Once again, quite unnecessary embarrassment has been caused for the LibDems by dubious campaign advice, this time suggesting rounding up children on council estates and getting them to deliver election leaflets.

Anyone with a bit of political nous could surely spot that that was asking to be picked up and made into a “Pied Piper” story. But despite what’s implied in the BBC story, this isn’t a centrally-produced party guide – it’s published by the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, and therefore no more a Cowley Street publication than an LDYS drugs campaign flyer. Nonetheless, it has the capacity to look bad by association and the party should distance itself from it.

The biggest crime in this case is that it’s actually an appalling piece of advice. Rounding up strangers on an estate and trusting them to deliver your carefully written, neatly printed and fastidiously bundled leaflets is lunacy.

Update: James notes that this guide was published 12 years ago. So why not point that out rather than trying to defend it?

BBC News: Pet Shop Boys protest at ID cards:

A spokesman for the Pet Shop Boys told the Evening Standard: “Neil has always been a Labour Party supporter, but at the last election he voted Liberal Democrat because he is completely against the idea of ID cards.”

(This story’s about a month old, but I missed it originally.)

…is the new Deputy Leader of the LibDems (or, more accurately, of the parliamentary party).

He won by just two votes, beating Matthew Taylor. David Heath, who I suspect many bloggers and activists (including this one) would have preferred, went out in the first round; three of his voters didn’t express a second preference.

Full result is on Wikipedia.

A report in theguardian reveals that a two-day follow-up to yesterday’s local government strike is no-longer-secretly planned for May 3rd and May 4th. The latter is the day of local elections in England, which are administered by local government.

If the unions think emphasising the issue on local election day is a good way to put pressure on Labour, then they’re probably right, but it would be a sensible move for them to guarantee that the elections won’t be disrupted. Labour has every interest in delaying what is likely to be an embarrassing plebicite – undermining local democracy would only play into their hands. The unions should come clean about whether there is a strike planned for May 4th and reassure voters that the elections will be able to go ahead as normal.