Despair

... is trying to work out which is more depressing:

1. the number of people I know and trust who, when gven a free vote, still decided that the government's idea of bashing the disabled was a good one, totally against the will of Conference, or


2. Mark Littlewood winning Liberal Voice of the year

Now, on the face of it, the first one wins by a clear margin. It affects far more people, and affects those people far more, than the result of an internet poll which can easily be gamed. And yet... There's something that my gut says is very indicative about a rabidly right-wing Libertarian winning that LDV poll.

For the first time in a long time, those two things have combined to make me feel like I'm not welcome in my party any more. I suspect I need to brood on this.

The Blood is The Life 16-01-2012

*link redacted due to me not noticing it was f-locked*
• Goths up trees
  Must submit Mat to this...
  (tags: silly goths )
  
  
• WTF is with empowered women in video games now?
  This is the funniest thing I have seen in weeks :)
  (tags: gender )
  
  
• Memory Myths
  Quite proud that there's only one of these I didn't already know - combination of biology teacher dad and training in evidence law ;)
  (tags: memory )
  
  
• Signal boost: women write about comics
  I need to remind myself to do something about this.
  (tags: comics feminism )
  
  
• nanila takes lovely photos of Kensal Green Cemetery
  (tags: photos )
  
• The Potter Blogger: What the fuck has happened to us?
  My insistence that the Lib Dems are a democratic party gets more and more feeble every time shit like this happens. There are names of people I KNOW on that list. They voted FOR the one year time limit even in a FREE VOTE? Ugh.
  (tags: epicfail libdemmery )
  
  
• Hands on With the WiMM One Android Watch
  Didn't Douglas Adams say something disparaging about people who think digital watches are cool? ;)
  (tags: technology )
  
  
• 'Piracy' student loses US extradition battle over copyright infringement
  OFFS
  (tags: epicfail )
  
  
• To opt in or not to opt in | The Economist
  “The British have become toxic. Nobody wants to be too closely associated with them,” - Will nobody Danish stand up for us plucky Brits? Ms Toksvig? Nah, don't blame you.
  (tags: Europe )
  
  
• Give Queen a new royal yacht for diamond jubilee, says Michael Gove | UK news | The Guardian
  To quote Stephen Sumpter on Google+: "Gove wants to buy the queen a £60 million yacht, at the same time as government are claiming that we have no money left and ruthlessly cutting everything. This man is in our government. How can anyone take him seriously?"
  (tags: epicfail gove )
  
  

The Lib Dem Leadersip Programme (Yes, another gripe)

I possibly got it wrong, but I thought the leadership programme was supposed to be to help people who were disadvantaged in means to get political experience to get ahead in the party. I didn't realise it was just a not-pale-and/or-male preferred candidates list. Disadvantaged, to me, does not JUST mean being a woman or being LGBT+ or BAME. If you've been an elected mayor, or you are the Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Candidate Association, or you are the wife of a currently serving junior minister, that does not scream disadvantage to me.

Please note that I am not saying that any of the people on the list would not be great MPs: I'm sure quite a lot of them would - I was particularly pleased to see one of my favourite people, Belinda Brooks-Gordon, on there - but I am very worried that my definition of disadvantage is radically out of step with the rest of the world. I love Belinda to bits, but she's a very canny political operator and (I hope she won't be offended by me saying this) is someone who most local parties would happily select as a candidate, not someone who needs an extra leg up to get ahead of the competition.

I genuinely think some elements of this list are a total gift to our detrators. I hope I'm wrong.