On 17 Feb Chinese Liberal Democrats (CLDs) held a reception at the new Lib Dem HQ for supporters and prospective donors.

The event was well attended by about 50 people from business and media with the key note speech by Mike Tuffrey AM.

CLDs launched their British-Chinese Future Leaders Fund that evening following a premier showing of a recruitment video.

Merlene Emerson, Chair of Chinese Liberal Democrats and the only candidate in the coming Mayoral and GLA elections of Chinese background was interviewed by reporter Yang Gu.

The article, including a frank and open question and answer session, was published on 13 April 2012 as a double page spread.

Emerson was keen to explain, whilst holding a poster produced by the Electoral Commission, that there will be 3 ballot papers in the May elections: the 1st a pink ballot paper which offers the voter 2 choices for Mayor; the 2nd a yellow ballot paper will be a vote for the Constituency Candidate for the relevant area; and the 3rd ballot paper that is orange in colour will be for the London wide List of candidates of which she was one.

"As I am standing on the London-wide list, no matter where you're living in London, you can vote for me by voting for the London Liberal Democrats. Just look out for the bird logo on the orange ballot paper!" said Emerson.

It is estimated that there are over a 100,000 Chinese voters in London and it is hoped that they will turn out to vote on May 3rd. Should Emerson be successful she will be the first British-Chinese London Assembly member and would be able to give the British Chinese community a voice in City Hall.

Earlier this week, Philip Ling (Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Bromsgrove in 2010 and one of two Chinese on the Party's Leadership Programme) debated current issues with Sonny Leong of Chinese for Labour and Thomas Chan from Chinese Conservatives. The hustings were organised by BBC Chinese and co-hosted by BC Project.

LIBERAL Democrat MP Sarah Teather is urging the Chinese community to take up the government's offer of free school meals (FSMs) for children from low-income families.

The Chinese community has one of the lowest FSM claim rates in the country, with some speculating that this could be down to anything from a lack of awareness to a dislike of the food.

Over 20 million working people will be better off next year after Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government delivered the biggest ever increase in the income tax personal allowance in the Budget.

The massive £3.5bn tax cut for working people delivers:

• The biggest ever single uplift in the tax threshold
• A personal allowance of £9,205 in April 2013
• 21 million working people getting an extra £220 tax cut
• Brings the total tax cut for basic rate tax payers to £550
• Brings the total number of people lifted out of tax to 2 million.

The All Party Parliamentary Chinese in Britain Group have launched a national Crime Questionnaire to gather evidence on Chinese communities' relationship with the Police.

This is of course a very important subject and thanks in advance to everyone helping to disseminate this to the wider public.

From London to Newcastle, Chinese Lib Dems have been urging members from the Chinese community to down-load the bilingual forms and to return their responses to BC Project, co-ordinators of this massive exercise.

"The more people respond to this survey, the more accurate will be our data collected. Only when hate crime and other criminal offences are reported, will the authorities be able to take action and consider the needs and concerns of our community" said Merlene Emerson, Chair of Chinese Liberal Democrats.

Federal Conference Committee accepted an amendment moved by Sarah Yong at Spring Conference on the motion "Giving Young People a Future" (Combating Youth Unemployment) with the insertion of the following paragraph after line 8 of the motion:

Conference further acknowledges that young people in rural areas face specific barriers to accessing learning and training and beginning employment including overcoming the lack of access to public services such as public transport, public libraries and youth services which are being cut by Councils in many rural areas.

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg used his speech to the Party's Spring conference in NewcastleGateshead to call for the forthcoming budget to be a "budget for fairness" and pledged that it would help working familes.

The Deputy Prime Minister pledged that by 2015 Britain would have seen an end to control orders, the first gay marriages and the first elections to the House of Lords.