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FPT

Ye Gods. Alexa says it is going to be 32C.

I need to be in Norway ...

Currently 14C, cloudy and damp, tomorrow 16C cloudy but then sunny 19C and sunny 22C forecast for Monday! All at 68 1/4 degrees north.

Back from my walk and after lunch. It is now 29C outside and 22C inside.

We are not amused. We are however, quite well sauna'd.

So, I have arrived in Lofoten, getting off the ferry just along the road from the village with the world’s shortest place name, Å.

The dog was manic when I got back to the car, but he will live. The remaining ferries on this trip, he’ll be able to be with me, Finland and Germany being much more pet-friendly places than Norway.

Weather-wise, the cloud base is now descending and as I eat dinner looking out over the fjord, it must be down to fifty feet. But sunny days lie ahead…allegedly.

First impressions of Lofoten - it’s like Skye to the Scottish Highlands, on both upside and downside. Positively, the scenery is stunning, and compact, towering mountains, little settlements clinging to the slopes, including colourful house-huts on stilts built out into the sea, boats of all kinds everywhere. One can see why it’s a photographers’, and hikers’, paradise.

On the downside, it’s on the Rick Steves trail and clearly over-touristed, there are signs for tourist stuff everywhere, the food shops are full of foreign backpackers, and the joy of the Norwegian open road is replaced by being in a procession of traffic wherever you want to go, and with severe parking pressure when you get there. For the next week Mr Dog and I will clearly struggle to avoid the crowds.

First?

The jury will now find you guilty of insider dealing.

Oh, apparently we're abandoning them.

Not somebody I hold in high esteem, but Jacob Rees-Mogg was bang on the money when he said that juries are needed because they allow for a protection against an over mighty state.* Heck, that's how they first became enshrined in law with barons forcing King John to stop kidnapping them, stealing their lands and raping their daughters on a whim by instead having to have fair trials.

*It's worth remembering he said that in response to the release of the Colston vandals whose defence was essentially 'we're smug rich bastards and have the right to smash up anything we like.' He didn't agree with their view, ironically, or the verdict, but he thought it illustrated the importance of the jury system in showing what should or shouldn't be crimes.

Morning all

Thank you for the piece, @GarethoftheVale2 which wasn't easy reading for an LD supporter.

The truth is, the challenge the LDs face now is the one they have always faced, to build local success in previously fallow areas and over time turn that into parliamentary success.

The 1997 "gains" were largely in areas where the party had a proven track record of activity at local level and I suspect a similar correlation occurred in 2024. There were some new areas of parliamentary progress in seats which had resolutely remained Conservative in the past and in other areas the earlier progress had dissipated entirely and the party was once again irrelevant.

So much depends on having a dedicated core of hard working activists who put in the time and effort to build local bases, delivery and membership networks and a reputation for being there for the voters. When I was a Liberal and later LD activist it astonished me how much the Conservatives took their vote for granted and did little or nothing between elections - that has changed.

The other side of the challenge is to be heard beyond the seats already with an LD MP or where the party is challenging hard. Vast oceans of inactivity surround islands of activity - in London, you have the six LD seats but where are the seventh and eighth coming from?

Yes, we can concentrate on more "affluent" areas, as an example Wanstead has a Gail's and an M&S but is hardly fertile LD territory but it's not much different from parts of Woking.

However, "breaking out" from the heartlands into other areas either requires a fortuitous by-election or two or a distinctive policy selling point which can cut through but it's a crowded field and I don't know where that policy is currently.

Contrary to a few other views, I'm quite happy with Sir Ed and I think the 2024 intake is very strong with two or three real stars of the future (Josh Babarinde, Bobby Dean and Helen Maguire would be my picks so far).