English Council and English football

10.10.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sun 2nd Jul 2006

Yesterday was the first meeting on the Liberal Democrat English Council this year, and the first time it has meet in Birmingham for many years, it was also the day England exited the world cup.

The English Council meeting took place in the Council House in Birmingham, and despite various people from English Council previously saying people would not attend meetings outside of London it was well attended (missing a few for the football undoubtedly). It just shows the Liberal Democrats, like so many other organisations are London-centric in their views without any need to be.

The meeting itself was good the highlight was Mark Pack's presentation and indulging us in some of the reasons we almost won Bromley, the other highlight as Dave Hodgson accepting my challenge to mention Wayne Rooney twice in his presentation (oh how I wish I didn't challenge him now). The lowlight was a discussion about a motion to Federal Conference to raise the membership fees (higher not fairer in contradiction to Ming's new tax policy), I spoke against this and will at Federal Conference too.

After the meeting I dashed off to the Selly Oak 'Thank-you' party with Dave Hodgson, Dave Radcliffe (it was his thank-you party) and Stuart Ritchie. The party was good but I spent most of it watching the dire football match, in my Rooney shirt (again bad call!) - I can't bring myself to discuss the match but needless to say I am not happy. After the match we had a kick-about in the garden and at least I won at penalties.