Linda Jack blogged yesterday: News comes to me from a very reliable source that one [Conservative] Cllr Peter Hand, lately of Nadine Dorries office, has resigned as a councillor on both the County and Borough. Not only that, but he has set in motion a domino effect. Two more candidates have resigned and others are due

When opposition politicians heard about Damian Green's arrest, many of us asked ourselves the same question: "When did it become a crime to hold the Government to account?" We already operate in a system where Parliament is effectively neutered, little more than a rubber stamp for legislation that ministers have already decided. Throwing a spotlight on information the Government would rather ...

Continuing our series this week of interesting findings from the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s third report into public attitudes towards standards of conduct in public life, today it’s the popularity of political websites: Usage of websites which focus on politics is much less common [than TV or radio for getting political news]: only 4

Greg Mulholland, Lib Dem MP for Leeds north West, has urged House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin to introduce fines whenever an MP’s phone rings in the chamber. His proposal came after Culture Secretary Andy Burnham was repeatedly interrupted by Tory MP John Whittingdale’s Blackberry (he was, apparently, unaware how to switch it off). BBC.co.uk takes

The results of the election for president of the Lib Dems will be announced today, at c.3pm, and Lib Dem Voice’s Helen Duffett will be reporting back live from the count. A reminder, as if you needed one, of the three candidates standing for the post: >> Chandila Fernando >> Lembit Opik >> Ros Scott If you’re interested in

In the scheme of things, it seems unlikely that this week will be best remembered by history for a by-election in Scotland; but, still, the Glenrothes was (as politicians under the kosh of bad polls are prone to note) about real votes in a real election. And the Lib Dems tanked. The party’s vote dropped

Compare, contrast the wonders of polling questions which should give consistent answers: Has your opinion of Gordon Brown gone up or down in recent weeks, or has it stayed much the same? My opinion of him has gone up 21% My opinion of him has gone down 27% My opinion of him has stayed much the same 48% Change: -6% Are

Commenting on the 24% rise in repossession orders in the past year announced today by the Government, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable said: "These figures confirm the very worrying trend on actual repossessions which were published last week. "The level of growth of repossession orders suggests that we are on track for a repossession crisis very similar to the early 1990s. "It is a...

700,000 pensioners are living in poverty because they are not getting the benefits they are entitled to, the Liberal Democrats have revealed. In a Parliamentary answer to the Liberal Democrats, the Government has disclosed that 700,000 pensioners would be lifted out of poverty if they claimed all of the money that they are entitled to. Hundreds of thousands of pensioners are put off claiming benef...

The news in today’s Telegraph that the Labour party’s membership is now at its lowest in a hundred years is a stark wake-up call for the governing party (and doubtless will in the well-worn cliché of tired journalistic prose “add to the pressure on the Prime Minister”). From 400,000 at the height of Tony Blair’s