Whilst I am sure that petty threats from a minor blogger well beyond the outskirts of the Westminster village who only leaves Headington Hill once a month to buy toiletries in Crabtree and Evelyn will cut little ice with Lib Dem party apparatchiks either in Cowley Street or the West Midlands region, I hereby pledge my support for Cllr Gavin Webb, the "Stoke One". Gavin has been suspended from the party pending a full hearing for, ostensibly at least, voicing personal opinions on liberal and libertarian issues which we both largely share.

If he is out of the party for that, then it is likely that I would be too if it weren't for the fact that I get on seemingly much better with my local party.

I am aware that Gavin has taken the decision not to be in the official Lib Dem council group at Stoke for some time, and that to some he has been a bit of a thorn in the side, but that in itself is no good reason to expel him from the party, nor, he says, has he actually been given details yet (six weeks or so after the event now) of the "charges" against him, so we can only really assume it is for the temerity of holding an opinion.

A number of fellow party members with libertarian leanings have started up a web site to support Gavin at "Save the Stoke One". Having spent my best years at school very near Stoke, I never thought I'd find anything amongst the former smoke stacks and bottle kilns to want to save! Though I distinctly remember some older school friends raving on about seeing The Clash at Victoria Hall in the early eighties!