Our congratulations go to: Alistair Carmichael, Chris Coghlan, Will Forster, James MacCleary, Helen Maguire, Mike Martin, Manuella Perteghella and Cameron Thomas.
Helen Maguire, the party's defence spokesperson, told Politics Home:
"I will wear this retaliatory sanction as a badge of honour - as will my Liberal Democrat colleagues also placed on Moscow’s blacklist."
Six peers have also been sanctioned by Moscow, among them the Lib Dems Jeremy Purvis and Julie Smith.
The Lewes seat, which was held by Norman Baker between 1997 and 2015, was recaptured from the Tories last year by James MacCleary.
Perryman calls it hypocrisy because:
Labour publicly identified Lewes as a ‘non battleground’ seat .... The candidate and his team were instructed to minimise campaigning; instead they were sent to seats where Labour could win. Which party precisely did they think this would benefit?
And the snitching?
The 2024 tactical voting campaign in Lewes was organised by the local Lewes Compass Group. Compass nationally, despite, its very public support for tactical voting, is not a Labour Party-proscribed organisation.
It is cross-party, yet at its core are a whole host of Labour members, including councillors. At least three Cabinet members I can think of have spoken on Compass platforms.
The local campaign went beyond what is permitted under Labour rules. I have never displayed a poster advocating a vote for any party other than Labour ....
But not everyone is as tuned in to navigating the Labour rule book as me. Our ‘snitch’ didn’t have the good sense to give a friendly piece of advice to his or her fellow members that they were breaking Party rules. Instead they were busy compiling their evidence to secure expulsions.
Nobody has ever owned up to this cowardly behaviour, so in our local Labour Party we have a snitch entirely unwilling to justify their actions politically.
Labour List also has the story - apparently Clause I.5.B.vi of the Labour Party Rule Book is the one you have to watch out for.
I voted Labour in Harborough, Oadby and Wigston last year. That was partly from a slim hope that they might defeat our very online and increasingly radicalised Conservative MP.
But it was more from a feeling that it was hypocritical of me to be so keen that Labour voters should back the Liberal Democrats in places like Lewes if I wasn't prepared to reciprocate myself.
Journalists have been clutching their pearls for several days, but only now are Liberal Democrats gathering for the Conference Glee Club.
The event is nothing without a Liberator Songbook, and - or so the old brute tells me - a Liberator Songbook is nothing without a foreword by Lord Bonkers.
So here's the one he's written for this year's edition.
Tel. Rutland 7
Planning the Bonkers Hall International Arts Festival takes up much of my time over the summer, falling as it does just before the Liberal Democrat autumn conference. (For myself, I tend to fall at or immediately after the conference.)
This year’s programme featured the Elves of Rockingham Forest, who offered ‘An Evening of Aeolian Harmonies (no money returned)’, while the Well-Behaved Orphans put on their traditional gymnastic display. (Only three got over the wall this time.)
Earl Russell’s Big Band made a welcome return after many years, and the Sisters from the Convent of Our Lady of the Ballot Box offered their tribute to the Sex Pistols.
No, you don’t mess with those nuns. I shan’t forget the Mother Superior warning Violent Bonham Carter, the gender-fluid London crime boss of the Sixties, that the convent was “her manor” and that she would “give a slap to anyone who got lairy”. You have to admit she’s got more go than the Revd Hughes.
And I found many talents within the greatly enlarged Lib Dem parliamentary party. Bobby Dean, for instance, enjoyed a successful career singing ballads (rather bland ballads, if I am honest) for white American teenagers until the Beatles changed everything. When I first met Roz Savage, by contrast, she was a member of an all-girl punk group.
Some songs, of course, were written about our MPs. ‘Olney the Lonely’ was occasioned by the writer’s sympathy for Sarah when she found herself joining such a small Commons group after winning her by-election. Johnny Nash, I believe, penned ‘I can see James MacCleary now the Rain has Gone’ after a showery canvassing session in Newhaven.
But enough from me. Enjoy the Glee Club and may you stay forever Claire Young.
Bonkers
