By-election night 13

The Lib Dems had a decent result in last week's only by-election with the party leaping from fourth to second in Newport's Pillgwenlly ward.

But this week the party is facing a much bigger challenge with another bumper crop of ten by-elections.  Seven of the ten are in the north and midlands which might explain why there are no Lib Dem defences among them.  In a continuation of a very positive recent trend the Lib Dems are again standing more candidates than UKIP with eight candidates to the kipper's seven.

The interesting contests this week should be in the London Borough of Harrow where Labour are defending a vacancy in the Harrow on the Hill ward where representation is shared with the Conservatives and recent splits in the Labour group have led to a Conservative being elected council leader at an extraordinary council meeting in September. 

In Herefordshire's Tupsley division the Lib Dems will be keen to make progress in a previously solid Lib Dem ward, but where the party fell to third with the intervention of the bizarrely named 'It's our county (Herefordshire)' party - as if locals might confuse it for a different county. 

The other interesting contest is in Crook, County Durham - a split Labour/Independent ward where a Labour councillor died and six candidates including two independents (but no UKIP) are competing for the vacancy.

Friday favourite 128

With an extremely tenuous link to today's departure of yet another Hibs manager - the good natured and honourable Pat Fenlon - here are probably the most famous Hibee musicians - Craig and Charlie Reid with their debut performace on the Tube with a tongue tied Paula Yates fluffing her pronunciation ...

CSI pumpkin?

Seen in a north Kingston street earlier this evening...

By election night 12

Last week's byelections were pretty predictable - with Labour picking up, as expected, Shepshed West in Charnwood from the Tories and holding their other wards. 

The Lib Dems held their Norfolk seat with a swing from UKIP and improved their position - but only back to 2010 levels - in Waterlooville in Hampshire.  But they failed to make any inroads in Bovey Ward in Teignbridge (a target seat) where the Tories gained a 6% swing in their favour.  The weakness of the party in large parts of the country was exposed by derisory votes in Loughborough (=26) where the party finished behind some BNP splinter faction, Wigan (=19 and seventh place) and coming behind the Greens in the Wirral and West Sussex.

This week there is a single contest (in the loosest sense of the word) in the Pillgwenlly ward in Newport , South Wales, where Labour should have no problems holding their seat.

In praise of police commissioners

Durham's Labour Police and Crime Commissioner, Ron Hogg, has called for a rethink on drug policy, calling for Danish style shooting galleries where intravenous drug users can access clean needles and medical advice while feeding there habit.  The Beeb's report claims 'Results published in the Lancet showed that prescribing pharmaceutical heroin in this way can reduce the use of street drugs and associated levels of crime.'

Meanwhile, the previous week Christopher Salmon, Dyfed/Powys's commissioner attacked the culture of the police that saw them trying to frame former Tory Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell.  In an attack reported by the Daily Mail he said: ‘The culture around police forces is too closed, too defensive, too politicised and, in some cases, feral.'

This sort of debate on drugs policy and call to account for overblown and unaccountable elements of the constabulary was almost entirely missing from the debate on crime and policing (or was easily dismissed by the vested interests at the Home Office and their media friends) before the election of police commissioners.

Now there is an influential cadre of local people - with a democratic mandate - who are able to move on the debate from the old, sterile race to be seen to be the toughest on crime - regardless of its effectiveness.  That's a good thing which I hope will lead to more of them questioning how we are currently policed and for the Lib Dems to actually take these elections seriously because - like elected Mayors - they are almost certainly here to stay.

Lou Reed - a life on the wild side

I didn't get round to doing a Friday favourite this week, but with the sad news of the death of Lou Reed today, here he is with a live version of the seminal 'Walk on the wild side'.

By election night 11

Last week not only saw the Lib Dems standing in more contests than UKIP, the party won its difficult contest against Labour in Luton and gained a second seat from the Tories in Dalston ward Carlisle.

This week there's another bumper crop of ten by-elections.  The Lib Dems are contesting nine of them (again one more than UKIP) including an interesting defence at North Walsham East where UKIP have been on the rise - coming second earlier this year.  The Dunfermline South contest will no doubt be overshadowed by the result in by Scottish parliamentary by-election - but it is a ward where the party has a councillor and topped the poll in 2007.  The local result may be a better indicator of whether the party is recovering north of the border than the constituency result which will be dominated by the SNP and Labour big guns.

The Lib Dems will also have hopes of a gain in Bovey ward in Teignbridge where a Tory councillor resigned in a ward they have won previously.

Labour will look to pick up Shepsted West in Charnwood where they were just 26 behind the Conservatives in 2011 and will expect to weigh their vote in South Lanarkshire, Wigan and the Wirral.

Lib Dem Voice, Florence Nightingale and the ludicrous national curriculum

Lib Dem Voice has published an article praising Simon Hughes for lobbying to keep Florence Nightingale on the National Curriculum.

Now Florence Nightingale is no doubt worthy of study - anyone who invented the pie chart can't be that bad after all - but I fail to see anything other than a ludicrous level of bureaucratic micro management in this case.

No wonder government costs so much when you have teams of civil servants coming up with changes (on the whim of a minister), others consulting on them and others deciding to not to do anything.  It would be far more efficient to abolish the curriculum and the ministry for which it is such a successful make work scheme.

As Liberator magazine's Simon Titley eloquently says in the comments, "I am disappointed that neither Vlad the Impaler nor Harry Worth are included in the national curriculum, but I trust the judgement of history teachers on such matters."

Tory MP dog castration non-story of the week

The Kingston Guardian reports on the joys of having too much free time and money...

Friday favourite 127

Still haven't worked how to get the video off my phone from Monday's Wilko Johnson gig, but fortunately with YouTube I don't have to...