Tuesday, June 13, 2023

ALDE Party Congress - is your journey strictly necessary, sir?

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I am not a morning person, as Ros will testify. And so, rather than catch the very early morning flight on the Friday, I’d booked myself ont...
Monday, June 12, 2023

Post-Federal Council, some musings on internal Party democracy and accountability

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At the end of Federal Council last week, I raised with my new colleagues the question of reporting back - how, and to whom. I wasn’t trying ...
Sunday, June 11, 2023

ALDE Party Congress - where your correspondent did go to the (meat)ball…

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The world turns, and things change. For many years, going to an ALDE event meant being led by the suave, and occasionally cynical, Robert Wo...
Monday, May 08, 2023

Mid Suffolk elections 2023 - if you thought that 2019 was bad for the Tories...

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The 2019 District Council elections saw our local Conservatives take something of a hiding but, with the aid of the friendly "Independe...
Saturday, May 06, 2023

Now that we've found Federal Council, what are we gonna do... with it?

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Well, I've now been a member of Federal Council for more than a fortnight and, due to the small matter of some local elections, not much...
Saturday, April 22, 2023

In the light of the Dominic Raab story, a civil servant writes…

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I’ve been a civil servant for more than thirty-six years, and thus am rather nearer to the end of my “career” than the beginning. But, whils...
5 comments:
Friday, April 21, 2023

Federal Council: “Kind Hearts and Coronets” but without the murder…

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One of the things about narrowly losing a Federal Committee election is that you’re potentially on standby to step in if a successful candid...
Tuesday, April 18, 2023

They call him the Count… because he can’t…

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My degree, for what it’s worth, is in Mathematics (with Statistics), and I am, by most people’s standards, highly numerate. This allows me t...
Sunday, April 16, 2023

Procession, peanuts and policy…

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Crossing the High Street with care It was the Needham Market Civic Service yesterday and, in my capacity as Chair of one of its neighbouring...
Thursday, April 06, 2023

Creeting St Peter: hail to the Chief?

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In recent times, the period around the close of nominations for local elections has been slightly more fraught than for most people. As a se...
1 comment:
Thursday, March 09, 2023

Creeting St Peter: might there be some tangible benefits from Gateway 14?

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Well, work on the infrastructure needed for Gateway 14 is pretty much complete, and construction of the first (and largest) building on the ...
Wednesday, March 08, 2023

Enter bureaucrat stage left with the early morning call for a separate vote

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So, with a bit of help from my colleagues, especially Nick da Costa, the ever helpful Chair of Federal Conference Committee, I’ve managed to...
2 comments:
Sunday, March 05, 2023

That'll teach me to read the Conference papers a bit earlier next time...

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I'm a Liberal Democrat and I read constitutions. That makes me, it seems, slightly geeky, even by the standards of Liberal Democrats. Ho...
Saturday, March 04, 2023

National Grid: bringing power lines to a village near you whether you like it or not

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One of the challenges of changing the energy mix is that you need infrastructure to support it. So, if you're going to build a swathe of...
Thursday, February 02, 2023

Creeting St Peter - a little bit closer to McDonalds…

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It would be fair to say that the Gateway 14 development has been a part of my life for the best part of five years now, with the initial con...
Friday, January 27, 2023

Ros in the Lords: Net Zero

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I was asked at a recent Parish Council about the action we have taken towards Suffolk's goal of being carbon neutral by 2030. And yes, e...
Thursday, January 26, 2023

I am, for the first time in a long time, without a role within the Liberal Democrats. It feels... okay.

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I am, as I've admitted in the past, the consummate Liberal Democrat bureaucrat. I have a seemingly unlimited curiosity about how the org...
Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Ros in the Lords: Levelling Up Bill (Second Reading)

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As has been noted by many, this Bill has been so gutted that the Conservatives are being told not to refer to "levelling up" any m...
Saturday, December 10, 2022

ALDE Party Council - some post-Council reflections

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I think that I've remarked before that I'm not always good at conferences. I'm a bit shy, not necessarily the best at small talk...
Friday, December 09, 2022

ALDE Party Council, Bratislava 2022 - so, what did I actually do?

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So, having given a more formal report on events in Bratislava, it’s really rather about time that I offer a more personal perspective on eve...