Good news from Poland

Poland's centre-right Civic Platform party appears to have won enough seats to lead a coalition following the country's General Election. This is good news, as it spells defeat for the governing, conservative Law and Justice Party, whose policies are bad news for Poland and the EU. The media are exaggerating when they call Civic Platform "Poland's 'liberal' opposition party", but they are still much better than Law and Justice. It will be interesting to see how Poland's Democratic Party, social liberals who sit with us in the European Parliament, have done, once all the votes are counted.

Preparing to speak

Am sat in the Conference Centre preparing notes for a speech that I am due to deliver summating for an amendment in the Middle East debate this afternoon (was also interviewed yesterday about my general views on Lib Dem foreign policy by the BBC World Service, which was great - have to see what goes out today or tomorrow from that). Writing these speech notes, I am reminded of a story about the late Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens, when he was first seeking selection as a Tory Parliamentary candidate. He once showed a colleague his notes for his speech to a selection committee, with the notes in their entirety comprising: 1) Twenty years of ceaseless fight against socialism; 2) Hanging and flogging; 3) Mrs Thatcher. I wonder what he'd have made of David Cameron?!