"Tory Councillor Arrested"

I hear that a Conservative Councillor in Brentwood, Essex has been arrested under the Public Order Act following an incident involving a 22 year old Lib Dem canvasser who was apparently surrounded by a group of Conservatives....

I don't want to name any names until I see some independent confirmation..

Typing left handed

After about 25 years of delivering leaflets , it's finally happened today - I got bitten by a dog.(well, I didn't actually see or hear it - so it could have been anything).

So I'll use a stick from now on.

I have to say, Basildon A and E were very quick and pleasant.

Has this happened to any other Lib Dem Bloggers?

Where are you George?

I'm never complacent at election time but things are going moderately well. Latest local news is on our onlinefocus .

However, we've hit one snag. When we told one of our new candidates that she could have anyone as her counting agent, she chose George Clooney. Not something easy to arrange at short notice.

Besides, he's probably already a counting agent in one of the more high-profile places, like Islington.

"there is reportedly nothing he can do to prevent his existence from slowly marching toward its inevitable conclusion."

Well, another year , another election address - and another photo of me which will be the standard one for the next 12 months or so and is now in my blogger profile. So out goes the one that was allegedly "Cameronesque" (presumably David Cameron, not Doctor Cameron) and in comes a photo that ,well, makes me look more like 50 than 40.

Well, I am 47. And then I depressed myself slightly by finding this...

Every Agent's Nightmare

To quote from tonight's Southend Evening Echo :

THE Labour Party has been left without election candidates in five Southend Council wards after a freak theft.

Nomination papers for next month's elections were stolen from the back seat of a car minutes before they were to be submitted.

One of the wards the party is now unable to contest is Prittlewell, where Ian Gilbert had been selected to challenge council leader Anna Waite.

Mr Gilbert, 27, who was Labour's youngest candidate, said: "I was looking forward to fighting on local issues in an important election."

The papers were stolen from the back seat of a car belonging to Southend West constituency secretary Ron Kennedy, who had stopped in Tintern Avenue, Westcliff, to get signatures from two party members before handing the forms in at the Civic Centre.

You have to feel very sorry for the people involved , but clearly Labour were leaving things until the last minute. Here in Rayleigh our (excellent) agent Ron took our six papers in last Thursday. One paper was rejected because of a query over one letter of a polling number. But Ron had given himself plenty of time to sort it out...

The result in Prittlewell last time was:
Conservative 1303
Lib Dems 926
Labour 338
Greens 279

Those Other Lords

Inquiries into the so-called "Loans for Lordships" scandal dramatically widened today when two further Lords were interviewed by the Metropolitan Police.

One of them , Labour peer Lord Voldemort of Little Hangleton, has aroused suspicion because the precise circumstances of his elevation from plain Thomas Riddle to Lord Voldemort are somewhat obscure even to most political journalists.

In a rare public statement, Voldemort said "There's nothing wrong with me giving financial help to Labour, they are the party most in line with my own beliefs. They want an aspirational country, and I'm pretty aspirational myself. Restricting civil liberties, new powers to arrest people, taking control of people's identities, all seems fine stuff to me. Mind you, some of Blair's men do frighten me a little - I wouldn't like to have that Clarke opposing me, but I don't suppose we are likely to disagree on very much.

I'm not saying there aren't interesting figures in other parties. That Menzies Campbell - with a name like that, I'm sure he's a pure-blood. And his comment at PMQs about the vacancies for school headships, well he's pretty spot on there..."


Another peer, disgraced and reclusive landowner Lord Sauron , would only say a few words, indicating that, whoever he had supported in the past, he was now disillusioned about Labour. "When I think about how much I trusted that man... 'You must invade Gondor' he said, 'They have weapons of mass destruction... '. I swear, I'd go over to the BNP, only they are prejudiced against my orcs..."

Those Lords

Last weekend I went to a very pleasant evening arranged by Basildon and Thurrock LIb Dems. Highlights of the evening were a very heartfelt farewell presention from one veteran Lib Dem Basildonian (Geoff Williams) to another (Joe White) and an entertaining and thought-producing speech from Baroness Ros Scott

"Of course I didn't buy my peerage"

she said

"I'm a Liberal Democrat.
I won it in a raffle."

New Kid on the Loch

A warm welcome to new blogging Lib Dem Trevor Powell