With the candidates nominated for the Stonebridge by-election, here’s a little summary of them for you: ALADESHE, Funmi The Conservative Party COX, Sarah Respect ORR, Brian Green Party VAN KALWALA, Zaffar The Labour Party WILTSHIRE, Sandra Elina Liberal Democrats

Sarah Teather and other Brent Liberal Democrates have joined facebook. I’ve poked her, have you? I wasn’t expecting to see our Sarah on Facebook… A few years ago electronic networking wasn’t on her list methods for constituency communications. How things change over time: the ubiquity of the term “social networking”, meaning a twittering, bebobuzzing space for me to show my face on the internet, has overtaken “blogging” in terms of its penetration into the nations daily lexicon....

Towards the end of term at Goldsmiths I participated in a huge number of half-baked surveys and poorly designed questionnaires. Still, that’s my own fault for saying ‘Yes’ to all the last minute BA Sociology / Psychology students, desperate to get some data to evaluate for their assignments. The E-benchmarking survey for CELT, on the other hand, was a focused piece of qualitative research using interviews with students to benchmark e-learning activity at Goldsmiths....

Here’s a link to the LibDem FlockTogether page on the Stonebridge local council by-election.

Is “Happy voting!” really the proper way to close an email announcing a Council By-election? Anyway… A seat has become vacant in the Stonebridge Ward following the death of Councillor Dorman Long. A by-election will be held on Thursday, 13 September 2007 to elect a new representative. The by-election gives the Lib Dems another opportunity to win a seat - but will they win it? I doubt it. Stonebridge ward is a Labour heartland - you only have to look at the votes cast in the 2006 Local Election to see that… Winning this single seat will not change the overall political balance of Brent Council: The Lib Dems would need to win a few more by-elections or benefit from defections (not for the first time in Brent’s recent political history) in order to be in a position to leave the alliance with the Conservatives and lead a majority administration....