One of things the Liberal Democrats are trying out as part of the current leadership election is a video hustings on YouTube. Anyone can submit a video of themselves asking a question and five of these will be put to the two candidate, Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne, who will respond via video.

You shouldn’t need anything more advanced than a camera phone that can handle video to record yourself asking a question. Here’s the introduction to the hustings from the party’s Chief Executive (and Acting Returning Officer) in what turned out to be one of the most watched videos on the UK YouTube site in the last week.

To submit a question, visit the video response page on YouTube.

An email from Vince Cable has popped into my inbox to tell me that former Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick has been selected by party members in London to be the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor.

Congratulations to Brian on his selection.

You can sign up for news from his campaign at www.brianpaddick.org.

Update: Here’s the BBC story and the announcement on the party website.

I was very pleased to see this morning that Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ Acting Leader, is to boycott the state visit of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah – a move described in The Herald as unprecedented (“It is highly unusual for a leader of an opposition party to snub a royal visit. Foreign Office officials could not immediately recall any precedent”).

One of the perks of being a party leader is getting to go to state banquets and the like, and with only two months in charge of the party, Vince is unlikely to have many opportunities, which makes his gesture all the more significant.

Taking a stand for human rights and against corruption is absolutely what the Liberal Democrats are for – and the dismissive response of Liam Fox shows why the Tories, despite all their pleas, aren’t about to attract the liberal vote. It was, after all, the Conservatives who oversaw the Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudia Arabia in the 1980s.

One thing GB has inadvertently demonstrated over the last few weeks is the farcical nature of calling general elections by prime ministerial fiat. Local government has fixed terms; the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and London Assemblies have fixed terms; legislatures in other countries have fixed terms. It’s about time we had fixed-term parliaments at Westminster, and that’s the policy the LibDems backed at our conference Brighton in September.

Hurrah, then, for David Howarth MP, our Shadow Solicitor General. When the House of Commons returns from recess tomorrow, David will table a Fixed Term Parliaments Bill.

All of which is a convenient excuse to plug this video, which raises a chuckle every time I watch it: