Annihilation and Wild Garlic - Alex Cole-Hamilton hits the blogosphere

Yesterday afternoon saw the Edinburgh Central thank you party. The campaigners and activists gathered to eat some delicious food (that banana cake, that table, that chocolate cheesecake thingy, yum) and do all the thanking and being thanked that's associated with these events.

Clearly, and unfortunately, we didn't manage to send Alex to Holyrood this time, but there was still some celebrating to be done. I was only a tiny part of the awesome campaign machine, but it was such a good experience and I've made friends I'll have for life. We've put a lot into this campaign, but we also got something back. Being part of something so positive, with so much camaraderie and teamwork is really good for the soul - and that team is determined to fight on together.

I can't imagine for a second Alex will stop campaigning - it's just not in his DNA, but he at least has some spare time now to spend with his lovely and rapidly expanding family whose newest member is expected this Summer.

It's good to see that he's hit the blogosphere again. He was one of the party's earliest bloggers, but had to give up in the run up to the 2007 election. It is true that Those Who Think They Should Be Obeyed in the Party asked him to stop, which I thought was wrong. However, even if they hadn't, it's hard to see how someone of even Alex's energy could manage to keep up blogging and campaigning at that intensity.

Anyway, get Liberal Landslide into your bookmarks and blogrolls because he has a lovely way of writing - very refreshing and original.

If our hopefully soon to be confirmed new leader Willie Rennie has any sense, and I think it might just be possible that he does, he'll get Alex into some sort of role which involves him motivating party members and communicating Liberal values to the Scottish public. He is one of party's brightest lights and it's important that we get him out there as much as possible. He may not have made it to Holyrood this time, but he's a vital part of the Scottish Liberal Democrat future.

My video blog for Scotland Votes: the inside story

Remember last Tuesday I wrote about how scared I was, going off to make a video blog. Well, there's nowhere to hide any more. It's up. And I could just ignore it, but I thought it would be best if you were exposed to it alongside my plea in mitigation.

As some of you know, I write for the Steamie blog on the Scotsman website. We Steamie bloggers were invited to do a video blog to kick off the coverage of the Scottish elections for the Scotland Votes website.

I was mildly petrified at this, not just because of the face for radio issue.  It's not that I can't talk, as the field of donkeys without hind legs near my house can testify, it's just that doing it with a camera in my face tends to interfere with my natural flow. Anyway, I wasn't going to chicken out and last Tuesday morning gamely arrived at the headquarters of Weber Shandwick with lovingly prepared script in trembling hand.

Kez Dugdale had done hers the week before, filmed in front of a window. When I went, I was told to stand next to a mildly rude looking plant in front of a black wall. I joked at the time that it looked a bit funereal and I may have chosen not to wear a black top if I'd known that was going to happen, but never mind, you learn from experience.

My delivery is, shall we say, less than perfect. To my eternal shame, I completely mucked up the bit on civil liberties. It's just such a key issue for me and for us. I suspect whatever was close to the end was going to come into danger of running out of memory space. The finished article, though, is less bad than I remember.

The first take was a bit of a nightmare. When I watched it back, I realised that I was moving around, presumably with nerves. It looked like I was dancing. Seriously, you could have put on a backing track, so, second time around, I was concentrating on trying not to move as well as get the words out in approximately the right order.

Anyway, the evidence is below for you to judge for yourself. I think I should probably stick to written blogging in the future, but I actually did enjoy the experience, and Noman from Weber Shandwick, who filmed me, was so lovely and encouraging.




Like chefs deconstruct their signature dishes - you know, a Tiramisu becomes a bit of chocolate sponge next to a pile of gloop, I thought I'd deconstruct the video by letting you have a look at the script I had prepared so you can see how the words should have come out:

I want to talk a bit about where the Scottish Liberal Democrats are at and highlight a couple of what are for me key issues.  We’re in upbeat and determined mood. Alex Cole-Hamilton in Edinburgh Central has built a vibrant grassroots campaign that’s seen him knock on over 10,000 doors since last Summer. The reception we’re getting across Scotland is much warmer than the opinion polls would suggest, I think because people like what we’re about.

Even at a time when money is very tight, we’ve made the tax system fairer – from April, 90,000 Scots on low incomes won’t have to pay tax any more. Labour talk about a living wage for public sector workers, but already we’re doing something better which covers everybody, including pensioners.  

As the mother of an 11 year old, for me it’s all about education. I want my daughter to have an education that challenges her to the absolute limits of her capability.  I don’t want her teachers being dictated to by a minister in Edinburgh – they know her best and they should decide how and what she learns.

No child should ever be held back because of their background. Even with free university education, only 1 in 5 students comes from the poorest areas in Scotland.  That has to be tackled and I think that the Liberal Democrat idea of a pupil premium, extra money, targeted on those kids will make a huge difference.

The Lib Dem approach to public services has always been that they should be people centred, with decisions made as locally as possible. I’ve been very worried by the rush to create one national police force. I think it’s ridiculous – policing needs in Rogart, or Findhorn or Campbeltown are very different from priorities in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

I remember the worry of my husband being out of work for nearly a year in the mid 90s. That’s happening to too many people now. Lib Dems have ambitious plans to grow our economy, so all of Scotland can benefit, to create long term, stable skilled jobs in areas where we excel, like green technology and renewable energy.  

For me, personal freedom and civil liberties are hugely important Last year we voted against the almost casual quadrupling of pre-charge detention in an afternoon. We take freedom seriously and always instinctively fight for it.

I want to leave you with three things  which sum up what the Liberal Democrats will be campaigning on this year – freedom, opportunity and giving power to local people.

Hold on to your hats - Falchikov hits the blogosphere

I don't really like to admit to the fact that it's a whole quarter of a century since I arrived in Aberdeen as a wide eyed and innocent student. One of the first people I met was Dan Falchikov. He was unique, funny and generally fabulous.

I was thrilled today to discover that he's hit the blogosphere at Living on Words Alone - I was surprised that someone with so many opinions as he does has left it so long. I confidently expect not to agree with him a great deal, but please bookmark him now, because he'll be good to read.

Scottish Bloggers and Blog Readers - help compile report on Scottish Blogosphere

Those nice people at Weber Shandwick, who run the Scotland Votes site are doing a survey both of blog readers and blog writers so that they can compile a report on the state of the Scottish Blogosphere early next year.

The Blog Readers' Survey is here.

The Blog Writers' Survey is here.

They really don't take long, and the more people who complete it the more accurate it will be.  And if you felt moved to mention this humble blog in dispatches, you would make me very happy. And if you are a woman blogger,  please most especially fill this in so that people get the idea that the blogosphere is not just a bunch of boys.

In support of William and Ffion Hague - politicians have a right to a private life

I know I'm a big softie, but when I read William Hague's unprecedented personal statement, I actually had a tear in my eye. It must have been really difficult for both him and Ffion to be so frank about their personal situation.

I certainly don't have much time for him politically - he took the Tory Party into a very bad place on issues like immigration and fought a very nasty campaign in 2001. It's worth remembering that Charles Kennedy had the good sense not to pander to the Daily Fail lobby, hold his ground and kept to a liberal message. We defied expectations and held onto the huge number of seats in the south of England that we'd won in 1997.

Since his stint as Tory Leader, we've seen a much softer, more charming, funny side to him.  However, his voting record on equality issues, particularly gay rights, is, like that of many Tories, pretty abysmal. Personally, though, he comes across as very genuine and affable.

Today, after a couple of days of internet  innuendo, with the eye of the storm at Guido Fawkes' blog (which I'm not linking to cos I don't want to give him the Wikio love), William Hague issued a personal statement in which he cast some light on the allegations. Yes, he had shared a hotel room with the guy who until today was his special adviser, no, there was nothing untoward about it, and, actually, his marriage is fine, despite the strain put upon it by years of disappointment in their attempts to have children. He outlined that they had suffered several miscarriages, including one quite recently.

I've seen a fair bit of comment on this online, but none so perceptive and understanding as that written by Sara Bedford. She eloquently describes what you go through and why she feels for the Hagues.

It is bad enough finding that you cannot conceive a much longed for child, or that you lose such a child before you have told most people that you are expecting.  When it happens time after time, you do not know where you find the strength to go on with life, but you do. Having unsuccessful fertility treatment is in many ways even worse – the high of seeing all those beautiful embryos, then finding out that your body is not good enough to look after them.

 Only those who have been there repeatedly know just what it feels like. The endless well-meaning comments, asking when you are going to start a family, with the warning not to leave it ‘too late’. And if you are lucky enough to have one child, the remarks about not allowing her to be an only child soon follow, with dire warning about what will happen to her if you fail to provide her with a sibling.

The pressure of living a life not being able to tell people why you are not taking part in a particular activity, or why you are feeling unwell or look a little pale, is immense. Just as I don’t think those who have had the family they desire without too many problems can understand the very real pain of infertility, so I cannot imagine what it must be like to go through all of this with uninformed sniping about your relationship and sexuality.

This case  is an example of how real pain can be caused by unfounded speculation and innuendo. Not just the undoubted stress that William and Ffion's decision to reveal things they would undoubtedly have rathered remained private. You have to remember that a young activist, who has done nothing wrong, now has to work out how he's going to pay his rent this month.

I am worried, though, about what this whole sequence of events means for politicians' private life, and in particular this part of William Hague's statement:

This speculation seems to stem from the fact that whilst campaigning before the election we occasionally shared twin hotel rooms. Neither of us would have done so if we had thought that it in any way meant or implied something else.

In hindsight I should have given greater consideration to what might have been made of that, but this is in itself no justification for allegations of this kind, which are untrue and deeply distressing to me, to Ffion and to Christopher.

He has now told me that, as a result of the pressure on his family from the untrue and malicious allegations made about him, he does not wish to continue in his position. It is a pity that a talented individual should feel that he needs to leave his job in this way.

I am worried that we're going to get to the stage where politicians are scared to ever be alone with anyone for fear of innuendo being made of it. That would be utterly wrong - we need our politicians to be real human beings, capable of proper human interaction, not sterile, remote, aloof Stepford children who are scared to do anything in case it offends someone.

You can tell that Guido has never done a day's decent activism in his life. As a veteran of many election campaigns, I know that on the rare occasions you get to see a bed during the run up to an election, the only thing you want to do is sleep in it. I found it quite weird that Josh and Donna, and indeed many of the other Santos campaign operatives, found time to do otherwise at the culmination of an almost year long slog on the stump in the West Wing.

And as for Iain Dale, I do wish he wouldn't condemn the entire political blogosphere because of the actions of one prat. Especially when he devotes such huge amounts of time and energy into organising his blog awards. I mean, you don't decry the editor of the Guardian because of yet another outrage by the Sun. You don't say it's a bad day for books because Jackie Collins publishes a new novel. The existence of Green and Black's dark chocolate isn't demeaned by the appalling, bland Hershey's Kisses.

The way our politicians should be judged is on what they do in office. Tony Blair, for example, was exemplary in his private life which must have annoyed the tabloids no end, but he did some terrible, terrible things. He restricted our civil liberties, played merry hell with habeas corpus and set in course a train of events which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. And he's so bloody arrogant, he'd do it all again.

I like the frankness so far exhibited by this Government, especially in foreign affairs, with David Cameron describing Gaza as a prison camp and Nick Clegg decrying the lack of international aid to Pakistan. It's inconceivable that these things would have been said without the say so of the Foreign Secretary.

On the other hand, the failure to sign up to the latest European Directive on Human Trafficking is a big fail as Stephen has pointed out. This needs sorting and fast.

It's public deeds, not private lives that should define our politicians.

A Facelift for the Blog

I've finally plucked up the courage to play around with the formatting of the blog for the first time in the almost 4 years.

I'm still not sure about it. It's a bit like having your hair cut short after years of having it long.

I played around with the new options on the Blogger Template Designer for a while. I rejected some on the grounds that they had too much blue in them. Maybe a bit oversensitive about the coalition but I didn't want to give up too much Liberal orange.

I have to tell you that Anna absolutely hates the new design, because she liked the spots on the old one, although she has been somewhat mollified by the inclusion of her portrayal of the Lib Dem logo behind the title. I'd no idea she'd done it. I was looking through my photos looking for a suitable image and found it. Clearly she's picked up on the colour change to aqua that's been seeping in over the past year.

Anyway, I had some trouble getting the links to stand out enough. I've played around with the colours so I hope that's improved things.

What do you think of the new look?