Liberator magazine has a new blog!

Well, Liberator magazine has gone all New Statesman on us! The magazine for radical liberals has launched a new blog.

I'm pleased to see that the collective will now be able to give their take on events in between issues of their magazine.

I did have a slight facepalm moment when I read their Comments Policy - "Play the ball not the man." For goodness sake, I thought we had all learned about using more inclusive language.  My one criticism of Liberator is that it can sometimes be a bit blokey. I'm not sure that they really understand the many ways our culture harms women and restricts their freedom. Maybe I should write something about that for them....

The policy itself sits closer to the Liberal Democrat Voice comments policy (be polite, stay on topic, be who you say you are) than to the almost free-for-all that I allow on here. It basically says be polite,legal, on topic and makes it clear that any comment which breaks those rules will not be published.  I hardly ever reject comments. I did junk an anonymous one the other day which named someone in connection with the child abuse scandals, and I didn't publish the one that called me a "f***ing disgusting racist nazi whore" but that's about it. You can see by reading many of the threads on here that I have a fairly high tolerance level and allow more rudeness than I probably should - and even then I get certain of our cybernat friends whinging.

Anyway, despite all that, Liberator is always a great read and I always learn something from it. It is sometimes hamstrung by not being able to respond immediately to things and the blog is a very welcome addition to online debate.

My Liberator article on where now for the Scottish Liberal Democrats

I wrote an article for the last Liberator on the future for the Scottish Liberal Democrats in the wake of a bruising election result.

The new edition is now out so the old one is available online here. It'sprobably very wrong and utterly egotistical that the only time I've drawn your attention to the publication that's in many ways the Party's conscience is when I've written in it, but it is worth reading. I let my subscription lapse for a couple of years and regretted it. I've now got it up and running again and can definitely recommend it.

Alongside my article, there's a critique of the ill-fated Yes 2 AV campaign from James Graham, Peter Black explaining how the Welsh remained relatively intact in the elections, Dinti Batstone urging the appointment of more women to the Lords and a particularly fascinating article by Nigel Scott, a Haringey Liberal Democrat Councillor on the campaign to free Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito,convicted in Italy of the murder of student Meredith Kercher. He outlines the flaws in the Italian judicial system.

I have to say that I share his concerns. Many years ago now, my sister-in-law and her boyfriend ended up in jail in Italy for a short period, but it took literally years to clear their names and cost a fortune. The Italian judicial system is certainly flawed and difficult to negotiate.

Anyway, go and have a read of this edition and let me know what you think of any of the articles.

Lord Bonkers turns Agony Aunt

Oh my, His Esteemed Noble Lord Bonkersness is turning his next Liberator diary into an advice column.

This is going to be hilarious. I haven't looked forward to anything quite so much since Cathy and Claire's advice column in Jackie in the 1970s.

And it promises to be much more useful, and probably more controversial, than the one Jordan did for OK! magazine up until she fell out of favour with Mr Desmond.

Whether you're a party leader balancing needs of family, party and coalition partner, or a rookie candidate on your first campaign, Lord Bonkers, who has more than a century of political experience, will put you right.

If you want to read His Lordship's esteemed wisdom, you'll have to subscribe to Liberator, the radical underbelly of the party. Make sure you go to Liberator.org.uk, though, not Liberator.co.uk, because the latter sells sex furniture. Not quite the same thing.........

But, of course, an advice column would be nothing without problems to solve, so if you need some confidential advice, you can submit your problems to him. There is potential for a lot of fun, here, people..............