The Government's consultation on Equal Marriage took place and I was really proud that our leader enthusiastically supported the idea as a fundamental issue of liberalism. I had some advice for our MPs and leaders, too - give us some passion, not just common sense and not letting anyone put us in the corner.

Personally and family wise, we hit some milestones. Bob turned 60. my baby started High School, my lovely sister cycled all the way from Land's End to John o'Groats, we went to London and saw Wicked and daleks and Buckingham Palace. Anna sang at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow along with 700 other kids to celebrate NYCOS's 15th anniversary.

I'm hopefully going to beat last year's record out put of 703 blogposts, only just and I'll look forward to keeping this going through 2012.

My 11 most read blog posts of 2011

2011-12-31T10:34:00.001Z

Thanks to the wonder of Google Analytics, I can tell you that my most popular blog posts of the year are....

1. The sad, but happy for her, news that Claudia Winkleman would not be doing It Takes Two this year.

2. When Eamonn used Twitter to crow about Sky's supremacy over the BBC - without much respect to a young, dead girl and her family.

3. Simon Hughes, bless him, copped a rant from me for a crassly worded e-mail. He was so sorry that it didn't take long to forgive him, though.

4. Braehead shopping centre called the police on a dad for taking photos of his daughter. They soon had to back down and change their policy, though.

5. The First Day without Andrew Reeves

6. Sexy MP - just a bit of harmless fun?

7. Nadine Dorries accuses Evan Harris of blackmail

8. For Maplins, the social networking team were much better than their store staff

9. My Federal Conference Dilemma - to submit to accreditation or not

10. No doubt Gareth Epps is a pain in the arse as far as the leadership are concerned, and that's not a bad thing, but there was a moment when they almost didn't let him into our Conference

11. Nick Clegg made me cross - or at least whoever wrote his e-mail did.

Willie Rennie's New Year Message

2011-12-31T08:59:00.001Z

“In May, we were nearly wiped off from the Scottish Parliamentary map. I got it. I understood why that happened.

“But equally I am convinced that liberalism, not nationalism, will dominate Scottish political landscape in the years ahead. Our values are embedded in a rich seem of Scottish history and endure despite political setbacks.

“Our small team in the Scottish Parliament has shown over the last six months why we need strong liberal voices.

“On centralising of the police, places for college students, housing for those in need, the Supreme Court, equal marriage, riots, prison reform, sectarianism and so many other issues we have struck a strong liberal note whilst others have been silent or ineffective.

“Without that liberal voices Scotland would be a poorer place.

“My liberal vision is a Scotland which politicians in Holyrood give power away to local communities rather than horde it for themselves; makes decisions for the long term interest, not quick fixes; is socially mobile where people from all backgrounds get a chance to get up and on in the world; and is outward looking, maintain strong alliances with the rest of the UK family, Europe and the world.

“Nationalists believe that Scotland is not strong enough to stand tall in the UK. But I believe, and history has shown us, that Scots are confident, intelligent and able enough to prosper in the UK and beyond.

“I find that most Scots share these strong liberal values. Most are not narrow nationalists, only interested in what advances a parochial ideology, but open to dialogue and diction which serves the wider national interest.

“I appreciate that the UK Coalition has been difficult for many to accept. It’s counter intuitive that progressive Liberal Democrats can be partners with the right of centre Conservatives. But however uncomfortable it is for me, for Liberal Democrats and for many of our supporters and former supporters, I know it was the right thing to do.

“We came together in the national interest to tackle the economy and our fiscal position would even more difficult if we had not taken that action. We’re also acting as a moderating influence over the Conservatives and have had a number of significant achievements including tax cuts for those on low and middle incomes; the largest ever cash rise in the state pension; reforming the banks and ending child detention at Dungavel. I know we have put country before self interest and party interest.

“For generations, Liberals and Liberal Democrats have advocated Home Rule for Scotland with a Parliament that has the power to determine Scotland’s destiny on the home agenda whilst sharing risk and opportunity with the United Kingdom family.

“We have worked constructively with others to deliver the Scottish Parliament and now a significant transfer of financial power to the Parliament through the Scotland Bill. Once we have built the case and drawn up the blueprint we want to go further so that the Parliament is responsible for raising broadly what it spends. When we finally come to debate and determine Scotland’s future in the UK, Liberal Democrats will advocate our Home Rule goal.

“One of my great predecessors Russell Johnston once said: "You can stand at the bottom of a mountain, look up and say: ‘This is so high and precipitous, so rugged and intimidating that I can never dare to challenge it.’ Or, you can begin to climb. And, if you do, one day you may see the summit.”

“The party started to climb in May and we’re now able to look back to where we started. I am determined to keep on climbing in 2012 because Scotland needs strong liberal voices.

“I wish you all a very happy New Year.”

Michael Moore - handy with a hoover, a pie and a cello

2011-12-30T16:54:00.000Z

I can't let the Festive Season go by with out posting this hilarious cartoon Christmas card, featuring Michael Moore, Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander, Vince Cable and Chris Huhne as elves. It makes me howl with laughter every single time.....

Thanks to the Lovely Mr Dr Chocaholic for sharing.

I can tell you the secret now......

2011-12-30T15:55:00.014Z

Six weeks or so ago I tweeted that I was more excited than the most excited thing on the planet, but I couldn't tell you about it. You all knew that it had to be something really special if it was going to top my McCartney excitement.

The reason I had to stay quiet was because it was one of Anna's Christmas presents, the one from us rather than Santa.

But now I can tell you.

She and I are off to the first Official Doctor Who Convention at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff in March. Not only have I never ever been to Wales before, but we're going to see, among others, Matt Smith, Steven Moffat and Arthur Darvill.

Definitely something to look forward to. A lovely girlie weekend in Cardiff with my gorgeous daughter. I can't wait.

As a matter of interest, the guesses I had on Twitter showed just how well people know me. It was SNP activist Grahame Case who sussed it out almost immediately, though, because he and his fiancee had just booked the tickets for the same event. I'd done it within 10 minutes of receipt of the e-mail telling me about the event, so we were both pretty quick off the mark.

If you were amused by my wide eyed excitement about Liverpool and McCartney, imagine what I'm going to be like in the run up to this........

Review: That Paul McCartney Concert

2011-12-30T13:15:00.001Z

The adventures of 2 Beatles obsessives and a Responsible Adult in Liverpool, Part 3

You may also want to read Parts One and Two of this happy tale.

As you can see, our seats were really good. They should have been at £105 a go, certainly, but you can tell how quickly they were going by the fact that I literally bought them seconds after they went on sale and these were the best I could get.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The last instalment ended as Laura and I were being dragged from the Beatles Story by the Responsible Adult. We went back to our hotel with just enough time for a quick change before heading back to the Arena. Our plan had been to go to Pizza Express just outside the arena, but it was mobbed. I remembered that the nearby Jury's Inn did good carveries, so we decided to head in there and they managed to squeeze us in. Now, I don't want you to think that this was entirely without guilt. It did feel a little bit wrong to be savouring a delicious piece of perfectly cooked lamb before going to see a committed vegetarian.

Doors to the Echo Arena apparently opened at 6, but it was around 7 that we actually joined the queues outside in the rain. It was quite clear that the concert was not going to start on time as it was nearly 7:30 by the time we found our seats and the 11000 capacity arena was only about a third full. Our wait was made easier by meeting the girl from the Beatles Story right in front of us and chatting to her and reading our programmes. Usually these things are overpriced and you don't feel like you're getting value for money. Not this time. Not far off being the best £15 I ever spent:

It's crammed full of interviews with Paul McCartney, the band, his family and has all sorts of information about the tour and about the things Paul cares about, like his campaign for Meat Free Mondays. He talks about how he spoke to the European Parliament about it. There's loads of pictures old and new, a big plug for the book of Linda McCartney's photos.

Even thinking about this event still gives me goosebumps. One of the images that will stay with me for a very , very long time is the look on Laura's face when Paul finally came on stage, a fashionable 45 minutes late. It was a really emotional moment for her and it was very special to see her so happy.

It was quite hard to take in that his iconic figure was literally a few metres in front of us. I tended to focus on the small figure on the stage rather than look at the huge screens at the side, just to reinforce the reality of it all.

It really made me smile to see his very shiny new wedding ring from his recent marriage to Nancy Shevell. He was wearing a two piece grey suit, but the jacket was ditched after a few songs and he rolled up the sleeves of his pink shirt to make it all a bit more relaxed and less formal.

Paul McCartney had precious few of the stunts and special effects commonly used by many artists today, but he did have himself and five decades of fantastic music and anecdotes to share. There were a few pyrotechnics round Live and Let Die but that was pretty much it.

He went straight into one of my favourite songs, Hello, Goodbye which, understandably, is a bit of a traditional concert opener for him.

You got a sense of how long his career had been going on and how many of the truly great musicians he'd worked with and been friends with. He talked about how humbled he'd felt when Jimi Hendrix had played Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band just three days after it had been released. He went on to describe how Hendrix had been showing off and had made his guitar go out of tune. He apparently asked Eric Clapton, who was in the audience, to tune it for him and Clapton told him, basically, to go and get raffled. That song came out the year I was born ,which is a very long time ago.

He talked about writing Blackbird not as a crusading, political song, but to bring comfort and hope to those fighting for civil rights in the States.

He shared a joke he'd had with his little girl, Beatrice about the Royal Wedding (and was quite taken aback when some booed the mentions of the royals). He'd said he wanted Prince William to say "I, Will." A typical Dad joke, I think,

I can't remember what song it was, but he went wrong at one point and they just stopped and started again. He mentioned a prior occasion when Cilla Black had been in the audience and thought it was all part of the script. I was really surprised to hear Cilla being booed by the audience, though, a good Liverpool lass that she is. I'm not sure what she's done to offend her home town. A bit of a search on Google suggests some resentment towards her for at one time being less than hostile towards the Tories as the reported spat between Cilla and Ricky Tomlinson shows.

What was utterly remarkable is that this man at the date of the concert was 69 years, 6 months and 2 days old. He was on stage for over 3 hours, singing 43 songs and he never even stopped for a drink. You can see from the set list below just how diverse a performer he is with songs ranging from Helter Skelter to Oh-blah-dee, from Back in the USSR to yesterday, from Band on the Run to the seasonally appropriate Wonderful Christmastime.

So many of the songs on this list are so engrained not just in the minds of fans but as a soundtrack to everyone's lives. Hey Jude, the song McCartney wrote to comfort Julian Lennon when his dad went off with Yoko had as all standing singing our hearts out, as did All You Need is Love and Give Peace a Chance.

Edit this setlist | More Paul McCartney setlists

The second encore was all about contrasts. We were jetisonned out of our Yesterday and Mull of Kintyre mellowness (complete with band of piping children from the Loretto school in Edinburgh) by a lively, raucous and loud performance of Helter Skelter. Not that that song could ever be anything other than loud of course.

By the end of the evening, the Responsible Adult had turned. She was still Responsible, but Paul had won her over.

All of these songs, are, of course, available on You Tube to watch any time, but there is no substitute for being there, in the epicentre of that cauldron of emotion, with 11,000 others enjoying, revering, getting lost in the music every bit as much as you are. I'm so glad I took the opportunity to go while I had the chance. One of the themes of this year for me has really been about how important it is to appreciate what you have while you're lucky enough to have it, to seize the moment while you can. I'm glad we seized this one.

Update: How can I have forgotten the part where he sang "Here Today" an imagined conversation he'd have had with John Lennon, written shortly after his death.

And if I say I really knew you well,
What would your answer be?
If you were here today.
Uh, uh, uh, here today.

Well, knowing you,
You'd probably laugh and say
That we were worlds apart.
If you were here today.
Uh, uh, uh, here today.

But as for me,
I still remember how it was before
And I am holding back the tears no more.
Uh, uh, uh,
I love you, uh.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/paul+mccartney/here+today_20105758.html ]
What about the time we met? (what about the time?)
Well, I suppose that you could say
That we were playing hard to get.
Didn't understand a thing,
But we could always sing.

What about the night we cried? (what about the night)
Because there wasn't any reason
Left to keep it all inside.
Never understood a word,
But you were always there with a smile.

And if I say I really loved you
And was glad you came along.
Then you were here today,
Uh, uh, uh, for you were in my song.

Uh, uh, uh, here today.

And I should also mention, in contrast to that which had us all in tears, the jubilant rendition of Penny Lane, an addition to the set list for that concert alone.

Former MP John Barrett speaks out against ESA assessments for Cancer patients

2011-12-29T17:56:00.000Z

Regular readers will be aware of mine and George Potter's campaign against the Government's proposals to put Cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy through work capability assessments.

At the moment, if you have Cancer and are undergoing IV chemo, you don't have to undergo the assessments, but if you're on oral chemo, you do. Macmillan Cancer Support and others highlighted this discrepancy and the Government decided to make the system the same for both groups. Unfortunately, they've done it the wrong way round. Instead of extending the exemption to the people on oral chemo, they've taken it away from those on iv chemo.

Now, both types of treatment are pretty hardcore. Cancer cells respond only to the most heavy duty of toxins. Anyone undergoing chemo is unlikely to be able to work while they're having the treatment because of the nasty, debilitating, dramatic side effects which can range from ulcers to vomiting to exhaustion and just about everything in between.

Just after I launched the petition, John Barrett, our former MP for Edinburgh West contacted me and said that he supported what we were trying to do and said he was happy for us tell that to the world, or at least the small part of it which reads our blogs.

Many of us in Scotland knew at the time that John had just undergone surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his colon and was waiting to hear whether he'd have to undergo chemotherapy himself. It turns out that he does and will be starting this next month. Two weeks ago, he told the Scotsman about what he'd been through and how he wanted to tell everyone to use the NHS bowel cancer screening kit and not leave it gathering dust.

John has now told the Edinburgh Evening News that he wants the Government to rethink its plans for ESA. After objections from Macmillan, they were already undertaking a further consultation which will hopefully lead to them issuing an automatic exemption to everyone while they are undergoing treatment for Cancer.

He said:

“I’m speaking to my former parliamentary colleagues to say when this comes up they need to stop it.

“Macmillan are the experts. We should listen to what they and other charities are saying.”

I was not encouraged by the response from the DWP spokeswoman, however. She said:

“However, we do believe that assuming work is not an option for all cancer sufferers is not the right way ahead.”

Let's be realistic here. Cancer sufferers in the middle of treatment are unlikely to be able to work. They have enough to do dealing with the effects of the treatment. A medical certificate from a GP saying they're undergoing Chemo or Radiotherapy at the moment is all that should be needed for them to claim ESA. Once that treatment has finished, then, ok, resume the normal assessment system, but for goodness sake leave them alone while the toxins are doing their thing.

It bothers me that failure to return an ATOS form on time could mean that people lose their benefits. If that deadline falls at the wrong time in the treatment cycle and someone's too ill to complete the form, they will get a nasty shock next benefit day and they shouldn't have to go through that stress, and the stress of having to sort it all out, when they are so sick.

We also know that ATOS make mistakes. There's every possibility that they could decide that someone in the midst of chemo is fit for work and make them lose their benefit. Appealing that takes a long time and is also very stressful - not to mention they'll be expected to show evidence of job hunting if they're put back onto Job Seekers' Allowance or lose their benefit completely.

Asking for an exemption is not about writing people off forever, it's about recognising the debilitating effects of Cancer treatment while it's happening. Hopefully most people, once their treatment is over, will be fit enough to resume work and get on with their lives. If you agree with us that Cancer patients undergoing Chemo or Radiotherapy should be automatically exempt from these extra assessments, please sign our petition here and if you're a Lib Dem member, write to Party President Tim Farron (tim.farron@libdems.org.uk) and tell him how you feel. I know he's already looking into this, but I want him to be able to go to Nick Clegg and say he's had thousands of e-mails from party members who want us to stop the Government's proposals.

Can you do that today, please? Also please spread the word as widely as you can. I'm hoping that this should be winnable because there is literally no sense in wasting time and energy putting people through assessments when they're clearly too ill to work by the very nature of what's happening to them. It's the right thing to do.

BBC misogyny is so 2011

2011-12-29T13:09:00.000Z

You would expect, wouldn't you, that a public service broadcaster with a deserved reputation for quality as the BBC has, would be very careful to make sure that it didn't discriminate against any one group of people.

Unfortunately not. This year, the Corporation has fired off one insult after another at women and seems to be enjoying it.

The Corporation is more than happy to put together all or mostly male panels to discuss the issues of the day. Question Time is the biggest offender, but other current affairs programmes are as bad. How often have I watched Politics Scotland and not seen one female voice on it?

And what does it matter? Well, actually it does. Take, for example, the offensive and appalling way in which Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee Ian Davidson treated SNP MP Eilidh Whiteford. I'd say that the women across parties that I spoke to were almost all on Eilidh Whiteford's side, as I was. The boys, however, were allowed to brush it all off as inconsequential.

I wrote earlier this year about my complaint to the Corporation over the way its reporters spoke about Miriam Gonzalez Durantez during our Conference this year. More than three months on and after a follow up, no response has been received.

To add insult to injury, the shortlist for BBC Sports Personality of the Year was 100% male, cos women just don't do sport do they?  I mean, I don't even know that much about sport and I managed to suggest a good few names. Our own Jo Swinson, along with some other MPs, protested and the BBC was sniffy in its response.  Apparently allowing a virtually all male cast of newspaper sports editors, along with lads' mags such as Nuts and Zoo is fine by them.

And then yesterday, not having learned anything, BBC Magazine publishes its faces of 2011 - the women. They couldn't even think of an actual woman for December, so they picked Edinburgh Zoo's new panda Tian Tian, or Sweetie. Now, heaven knows I love that panda. She is gorgeous and I'm looking forward to seeing her snuggly little face again next week. Her place in that list, though, is completely inappropriate. I accept the list is women who have made the news rather than achieved highly, but even so, being human should be a pre-requisite.

Why pick the panda when in December you could have had Mona Eltahawy, the fearless and feisty journalist who's been reporting on Egypt's troubles for much of the year. At the end of November, she was beaten and sexually assaulted by the security forces there, an experience she wrote movingly and angrily about in the Guardian.  The Times' Caitlin Moran, who recently won the Galaxy Book of the Year for her brilliant How to be a Woman, could also have featured there.

In October, rather than pick a Spanish Duchess who got married, why not choose one of the Nobel Peace Prize winners, Tawakul Karman, who has put herself at great risk to champion the cause of women's rights in Yemen?

And why no mention for Elisabeth Sladen, the actress who played the character so many girls of my generation wanted to be: Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who?

You would also think that Angela Merkel would figure somewhere in that list. She is, after all, one of the key leaders in the Eurozone.

I was, however, pleased to see Gabrielle Giffords in the BBC's list. The Arizona Congresswoman's remarkable recovery after taking a bullet through the brain has been one of the most inspirational stories of the year. Sarah Burton, too, for designing Kate Middleton's wedding dress, showcased the Alexander MacQueen label to perfection and deserves her place.

But there's no place for either woman who wrote the stories behind two of the biggest films of the year, the final instalment of the Harry Potter series and Breaking Dawn Part 1.

Nor our excellent sporting champions like gymnast Tweddle, swimmer Rebecca Adlington or triathlete Chrissie Wellington.

But why does all this even matter anyway?

Sure, we have relatively decent rights for women in this country, but there are those who would limit maternity leave and employment protection given half a chance. We see from around the world what happens when we're not vigilant in advancing the feminist cause. Many of us were shocked to see Egyptian security forces viciously beat a female protestor the other week in footage. Well, that was nothing compared to what, according to yesterday's New York Times, they had in store for some for other women.  It's pretty obvious that these women's rights were violated - but we need to get to the stage where the violations don't happen in the first place.

But that's Egypt, not even a democracy. Nothing to do with us. Let's have a look at the USA then. This is a place where women are arrested for murdering their babies if they miscarry.  And there seems to be even more pandering to the religious right than usual in the race to be the Republican Presidential candidate as Digby's Hullabaloo wrote yesterday. It made me feel a bit queasy to see a report in the Daily Fail about a young girl who chose not to have chemotherapy when she was pregnant and who died when her baby was a few days old. These are heartbreaking choices, but it worries me that women who make the other choice risk disapproval and public censure. The pressure on women in the Bible Belt of the USA in that circumstance must be immense and I wouldn't like to think that women were pressured into choosing certain death for themselves.

We need to be talking much more openly about things like the effect of the free availability of internet porn on the behaviour of young men and their expectations from a sexual relationship. The potential for the sexual and violent abuse of young girls is clear.

Many girls and women spend too much time obsessing over their size and shape because a misogynist, male dominated media implies that finding a life partner is all that matters, and you have no chance of doing that if you don't conform to what they say is beautiful.

It's about time women were given their rightful, equal place in BBC coverage. Their misogyny is so last year. Let's hope that 2012 is the year when they start to wake up to the realities of life.

One hundred and ten years ago......

2011-12-29T10:25:00.000Z

.....today, my lovely Granny, Annie Souter, was born.

Here she is with me when I was a few months old.

I've written about her and her wonderful influence on me many times before.

When I was a little girl, every day she and her cairn terrier Cheeky would meet me from school and we'd walk back to her and my grandad's flat.

There, she would make endless cups of tea in a china cup with a saucer, poured from a metal teapot. I actually decided to sharpen up my ideas a few weeks ago and bought a proper teapot, although I don't think I could actually go the whole hog and have loose tea. The bags are much more convenient.

With the tea I'd have a mouthwatering array of pancakes, scones or cake. Granny loved to feed people and she always did it really well. Many years later, when Bob and I would go to visit her, she'd bring out more food than even we could eat.

If it was the holidays and I was there for lunch, her tattie soup, or mince and tatties or fried fish on Fridays were fabulous. I've never been able to recreate that particular joy in a bowl that was her tattie soup. It was one of the best things I've ever tasted in my life.

It was at Granny's that I had my secret stash of comics - it started off with Twinkle and moved on to Mandy, Judy and I'm sure there was one called Jinty at one point, but I may be making that up, and finally Blue Jeans and Jackie.

She always had stories to tell about the "olden days", about dogs she had had, about all sorts of things fascinating to a young child. When you think about it, she lived through 4 monarchs, 2 world wars and changes in technology that were incredible. I wonder what she'd make of a phone that carried round all your photos and music and could fit in a tiny pocket in your handbag.

She was well past retirement age when I was born and it must have been quite a challenge to have a baby and toddler full time when my parents were working, but she never showed it. By the time I went to school, she was in her 70s, but picked me up every day and looked after me in the holidays. And not just me - in the Summer holidays, my six cousins would be there for at least half the time.

Every day in the holidays we'd go to town to buy provisions. Those were the days when you'd go to the greengrocer if you wanted to buy vegetables, and you got them in a paper bag, then you'd go to the fish shop, which smelled properly of fish, and then you'd go to the butcher and the baker. You get my drift. To this day I love the indoor market in Inverness.

It's 16 years since Granny died and I miss her. I wish Anna, whose name had her in mind, had had the chance to know her. She was a lovely, kind and gentle lady and I feel so lucky that I had her in my life.

Hume reveals heartbreaking homelessness statistics

2011-12-28T14:55:00.002Z

I've long said that I want a Government to decide that it's going to sort out housing. During my years working for Willie Rennie as his caseworker, by far the biggest tragedy I could see unfolding before me was housing. Every week we'd have around 5 new families wanting, no, needing to be rehoused.

Maybe their family had grown or two families had amalgamated meaning a current property was too small. Maybe they'd had to take a private let, sacrificing their priority on the local authority list, but paying out more than they could afford in rent. Maybe a relationship had ended or they'd been put out by family. Maybe illness had meant that their current home was impossible for them. I remember returning once from holiday to the awful news that one person who'd been waiting for a long time to be rehoused had actually died.

The problem is, of course, that the supply of social housing has never recovered from Margaret Thatcher's "right to buy" policy. Forcing local authorities to sell houses at knock down prices and not letting them build any more has had horrendous consequences for people needing affordable housing today. There simply is not enough to go round.

In Scotland, the Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition between 1999 and 2007 passed legislation aimed at ending homelessness by 2012. Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament show that we are still some way from meeting that target.

It's horrifying to think that a minimum of 2000 families are living in temporary accommodation. This might, if they're lucky, be a flat, usually in the sort of area nobody would choose. However, they could be moved out of this to another part of their local authority area at any time. Imagine, for example, being made homeless in Dunfermline in the south west of Fife. You could be put in temporary accommodation in St Andrew's, a good hour away. How do you get your kids to school? How do you get to work if you do shifts at unsocial hours if you don't have a car? And you could be moved to another part of this pretty big kingdom at any time.

And that accommodation, like I said, might not be a flat. It might be bed and breakfast, in which case as a family you'd be expected to leave during the day. Where do you go? It might be a homeless hostel, where you have to share with strangers. Can you imagine how horrendously difficult it would be to live in those circumstances? Most people reading this will wake up in a warm house, with a washing machine to hand to clean their clothes and cooking facilities they can use when they feel like eating and space to rest and relax. There will doubtless be enough room for people to escape from each other when they've had a row. Imagine your whole life, your whole family in one room with possessions that you can carry. How would that affect a child?

Have a read of Shelter's article on what it's like to be homeless and you'll get an idea. The horror of the reality is being experienced now by far too many people and particularly children.

The Liberal Democrats' housing spokesman at Holyrood, Jim Hume, has today released the findings of his Freedom of Information requests to local authorities about the number of children and families in temporary housing. Glasgow, Aberdeenshire and South Lanarkshire aren't included, so this is a minimum figure. Basically we have 2073 families in temporary accommodation and this is at 1st October. 1271 had been there for more than 3 months and 779 for more than 6 months. By anyone's standards, that's just wrong.

Housing affects so much else, your health, your ability to work, your sense of security and it's vital that someone has the political will to sort it out. This is too important an issue for the SNP just to blame the coalition government for cuts or say that independence would sort everything out. They have £30 billion, the entire Scottish budget, to spend as they please. If they want to, they can build more houses with the powers they currently have rather than halve the budget and forget their pledge to build 6000 new houses every year. If they want to.

We need to have not just an intelligent debate, but actual action now to make sure that everyone in need has a roof over their head and a long term strategy in place to make sure it stays that way. It's not just about building new houses, it's about making better use of those we have. Ewan Hoyle has some ideas over at Lib Dem Voice about elderly people in larger houses sharing with younger people, maybe students, who help out with jobs around the place in a mutually convenient and non exploitative way.

It's not just homelessness we have to deal with, though, it's poor quality social housing with damp, condensation, leaky doors and windows and with appallingly bad energy efficiency so that they're difficult to keep warm. Something has to be done about them, too, and fast. There's no point in investing in education if kids haven't got somewhere warm to do their homework or they lie freezing in their beds at night.

I'll give the final word to Jim Hume:

“Thousands of families with children are facing a hard Christmas in temporary accommodation. We can only imagine how hard this is, especially for the 779 families that have been without a permanent home for over 6 months.
“January marks the beginning of the year in which Scotland’s homelessness commitment is due to be met. “The SNP Government must ensure that it’s fully committed to ending 2012 with every homeless person having access to a permanent home. “A good start will be looking again at its planned 50% cut to the affordable housing budget and Alex Neil needs to face up to his government’s U-turn on the 6000 new socially rented houses each year
“We also need to see a more innovative approach to tackling homelessness across Scotland. “We cannot afford to leave so many families out in the cold this Christmas.”

Review: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe #doctorwho Christmas Special

2011-12-28T13:00:00.126Z

There are spoilers in this, so if you're likely to throw a Twitter tantrum and block me if you find things out you don't already know, DO NOT read any further.

In recent years, one of the highlights of Christmas Day has been to gather round the television in the early evening for the Doctor Who Christmas Special. It's certainly more essential than watching the Queen in our house.

We've gone from the Sycorax running amok while the Tenth Doctor sleeps off his regeneration to the searing poignancy of the final build up to his farewell with a futuristic Titanic with Kylie as a waitress, an unwitting Doctor imposter and flying fish soothed only by Katharine Jenkins along the way.

What would this year have to offer?

Let's put it in context first. The last series saw the Doctor's public murder and private escape. Of course, it's an open secret amongst those close to him that he's still alive, but he's keeping a low profile and staying away from them. So, it's a lonely Doctor who's wandering around the universe getting himself into scrapes. He starts the episode by falling from a spaceship. If it were River, he'd be waiting with the Tardis swimming pool roof open or something, but there's nobody to catch him. He has to make do with fighting his way into a space suit, back to front, before crashing to earth in some sleepy little English village. Didn't he do that before and leave a little girl heartbroken?

Anyway, he finds himself at the bottom of a crater in 1938 and he's rescued and driven by Madge Arless, who seems to be a very accepting soul. Not many of us would casually help a spaceman from the future with a suit on the wrong way round - especially one who criticised their driving.

Three years on, Madge, played by Outnumbered mum Claire Skinner, receives the awful news that her RAF pilot husband has been killed in action just before Christmas. She decides not to tell her two children, Lily and Cyril, because she doesn't want them to forever associate Christmas with their Dad's death and packs up the family to spend the holiday at the unseen Uncle Digby's home, run by a mysterious and slightly bonkers caretaker - our Doctor. He's clearly going for the Mary Poppins style. The children's room, complete with hammocks has all sorts of magical treats.

However, typically, all that magic within their bedroom is not enough to keep young Cyril occupied. He just has to open the huge present under the Christmas tree downstairs - which is a portal into a magical world, just like Narnia. Like all good Who adventures, the main protagonists are separated and each work out bits of the story. A good idea of the Doctor's, to give the kids some happiness and fun, goes awry, as you might expect.

From flying fish twelve months ago, we've moved on to trees with little starry souls seeking escape before the landscape is plundered for energy. No parallels with anything modern there, then. Bill Bailey and Arabella Weir are absolutely brilliant as hapless representatives of the company destroying the forest. It just goes to show that there are jobsworths alive and well in the 24th century. Weir wrote about her experience for the Telegraph last week. These characters' contribution was quite brief but very funny and I want the Doctor to meet them sometime.

The way the story unfolds, which amounts to the ever accepting Madge carrrying an entire planet's worth of tree souls in her head and thinking them to their new home, is both funny and poignant and has an unintended consequence. However, Moffat did make a huge howler in an effort to shoehorn a superfluous plot line into the script. I'm fine with our heroes illuminating the time vortex at exactly the right spot to guide our RAF heroes home, but I'm not ok with stalking being shown as an appropriate courtship ritual. We learn through flashbacks that Madge's husband followed her home every night until she agreed to marry him. I'm sure it wasn't meant to be as offensive as it was, especially as he didn't much seem to mind having a wife who was as open and accepting of strange, futuristic concepts as Madge. However, it is simply not right for a bloke to repeatedly follow a woman through a lonely, dark, scary forest at night until he gets his way.

Earlier in the episode, the Doctor tells the children that the TARDIS is his wardrobe. A casual glance at the clock as the wartime story concluded told me there was more to come. As soon as Madge claps eyes on the TARDIS, she knows that the caretaker is the man she helped out all these years ago and when he tells her he can't see his friends cos they think he's dead, she basically tells him not to be so daft.

He then turns up at Rory and Amy's TARDIS like house. I have to say I'm not convinced that our Amy is so po faced that she'd take a water pistol to carol singers, but what was undeniable about that scene was the amazing on screen chemistry between Karen Gillan and Matt Smith. I know that there probably wasn't much further to go in the whole Amy-Rory-River story arc, but last week's news, announced by Steven Moffat, that Karen and Arthur Darvill would be leaving in the new series, made me very unhappy. I wouldn't have minded if they were to disappear but remain contactable, like Sarah Jane Smith did, but it seems that there will be some heartbreak involved. Why? It's just not necessary to do that to much loved characters. I wonder if it'll involve them going back to the library to try to get River out of the computer. You never know.

But back to the matter in hand. The Doctor's Christmassy indulgence in going back to Amy and Rory's will surely have alerted the Silence that he's still alive. After all, even the most incompetent group of people would keep an eye on their enemy's associates, just in case.

The Doctor, the Witch and the Wardrobe was searingly sad in places. Watching Madge having to experience that emotional pain to the maximum was really tough but, unlike last year, we know that the pain ends there. There were moments of comedy gold and some good old sentimentality. Moffat took the idea of Narnia and, as Louis Walsh would say, made it his own. I'm not quite sure he'd remind anyone of a young C S Lewis, though. It wasn't my favourite Christmas Special and, to be honest, I think I preferred the flying fish last year, but it ticked all the boxes it needed to tick.

It's going to be a long wait for the new series.

Nick Clegg's New Year Message 2012 - the economic rescue mission continues

2011-12-28T11:30:00.009Z

He's being slated in some quarters for being too gloomy. How we'd all have mocked, though, if he'd come out and told us that it would all be fine and 2012 would see the economy turned around. We're not daft, he knows it and he's not in the business of spurting out the old bovine scatology.

He's right to point out the changes we're making in the Government regarding pensions, the Pupil premium and raising of the tax threshold. These things are in effect now and he also throws in some longer term Lib Dem gains like the Green Investment Bank and ensuring that our economy isn't based on the highs and lows of the City of London but is on a much more sustainable footing.

What's also good is that he's taken each Liberal Democrat achievement and linked it to a cherished value of ours.

I am not sure that he's quite got the language right yet. There have been some improvements in communications this year. We started the year with the wince-inducing "Alarm Clock Britain" which seems, thankfully, to have been put out of its misery. What Nick says is perfectly sensible, but not yet emotional enough to engage people.

In the original draft, there was an apostrophe missing. This is not a good thing. I had to edit it, otherwise I'd have come out in hives.

The text in full is here:

This time last year I spoke about how the most important job for Liberal Democrats was dealing with the economic problems we inherited. 12 months on, that task remains the number one priority for our party and the Coalition.

We have had to make some very difficult decisions, but they've been the right ones for the long term good of our country.

But that economic rescue mission is not over yet. That's why, thanks to the Liberal Democrats, the Coalition has been helping people get through these difficult times with measures to make life fairer and easier.

2011 was the year we lifted nearly a million low paid workers out of paying income tax altogether and cut taxes for 23m people - because I believe putting money back into people’s pockets makes all the difference.

It was the year more than a million children got a fairer start in life, with extra support at school through our Pupil Premium and free early years education for toddlers - because I believe that helping the youngest take their first steps in life makes all the difference.

It was the year we guaranteed pensioners a decent increase in their pension - because I believe dignity in retirement makes all the difference.

Throughout, we have taken big long-term decisions that will change the way our economy works for the better - rebalancing it away from the City of London towards stronger, more sustainable growth.

And next year we will do more. The world's first Green Investment Bank putting millions into green jobs and growth; our youth contract to get every young person out of work earning or learning; more apprenticeships than this country has ever had before; and we will take further steps to make our tax system fairer too.

What we're doing as a party, and as a Coalition, it's not easy, but it's right. We are putting the interests of the country first, and we have taken the first steps towards building a fairer, greener and more liberal country.

The next year will be one that poses many great challenges for everyone in Britain, but I know we must continue to do what's right for our country.

And with that, I wish you all a very happy New Year.

An afternoon at the Beatles Story

2011-12-28T09:55:00.020Z

The adventures of two Beatles obsessives and a Responsible Adult in Liverpool, Part Two

(Part One of this merry tale is here)

After a suitable break for Christmas, I thought I'd continue telling you about our adventures in Liverpool last week.

The first thing I want to say is that we all pretty much fell in love with Liverpool. It's such a warm city. I don't mean in climate, as although the papers all said it was unseasonally warm, we spent most of the time freezing. The people are incredibly friendly and open, though and the cabbies don't try to rip you off. Slightly frustrating was a trip to the Liverpool One shopping centre and finding that those toys which you can't get for love nor money up here were piled high. This was after I'd sourced a particular Moshi Monsters thing from the internet and paid over the odds for it for my niece. If only I'd known....

When we arrived we walked from Lime Street station through the beautiful town centre. We loved the fact that it was pedestrianised from the station right to our hotel.

We were peckish after we'd checked in at our hotel, so we went in search of lunch. We ended up eating from street stalls pretty inexpensively. The Responsible Adult and I had mustard chicken and garlic potatoes from the French themed one. It was absolutely delicious, piping hot and well cooked. We loved it. Laura had a Thai Green curry from another stall which also looked fresh and appetising.

We then decided to head down to the Albert Dock. I was old enough to remember the days when This Morning was broadcast from a studio there and weather forecasts were broadcast from a map of Britain floating in the water. It annoys me now to look up and discover that it's 15 years since they broadcast there. I surely can't be that old. The studio itself is now a bar called Pan Am.

We then headed to the Beatles Story, which describes itself as an "atmospheric journey into the life, times, culture and music of the Beatles". I guess we've become quite accustomed to very interactive exhibits, but in this place there's none of that. You have an audio guide and there are thousands of things to look at that. You can make your way round at your own pace. We had a couple of hours in there and for Laura and I it was nowhere near enough. Like wide eyed, excited children, we pored over things like the programme for the fete where Paul McCartney first saw John Lennon (though they didn't actually meet until the gig that evening), letters written by Brian Epstein,a suit donated by John Lennon for his waxwork at Madame Tussaud's. Now, while every single object was a delight to be examined from every possible angle for us, the Responsible Adult soon got bored. She was very patient and, to her credit, it took her nearly 2.5 hours before she snapped and hustled us out of there lest we be late for the concert.

The exhibition took us on a chronological journey through Beatles history, starting with a mock up of the Casbah club - a right dive if the formica table and packets of Marlboro are to be believed. We went through the Cavern years, the Epstein years, sat on a mock up of a jet while watching footage of them arriving in the USA and looked through the periscope of the Yellow Submarine. There weren't many places to sit down, but the exhibits provided some opportunities before we unfit people almost collapsed from exhaustion. We lived through the psychedelic era and the pain of the eventual split before the celebrations of the 4 as separate artists since.

I want, actually need, to go back there, because I only managed to properly pore over about 10% of the exhibits to my satisfaction. The staff there are also really friendly and knowledgable, probably because they are fans themselves. As it happens, one of them, the lovely Charlotte, was sitting right in front of us at the concert and her devotion to Paul was very clear, shall we say?

A place run on Charlotte's level of enthusiasm and love for the Beatles can't be bad.

And now, a wee test. Two photos of the Cavern Club stage. Which is real and which is the mock up in the Beatles Story?

Wise words from Willie Rennie at Christmas

2011-12-27T10:55:00.024Z

This is Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Willie Rennie's Christmas message, released last Friday. I put it up on Lib Dem Voice then, but thought I'd let you have another chance to see it here.

“As we gather with friends and family this Christmas, it is important that we, both individually and collectively, look back, take stock and reflect on the last year. "There is no doubt it has been an extremely testing time for political leaders with falling budgets, economic turbulence, growing unemployment and social problems that threaten to rip the fabric of society.

“Making decisions when there are no easy answers is difficult but those problems are nought compared with those who are unemployed, face the threat of unemployment or are struggling to make ends meet.

“To be fair, this is the focus of all politicians I know and work with daily. We may disagree on the decisions but share the objective.

“Robust debate, however, is required even in the most challenging of circumstances. To simply agree even if we have a different opinion would be wrong as people need politicians who test, debate and inquire so that ultimate decisions reflect the best possible option.

“Over the last year Scottish Liberal Democrats have focussed on building strong communities across Scotland that offer opportunities for all; from people who want to set up their own business to young people who want to gain the skills and education needed to get up and get on. “While the Coalition Government works to get the economy back on track from the mess that Labour left behind, here in Scotland we have to make the right choices with the resources we have to support people through these tough times. “That is why, as Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, I have engaged in vigorous debate to ensure we get the best deal possible.
“While the Nationalists play a game of political poker, bluffing their way from one missed opportunity to the next, I am determined to focus on what matters to the vast majority who just want a fair shake in life. “To those looking for a new job, a more secure job or to create more jobs, Scottish Liberal Democrats have pressed for the £500 million of extra investment from Westminster to be spent on an economic boost through investing in improving train services and some of the most dangerous roads in Scotland. “To those looking for skills, training and education opportunities, Scottish Liberal Democrats have argued that college places under threat from SNP cuts must be protected. I have started a campaign to save the 9000 student places that could go in Scotland next year if the SNP continue to dither and delay. “And to the 150,000 Scots who are languishing on housing lists and the 2000 families with children who will be spending Christmas in temporary accommodation, Scottish Liberal Democrats have been forthright in our view that eradicating homelessness should be a top priority in Scotland. “I believe that on jobs, on skills, on housing, the SNP have made the wrong decisions as they are too focussed on splitting Scotland from the UK.
“Scotland needs strong liberal voices to make the right calls that benefit communities in Scotland in the long term. “We must not fail in this task. With one eye on the future we say farewell to the challenges of the last year and look forward to the opportunities that the next could bring if the right choices are made. “Wherever you are, I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas."

I thought this was very serious, reflective and grown up, acknowledging that all politicians here have the same goal, to improve jobs, education, housing, but different ideas on how to achieve those ends. Interestingly, not one single word about independence, the referendum or the Scotland Bill. This year, he's rightly raised some serious issues on these matters, but his priorities always have been the things that matter to people in their day to day lives.

Next year, I want him to think about putting his Christmas message out on You Tube. It's not hard these days to do. His Facebook is also full of how he's been all over the country visiting carers, homeless and drugs projects, businesses, all sorts of places. I think we need to have more video of him talking about these things.

Christmas chez Caron

2011-12-26T11:28:00.001Z

I'm feeling mellow from a very quiet but lovely day yesterday. The house is full of that glorious aroma of the turkey stock being made and my mouth is watering at the anticipation of a hearty plate of broth at lunchtime.

I've been a bit knackered since our exertions in Liverpool so after 3 hours in the shops on Christmas Eve, I wondered how on earth I'd manage to get all I needed done by the end of the day. The good news is that barring the writing of a few cards (sorry, friends, I do love you, really) and a lot of tidying, I pretty much made it. By the time the Outnumbered Christmas Special came on, the mince pies and stuffing were both made and we were pretty much organised.

We woke up late even for us on Christmas morning. I rose at 9, two hours later than usual, to get intimate with the poultry. As if by magic, as the last streaky bacon rasher went across its breast, Bob and Anna awoke. That's pretty impressive, you have to admit.

Anna was delighted with the contents of her stocking which included some very funny t-shirts. I'm not sure Santa was thinking straight when he gave her stuff with small writing across her chest, mind you, even if they were genius. The traditional satsumas were replaced this year by grapefruit., which she really enjoys.

Downstairs, the old man had left pretty much exactly what she wanted. She hadn't given us much of a clue as to what she'd asked him for this year, but we were glad that her wishes were fulfilled. We've finally been dragged into the 21st century with an xBox. That's quite convenient because in the Summer she won a Harry Potter xBox game at the Dare Protoplay event. I am very proud to have a daughter who hasn't found it hard to wait 4 months for the console to play it on. In fact, even yesterday, she was much more interested in getting stuck into her stash of John Green books.

The one remarkable thing is that for the first time ever, no music changed hands in our house. We usually have loads of new music to listen to, but absolutely nothing this year. However, I did download the Military Wives Choir song later in the day.

I love my family for many and varied reasons, but yesterday it was for the general excellence of the presents they gave us. Harry Potter Cluedo from my sister, a very funny book of politically correct bedtime stories from my niece and a thing that you can programme to defrost the car for you in the morning from my parents. If there's anything I can't stand, it's an iced up car so I'm looking particularly forward to using that one.

After the present opening, I got on with making the dinner. We tend to have one massive course at around 3pm and then let it settle for several hours before we have our pudding. I used to make absolutely everything from scratch but have not been quite so clever the last few years. Glandular Fever and two horrendously snowy Winters put paid to that a bit but this year was quite a good balance between home made and shop bought. Here is a list of everything we had:

Turkey (Tesco finest free range effort, bought for 2/3 of its original price) cooked the Delia Smith way;

Gravy (this is immodest, I know, but it was pretty awesome. I have never made it with giblet stock before, but that's definitely the way to go.

Grandma's stuffing - very simple, sausagemeat, loads of onion and 5 teaspoons of English mustard;

Honey, chestnut and rosemary stuffing ball things from Sainsbury's. A tad over seasoned, but very good.

Marks and Spencer beef dripping roast potatoes - yes, I know, home made are probably better but not that much and we all love them.

Marks and Spencer maple, honey and mustard roast parsnips - they do all the chopping for you, why not?

Sainsbury's red cabbage with apple

Marks and Spencer Cranberry and Port Sauce. A mistake - Delia's Cranberry and Orange is a zillion miles better.

Steamed brocoli and brussels sprouts;

Mashed turnip ( some of the cooking water went in the gravy also);

Mashed Potato;

Delia's bread sauce.

Sainsbury's sausage and bacon garnishes. Seriously, why would you waste time wrapping a chipolata in bacon when someone has done it for you?

Even though I say it myself, it all combined well to make it one of my best ever efforts in 25 years of cooking Christmas Dinners. It's a meal I really enjoy preparing.

We didn't have our pudding until almost 10 pm. I made Eton Mess for Anna. Why on earth I felt I had to whip the cream by hand when we have a perfectly good mixer, I don't really understand, but never mind. We had a Sainsbury's Christmas pudding with Brandy Cream. It wasn't the best, to be honest. Maybe 2012 will be the year when I finally make my own. I'd found a 7 year old Sauternes dessert wine in the cupboard the other day and we wondered if it would be ok to drink. Sadly, it wasn't, but we had to try.

Even though it's delicious on the day, for me the real joy of a turkey roast is leftovers. Cold stuffing and bread sauce on sandwiches, a healthy broth that will fight off anything for Boxing Day lunch, and the whole thing again for dinner.

We passed the rest of our day with books and less television than usual. The Doctor Who Christmas special was excellent bar one appalling moment. Strictly wasn't quite so delightful. I couldn't believe the marks that were being given for what was essentially a week one show - did the producers think we were all too drunk to care. However, the re-appearance of Russell Grant and seeing Ian Waite back as a competitor made up for any of these shortcomings.

I had been a little sceptical about the re-appearance of Absolutely Fabulous after so long. Could it really be as good? Actually, it could. It was absolutely hilarious, complete with a typically brilliant Jennifer Saunders dream sequence which was not the most unrealistic part of the show. The efficient and helpful service by a certain Government department was way more incredible. Although, to be fair, that one, in my experience, was always much better than the rest.

And so, after despairing at Steve McDonald's stupidity in Corrie, it was time for bed where I read all about the co-dependent Goats Gruff and Red Riding Hood setting up effectively a hippy commune with her Grandma and the wolf before falling into a very chilled out sleep.

A Very Merry Christmas to all of you

2011-12-25T08:40:00.001Z

And after this week, what else could I possibly put up here?

He sang it on Tuesday night.

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I hope that you have health, peace and contentment all the way through 2012.

Tim Farron's Christmas Message - and my challenge to him for 2012

2011-12-23T12:33:00.000Z

This is the young Mr Farron's Christmas message to all party members and it's everything you'd expect from him. Great to see our Alex Cole Hamilton quoted in it too.

Here's why.

Here's the whole thing for you to enjoy.

Dear Caron,

Well that was quite a year, wasn’t it? It was a good one too!

I know, I know, after the referendum and the horrible results in May you’d be forgiven for believing we were sinking faster than Blackburn Rovers (how it pains me to write that), but you know what, it’s not true.

This year we did some amazing things, things you and I have wanted to do for years but never had the power to actually get done.

For one, we put an end to the horrific practice of locking up innocent kids behind bars for months on end in immigration removal centres.

Alex Cole-Hamilton, one of our brilliant MSP candidates who missed out on a seat in May, said that if his loss was in some way a down-payment on ending child detention then “I accept it with all my heart”.

But that was just one of many ways Liberal Democrats in the Coalition put our principles into practice this year.

We took nearly a million of the poorest workers out of paying tax altogether and gave a £200 tax cut not to the rich but to 23m working people.

We gave children extra support to stop them falling behind in school.

We gave pensioners the first meaningful rise in the state pension since Thatcher abolished the earnings link.

Nick Clegg stood up to defend human rights after the riots and for Europe against the Tory right-wingers.

You stood up for the NHS and forced real change.

Would all of that have happened if we let the Tories run the country on their own? I hardly need to answer that.

And we’ve really turned a corner in council by-elections in the last six months, with seven gains, eight holds and just three losses.

So I’m proud of our year and I hope you are too.

Next year will be hard too. We need to carry on doing difficult things and we need to work with our traditional opponents to clear up Labour’s mess and put the country back on track. As Nick said at conference, it’s not easy, but it is right.

So 2012 is a big year for us. A very big year. But our prospects are better than Blackburn Rovers’!

Happy Christmas.

Tim Farron

Liberal Democrat Party President

I will allow myself a little whinge - boo to the constant football references. I get the gist but they're tiresome. My challenge to our President for the New Year is to get through an entire Conference speech without one single football reference. I would be loathe to doubt our President's ability to do anything, but I really think he'd struggle with this one.

Also, he missed out how we have made crucial and much needed changes to Housing Benefit - first of all getting rid of the reduction to 90% after a year and on additional rooms and also on making sure people in residential homes don't lose the right to claim the mobility component of DLA. Those are two important examples of how our influence in Government is showing itself.