Gavin’s Gaily Gigest

At the Lib Dem conference this week, and had the chance to see Vince Cable and Charles Clarke battle it out over whether the Lib Dems and Labour are allies or enemies. My write-up is now up on Lib Dem Voice, so read it now if you dare.

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The Liberal Democrat blog of the year awards nomination deadline closed a mere nineteen hours ago, and already the anticipation is killing me. Will I actually bother to give a shit this year, or will it be like every year: a single post acknowledging how badly I’ve done, and then move on?
Regardless, here are the [...]

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Sunder Katwala, Secretary-General of the Fabian Society*, has written to the Liberal Democrats’ eight London MPs (as well as Nick Clegg and Sarah Ludford MEP) urging them to use their second choice votes in the upcoming London mayoral election to support Ken Livingstone. This follows Peter Hain’s barely veiled threat that supporting Ken is the [...]

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April Fools (I think I’m surprising no-one with this, right?)
Other pranks being played around the web:

Gmail’s new “Custom Time” feature.

The BBC flies some penguins.

Lib Dem Voice reveals Labour’s new family and immigration policies.

Andy Mayer on the Electoral Commission’s new requirements.

Boris to do PMQs tomorrow: Guido Fawkes. Is it wrong that I really want this to [...]

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Follow-ups to three things I’ve written about recently:

The gambler who sued William Hill for letting him gamble has lost his case in the High Court. Briggs J found that William Hill did not owe Mr Calvert, a compulsive gambler, a duty of care. And quite right too.

After Peter Goldsmith’s proposal that school-leavers should have to [...]

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Derek Conway’s Nixon-like declaration that he “is not a crook” in today’s Mail on Sunday, would ring slightly more true were it not for the fact that he is under investigation by the police for giving his son £40,000 of taxpayers’ money for doing precisely bugger all. For those in any doubt, this is fraud, [...]

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Via Lib Dem Voice comes Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s answer to an accusation that introducing detention without charge for 42 days is legislating for hypothetical situations:
"It won’t be hypothetical if and when it occurs. We are not legislating now on the basis that we are bringing it in now for something that might happen in [...]

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And writing as someone who voted for him (final mention of the Duncan Borrowman monitor, I promise), well done to the chap. Lib Dem Voice has the results breakdown, the young one squeaking in with 50.6% of the vote, just 511 ahead of the Huhney monster.
He kicked off his leadership with a sturdy, but not [...]

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As I’ve mentioned before, section 64 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill will make it an offence to possess an “extreme pornographic image” not just in the cases (rightly) where the persons in the photograph have not consented to the act, but also (wrongly) where they have consented.
Iain Roberts on LibDemVoice has been asking [...]

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On LibDemVoice for this post. Cheers!

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