LibDems a laughing stock again

What are the LibDems for? 

They have covered themselves in humiliation in the Welsh Assembly.

Not enough that they have had Jeremy Thorpe, Charles Kennedy, Mark Oaten and Lembit Opik, like addicts they seek more shame. This is the party of proportional representation. They believe in all the parties working together for the common weal in glorious harmony. Yesterday they wrecked the plan for coalition. Plaid and the Tories are foaming with contempt.

It's a rare occasion in UK politics when the LibDems have had to take a decision of any significance. They were at the centre stage on Welsh politics and an expectant nation held its breath.

But history can wait. The LibDems cannot agree.

Merck's Mass Medicine

The Pharmaceutical companies are at it again.

Merck set up bogus parents' group to demand that all young girls have the vaccine Gardisil. It is claimed to reduce chances of contracting cervical cancer.

Forced out the Food and Drug Administration files by a FOI demand is a catalogue of horrors:
“1,637 adverse event reaction reports were received since it was approved for marketing, June, 2006. Of these, 371 were serious reactions, including three deaths linked to Merck's vaccine. A female patient "died of a blood clot three hours after getting the Gradualism vaccine."  Two other reports, on girls 12 and 19, reported deaths relating to heart problems and/or blood clotting.

Other serious R reports included paralysis, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and seizures. And of 42 women who were vaccinated with Gardisil while pregnant, 18 experienced complications, ranging from miscarriages to foetal abnormalities. "

It's claimed that the vaccine will avoid 70% of cancers. Proof is now published that Pharmas suppressed information on adverse drug reactions. Is it the same old story?

Mean Mail

Tory Chief Whip David Maclean is seeking to shield MPs from the Freedom of Information. His bill is almost certainly doomed. A compromise is being cooked up by Martin Linton MP. It will protect correspondence but not give a carte blanche cover that few others like the Royal family  have.

But there is genuine indignation against the front page lead story of the Sunday Mail. They  who crucified Maclean for buying a quad bike on expenses.  MPs were puzzled. Vehicles cannot be bought with expenses.  A few crucial details were omitted from the Mail report. An EDM is being tabled;

         

That this House salutes the bravery with which the Rt. Hon Member for Penrith & The Border has for several years defied the onset of multiple sclerosis so crippling that a less determined person would have been confined to a wheelchair long ago; endorses the decision of the House of Commons Fees Office to approve his purchase of an outdoor vehicle, from the appropriate Parliamentary allowance, to enable him to negotiate the largest rural constituency in England; and accordingly condemns the journalists and broadcasters who sensationalised this story for playing down, and in some cases not even mentioning, the devastating effects of his illness and his refusal to give in to it.

paulflynn@talk21.com

Comments

[Peter Black]

The Lib Dem in question is female. Her mother is 90. She attended the Executive on Thursday night and voted in favour of the Conference despite the fact that only hours earlier her mother was admitted to hospital and was very ill. Irrespective of all that she will be at the conference on Saturday. Show some humanity Paul, when Eleanor said that she was very distressed because of her mother's illness.

[Paul Flynn]

Six minutes after your comment was received the item was amended. I was relying on a news report on BBC Cymru which did not supply the details of the circumsatnces.

Thanks for letting me know and giving me the chance of amending this item. It was on the blog only from midnight to 7.58am. Not many people except LibDem AMs would have seen it.

[Paul Flynn]

The item in question was taken from Vaughan Roderick's BBC website posted at 10.27 yesterday and it read
that a prominaent senior member of the LibDems had said on Radio Cymru
"mae hyn yn golygu y byddai'n yn gallu mynd i barti Mam Ddydd Sadwrn" - This means I can go to my mother's party on Saturday.

Have you taken this up with Vaughan?

[Peter Black]

I will now Paul

[valleylad]

I liked the proposals (as read in Betsan's blog) but question whether they were achievable without tax raising powers (something the Assembly should have) BUT:
I voted for the Assembly to ensure the the tories would never in my, my childrens, or my grandchildrens lifetime have any hope of governing wales.

Ok "new" labour are just "tory lite" but Plaid were willing to put the tories into government, that puts them beyond the pale until Wyn Jones goes.

This is however an argument for losing party lists and having STV constituency elections, at least then I could start with the troublemakers, finish with the lib-dems, and just leave the tories off.

[Paul Flynn]

Agree with a lot of that.

The reason why PR was put into the Wales Act was to avoid one party rule for ever that might create a Glamorgan County Council on stilts.

The system has many faults. But you are right Plaid will not be forgiven for agreeing to put the Tories into Government. A colalition without the party who won the greatest numbers of seats and votes would by a travesty of democracy.