There must be serious personality problems amongst Sandwell's Liberal Democrats. Lib Dem Councillor Margaret 'Mad Max' Macklin has become the sixth Lib Dem Councillor to defect from the Party in the last five years.
Given there are only an average of half a dozen Lib Dems at any one time... that is quite a defection rate.

I love Dingle. It is one of the only places I know where you can have a pint and buy some amazing things in the same place. At Foxy Johns Pub and Hardware you can buy a Guinness, hire a bike for the day, and purchase a range of tools, screws and even rat poison over the counter. The toilets are a tourist attraction on their own. Outside Dick Macks just round the corner in Green Street they have their very own Hollywood style pavement, with stars set in paving stones identifying their star customers, and in the pub window today they're selling a second hand pair of Dr. Martins for only 12 euros! Then there's the food. The Dingle Peninsula has some restaurants to die for... especially the fish.... and Doyles is one of the best!

Right... I'm off for a couple of pints of the black stuff.

Tom Watson waxes lyrical about Jim Callaghan. As you will see, Jim, in his dotage, blamed the unions for his downfall. That is Jim, who made massive public expenditure cuts to appease the International Monetary Fund, who then warned people like Tom not to let "the unions call the shots" and paved the way for the Thatcherite onslaught on the British people. I have always been fascinated by those who made a complete cock-up of the economy during the Wilson/Callaghan/Healey years and many of whom thankfully buggered off later to the SDP (and to form the germ of the Lib Dems), who re-write history to blame the trade unions and the working class, who never for one second had any real power, for their own failings. Still, at least Jim could comfort himself in the company of the likes of Ken Jackson.... Thank God I've got a lot of the second rarest commodity in politics.

I'm pleased to see that the Spirit of Easter has shed no holy light on the Occupied Country. Steve back to his blistering best!

I'm off to Dingle, and I'll try to post at the Internet cafe if I get the chance.

Jackie Asley writes in The Guardian that she will be voting Lib Dem to keep the Tories out. Interestingly, one 'positive' reason she advances for the Lib Dems is that they do not have a 'leadership cult'. It is highly debateable whether it is beneficial to have a political party, or a country, whose leadership consists of "a gaggle of engaging characters" led by a man who looks "about as comfortable as a man arrested for stealing pies." What I find interesting about the Lib Dems is that the one thing they have been passionate about since their formation has been their dogmatic euro-fanaticism and their willingness to pursue a federal europe at the expense of almost everything else. It is a policy that clearly divides them from the Tories, who adopt the exact opposite position, and much of the Labour movement which also has a healthy dose of euro-scepticism. So.... given that they are pronouncing their 10 good reasons to vote Liberal Democrat.... why no mention of this distinction? Surely it couldn't possible be related to the fact that the public in general are overwhelmingly opposed to the Lib Dem position on this?

Gareth Davies tries to savage Tim Ireland. Tim Ireland hits back. This could get tasty. A bit of advice to Gareth from Denis Healey: First law on holes - when you're in one, stop digging!

My worst nightmare....

Apart from the recurring nightmare of Howard as PM, I really, really, would not like one of these to be made about Birmingham.

Have you ever pondered the question How are Maltesers Made? These sad buggers have!

Rhodri Morgan - Tree Monster !

People in my Ward, (Bearwood in Smethwick) are extremely concerned about the fate of their local shopping centre. Morrisons bought the successful Safeways store as part of their takeover of the Safeways group. Actually, Safeways had been so successful they had managed to force out virtually all of the small grocers and greengrocers in the area. Now Morrisons, having overstretched themselves buying Safeways, have decided to close down their Bearwood store and make the staff redundant, and at the same time close down the central post office located in their store. So, there are unlikely to be many tears shed in Bearwood over the news that Morrisons have had £40m knocked off their profits. Still, their shareholders can comfort themselves with the knowledge that they will only make a profit of about £320 million.

So the people of Bearwood and surrounding areas, together with those traders who have survived amongst the charity shops, building societies and kebab houses, are anxious to ensure a replacement supermarket is found. Personally I have a great deal of sympathy with George Monbiot's cry of Shut Down The Supermarkets! Unfortunately, as people have adapted to supermarket consumerism, I suppose we had better press on and seek an alternative chain to move in to the shell of Morrisons deserted store... and Morrisons can set about ripping the guts out of someone else's community.

The Tories are prepared to stoop to appealing to the most base instincts in order to close the gap on Labour and even Tony's friend Rupert is edging back to Howard's camp (if we can use that word). I know those "backing Blair" still think this is not credible, but sooner or later people must get the message... or live to regret it.

Our Man in Hanoi is trying to raise sponsorship for Vietnamese kids to work on the KOTO project. Take a look at his blog, particularly the posting 'Angels with Dirty Faces', and if you are in a trade union, ask your branch or district to consider helping out. If you work for a corporate body that wants to feel good about "giving aid to the Third World", don't be shy, ask them too. Or if you know someone who just would not miss that sort of money (about £50 a month for 18 months) tug at their heartstrings too. Even if you can't do any of those things... link to the OMIH blog and give it a plug because someone else may know someone.

We will get...."the usual solemn warnings about apathy - as if the real problems in Britain were caused by the inactivity of the people, rather than the activity of the parliamentarians." Tony Benn suggests you may want to ask your MP 20 key questions.

On a related theme, Robin Cook 24 hours later warns of voter apathy... or should that be alienation.

Now, let me see if I've got this right. In order to maintain credibility, the British government have to split with the army hard men who ordered the torture of Iraqi prisoners.

Mark Seddon on how New Labour has manipulated selection procedures to weed out the awkward squad.

Chavez in Venezuela makes the case for socialism.

Balders returns after a short break with a sharp analysis of the anti-terror legislation which is as effective as all the words in the Sunday papers I was able to get over here. Anyway, I'm off for a stroll down the beach....

I'm off to Portugal for a short break, so things may be quiet here.

Never mind the Middle East... apparently we're fed up with democracy.

I'm confused. I've been listening all this week to Government Ministers complaining about the "unelected and unaccountable" House of Lords. So... just exactly whose fault is it that we've got a House of Lords consisting in its entirety of those who got there on the back of patronage or priviledge. In 2003 the House of Commons rejected proposals by the then Leader of the House, Robin Cook, to reform the Lords and create an all-elected chamber. The elected ones threw out the plans and plumped instead for an appointed "unelected and unaccountable" second chamber, with luminaries such as Gerald Kaufmann stating that the voters were "already fed up with electing." This from the Mother of Parliaments that lectures the world on democracy. Of course, the cynical amongst you might think that the elected ones might prefer an appointed system so that when they didn't get their way they could challenge the mandate of the second chamber by calling them "unelected and unaccountable."

Letter in The Guardian...

Like Martin Kettle, I remember the "unelectable" Tories winning the 1970 election. It's hard to forget watching a man having to paint extra segments on the BBC's swingometer because the experts had got it so wrong.
Brian Hughes
Cheltenham, Glos

Of course, for the Tories to win they will also have to beat off the Lib Dems in the South and the South East. The danger for the Lib Dems though is that at some stage someone is going to raise the issue of their euro-fanaticism, which they have so far managed to hide away in a corner.... but which is a deeply, deeply unpopular part of their programme to the overwhelming majority of those very same Tory/Lib Dem swing voters.

Tim, over at Bloggerheads, in a Delia type moment says, Now, Bob's at it! Now, leaving aside the connotations (it sounds as if I've been receiving stolen goods or having a sly legover) what exactly is it that I'm at. I mean, Labour Councillor says Vote Labour is hardly a shock. If Tim means, by illustrating the fact that disillusionment with a Labour Government can lead to voter apathy or protest voting, as it did in 1979, and lead to a Tory Government... I plead guilty. But I don't want to be accused of threatening people with Howard if they don't vote Blair, because if that is what they want, that's democracy, that's the first past the post system, that's how it works.

I would want to point out that, if it is not apparent to regular readers, I don't want Blair either, but then, I never did, and voting Labour for me doesn't mean voting Blair, or even my local MP. I'm not a jump-on-the-bandwagon anti-war anti-Blairite. I disliked him from the start; I was suspicious when he was a CND supporting shadow Home Secretary, I think he has ripped the heart out of my Party, I resented his campaign against Clause 4 and his attack Ken Livingstone, whilst at the same time giving jobs to Kenneth Clark, Paddy Ashdown and Woy Jenkins, and his whole attitude to the trade unions. But it's not a boxing match 'Bruiser Blair v Horrible Howard' and what's more, it is not his Party. Labour is the only political party with integral links to the trade unions, and therefore the organised working class. That is why I'm a member, that is why I'll vote Labour and campaign for Labour... and if that means I'm at it, so be it.

Perhaps Americans just don't do irony. When George W. Bush tells the Syrians they must pull out of Lebanon because... "The Lebanese people have the right to determine their future free from domination by a foreign power" you would really hope he was doing so with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Unfortunately, I doubt it.

Still, Dubya cranks up the threats in the Middle East, and somebody spots a payday.

In 1979 I was a student at Warwick University camapaigning in the General Election for the late Audrey Wise, the tenacious left-wing Labour MP for Coventry. One of the small trotskyist clans at the University was urging students to "Vote Tory to bring down the Government". Their logic was that Callaghan was a reactionary Labour PM and was deeply hated by the unions. This had resulted in strikes and the so-called 'Winter of Discontent'. If Thatcher came to power, they argued, she would be even more reactionary and the unions would rise up against the Tories and a revolutionary situation would emerge. Bloody fine experiment that turned out to be! Audrey Wise lost her seat... although the truth is, Coventry lost Audrey. I'd like to meet with 'the comrades' who pushed that line back then (they are probably all New Labour or Lib Dem voting voting advertising executives now) and ask them to reflect on their advice. Reading this from Martin Kettle, I really do hope we are not all sitting back on May 6th wondering exactly what went wrong.... and watching the smarmy Howard quoting St Francis of Assisi..."Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope." Look back in anger.