In defence of the poor

I'd like to congratulate our Keighley MP for supporting a Lib Dem Early Day Motion opposing the Government’s proposed cuts for the poorest tenants.
The people who would lose out under this proposal are poorer than those who would have been hit by the 10p tax debacle, and will be hit harder.
Worse still, the Government will not actually save any money by clawing back these payments. All they will achieve is switching the money directly from tenants to their landlords.
These unfair changes were sneaked through in the last budget and the Government clearly hoped they would be swept under the carpet.

They now have a fight on their hands, with many MPs and campaign groups, including the housing charity Crisis, opposing the plans.

This week, the leader of the Lib Dems challenged Gordon Brown directly over the issue at Prime Minister’s Question Time.

I would like to assure you that the Lib Dems will continue to do all we can to oppose this latest Government assault on some of the very poorest families in the country.

Lib Dem Conference in York

Had a long and fun day at Lib Dem Regional conference in York today, elected Deputy Chair of the region, many thanks everyone who voted.

Very disappointed that Keighley Branch's motion on helping people with disabilities in the jobs market was defeated by ONE vote.

This evening was at St martin's Church in Brighouse for a wonderful gig by the Yorkshire Youth Choir. They were tremendous.

Should really comment on the fact that today is the anniversary of the glorious Oktyabrskaya revolyutsiya (October Revolution). I'll come back to that at a later date, I really must go to bed.

We want a "Public" enquiry on Iraq

Gordon Brown's announcement that an independent inquiry into the country's role in the Iraq War will be held in private, is just not good enough.

We Lib Dems want, demand an full open public enquiry. We are not alone in this the overwhelming majority of the public demands it and more poignantly so do the families of the 179 sevice personnel who've lost their lives there.

Iraq has been a terrible "adventure", horribly wrong and catastrphic for the Iraqi people, hundreds of thousands of whom have died and been injured, and millions made homeless or become refugees.

We Lib Dems were the ONLY major party against the war, and I fought Keighley in 2005 on a policy of withdrawal.

We need that full and open public enquiry now.

Thank you Keighley Lib Dems

Tonight, I had the great honour of being selected by members of the Keighley constituency to contest the next general election as their Parliamentary Candidate.

After a ten-minute speech, the members grilled me extensively for nigh on 40 minutes about plans and priorities for the forthcoming campaign. I think I gave a good account of myself and was thrilled when the “gathered throng” voted for me unanimously.

In 2005, we did very well, increasing our vote, increasing our share of the vote, and beating the national leader of the neo-Nazi BNP into fourth place.

This time round the battle is going to be even tougher.

Labour’s Anne Cryer is standing down, and the party’s in meltdown nationally.

The Tories are desperate to win, Keighley is 92nd on their target list, and they MUST win the seat if they hope to form the next government.

Our job is to stop them.

Funnily enough, it was an event on this day in 1976 that inspired me to finally join the Liberal Party having been a schoolboy supporter for a couple of years. Peter Hain who was then the leader of the Young Liberals was cleared of an obvious “fit-up” charge of robbing a branch of Barclays Bank. Peter’s family had left South Africa ten years previously because of their opposition to apartheid, and it was more than likely that South African agents may have used a “double” to frame him.

Anyway, back to tonight, in this blog, I want to keep you up to date on the campaign in Keighley and give you a chance to get to know me and what I stand for a little bit better.

Thanks Keighley, and thanks to you for reading.