LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Sunday 21st October 2007

Hello Beijing!

I notice that today the Great Firewall of China has been breached for one and that I've had a visitor to the site from Beijing. Welcome to my blogsite. I hope that many more Chinese citizens will be able to join you and see what other foreigners have to say about goings on in China and our concerns about the human rights situation and the need for it to dramatically improve. If you think I'm hardline on human rights you should read what others of my colleagues are saying. Some are already calling for a boycott of the 2008 Olympics ...

Hu Said That?

As I predicted earlier this year, it appears that Chinese Communist President Hu Jintao has maneovred key members of the Shanghai Clique (supporters of former President Jiang Zemin) out of the Politburo. Vice President Zeng Qinghong is gone and along with him other Shanghai Clique members Luo Gan and Wu Guanzheng. Hu is close to scoring a major home win in his battle against the remaining Jiang/Shanghai faction members and the influence of both the former President and his protoges from Shanghai is seriously on the wane. Hu now needs to be careful not to overplay his hand otherwise he ...

Speaking of which...

OK, so it is a bit self-indulgent, but Alex Folkes sent me this photo that he took at party conference. I was speaking in the debate about local government last month in Brighton. Now should I replace my standard photo on the right with this one?

Impressions of Berlin

I have been away in Berlin at the ELDR (European Liberal, Democratic and Reform) Party Congress, where delegates of parties from all quarters of Europe met. 100 out of 270 Members of the European Parliament, and 10 of the 27 European Commissioners, belong to the ELDR's bloc (though ELDR's geographical scope is wider than that of the EU). This is new and important: previously in both Parliament and Commission there was a deadlock between socialist and conservative blocs, and I suspect those blocs are at a loss what to do about such a major rearrangement of the pieces on the ...

What's changed over the Centuries ?

Spin; showing off what you have (even if you haven't!); buildings for pleasure of the few; worship of the idea of eternal beauty; refreshment houses as often as you can get them; a huge financial crisis. So where have these words come from? Today's Sunday papers ? No, but they could, couldn't they. They were some of the things I picked up on a guided tour of Studley Gardens...

The price of democracy

A party member eligible to vote in the Selection emailed me this afternoon with a question that no-one else has asked. “Who is paying for your campaign?“ This took me by surprise. I have not exactly been flying around in a helicopter. The rules really prevent (rightly so, in order to level the field) any activity that will cost very much- No posting leafelts or paid delivery; Leaflets limited to two-colour, max 130gsm paper; Only one leaflet per candidate; No paid-for website design (although this is being applied that you can pay for template based design not bespoke design); No employing campaign ...

Melanie Phillips: crackpot?

This week's "Moral Maze" on Radio 4 was awful. It was about the legalization of drugs. The quality of argument was so poor. Unsurprisingly Melanie Phillips was the main culprit.

New Chris Huhne campaign leaflet

There’s a new campaign leaflet available to download from the official site (pdf file). It features Susan Kramer and Lynne Featherstone explaining why they’re back Chris for leader, with a nomination form attached as well. You can also download it from the link below: Campaign leaflet with nomination form

My Labour opposite number replies

I wrote a post on Monday about how I had written to the failed Labour candidate in my ward, Mr Peter de Vere, asking him to withdraw incorrect and misleading allegations in a leaflet Labour had produced and circulated in my ward. Mr de Vere had claimed that Lib Dem Newcastle Council had rushed through a recycling scheme, then immediately abandoned it and in the process wasted millions of pounds

Don Liberali will not be standing for Don of Liberali

It with regret I announce that despite entreaties of fellow Capos and paesan in Little Sicily and wider Territories I will not be putting myself forward for Don of Liberali Family. My decision have nothing to do with alleged rumour of offer of top job in inner circle of either Signor "BabyDon" Clegg or Signor "Carbonator" Huhne. I man of principle. And while I appreciate many paesan want more choice in competition. I old Liberali, I no like either choice or competition. So forget about it. Further I just like to say I appreciate BabyDon and Carbonator's comments to me ...

RE: Obama’s Policy on Nuclear Disarmament

George, I am intrigued by your response and certainly eager to continue our debate in which I am thankful for your participation. I am writing this post having read, not just your last post, but also your post on the Liberal Democrats Trident policy too, so I shall attempt to address the arguments made in both. My points, however, will be the following: The nature of the Non-Proliferation Treaty makes any lasting ‘deal’ impossible; possessing nuclear weapons still holds immense strategic value, albeit more politically than militarily;not only does the uncertain balance of power necessitate the retention and upgrading of nuclear weapons, ...

Why free markets?

Drawing upon I, Pencil Milton Friedman explains:0 For me the most important thing is the way people, without knowing each other, without even knowing what they are producing is to be used for, can create something. These links then foster peace and cooperation and understanding.

More hustings news

We’ve got details of two more sets of leadership hustings: Next weekend, on Saturday 27th, there’ll be an event at the West Midlands Regional Conference which takes place at the Benn Hall in Rugby. The hustings will take place between 11.45am and 1.30pm. A date for the London hustings has also been announced, but a bit further in the future - Wednesday 27th November, at 7pm at the Friends Meeting Hall on Euston Road. The official site has a list of all the hustings events. We also have a neutral’s report about yesterday’s event from Antony Hook.

Islington's Black History Concert Celebrates Abolition of Slavery

Last night I went to an excellent performance of a little known opera by Scott Joplin, (best known for 'Ragtime Blues') 'Treemonisha', performed by Vision Community Opera at the Lillian Baylis Theatre. This was the highlight of Islington Councils excellent programme for Black History Month. Brilliant performances. The first part of the evening we were treated to a series of sketches, dances and rap by 'Nu Generation' a group of young Black performers, reflecting on the subject of slavery, its effects and legacy. It was refreshing to see young people giving powerful messages about the futility of gang culture and ...

Sunny Sunday

What a glorious autumn morning! I walked down to Yarm, as I usually do on Sunday morning, to go to church and my spirits were lifted at every corner it seemed. The early morning sun, a hint of mist, autumn colours, a squirrel eating an acorn - Keats knew what he was talking about when he wrote "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness". In Yarm High Street the Care for your Area Team were doing

The leadership race is over

At least, it is if you read some sections of the media. Nick Clegg is interviewed in The Observer and the intro states that Clegg "is almost certainly going to be elected leader of the Liberal Democrats". Such judgements are very premature. This election is decided by the party members, not by a few cheerleaders in the media and I suspect the vast majority, like me, are yet to make up their minds. The reason for that is that while I may agree with an awful lot of what Clegg says, I also like what Chris Huhne is saying too, ...

Sharon Osbourne quits The X Factor - Good !

Thank goodness for that. The patronising Sharon Osbourne has quit the X Factor because one of her acts was voted out. What a pathetic individual she is. Rather like a child throwing a temper tantrum Sharon "cares so much for her acts" that she has walked out on her remaining two acts. To be honest, last night's show was a far from auspicious start, with not one single act jumping out as being particularly talented or greatly better than the fare served up at a typical karaoke night. I am a big X Factor fan, so was greatly disappointed, however, ...

Nick Clegg

I have read a lot about Nick and Chris over the past few days and believe this is going to be an interesting contest. I am amused that already the media is trying to dig up the dirt, Chris it seems wrote an article in a student mag in the early 70's discussing drugs and may (or may not) have experimented. Nick on the other hand, as a student burned down a greenhouse full of cacti, the article did not mention whether or not they were hallucinogenic. Well its probably best to get this all out of the way early ...

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #35

Welcome to the 35th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (14th-10th October), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed. And we are of course unexpectedly in the midst of a leadership campaign, which it’s fair to say [...]

Tories tell the BBC that they "will use Lib Dem stance on EU referendum to attack and win Lib Dem seats"

William Hague outlined today on the Andrew Marr show how the Tories will use the Lib Dems broken promise to have a referendum on the EU Constitution (renamed the EU Reform Treaty) to target and win Liberal Democrat seats in a future General Election . He told Andrew Marr that Lib Dem MP's " in marginal seats will have to remember that their breach of that promise is something we will remind their constituents about in some detail at the next general election." And to be honest, who could blame the Tories for doing this ? It is what we ...

Conspiracy Theories

My brother said to me yesterday "There is no way Lewis Hamilton will win the world championship ... someone will see to that". He then pointed out that McLaren left him out for too long on disintegrating tyres and they then used a second set of wet weather tyres in practise on Friday which might have seen him lose grid position. Now, for my brother and all the others who like conspiracy theories, his car spluttered away from the start line and his gear box appears not to be working seeing him drop to 18th place in the Grand Prix. ...

Shameless Buddy Linking

Former Spark editor and good friend of mine, Richard Holloway, has started blogging. He is, regrettably, a Tory, but I won't hold that against him as I add his RSS feed to Bloglines and start to enjoy his occasional ruminations as a "sceptical conservative".

Right vs Left; Protectionism vs Free Trade; Clegg vs Huhne?

I was at the Not-the-first-hustings yesterday at the South Central Conference at Newbury and was impressed by both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. I saw nothing to make me change my loyalties away from Chris, but one thing in particular Nick said (twice at least) was worth flagging up I thought. {Nick Clegg} I think the first reference was in his speech when talking about how to re-engage voters in an era when so many people say "what does government matter when the global conglomerates have all the power" he seemed to say that government should seek to control (as ...

Liberal Democracy and multiculturalism according to the Chief Rabbi

Jonathan Sacks, Chief Orthodox Rabbi, has jumped on the latest bandwagon blaming multiculturalism for the demise of society, morality, the nation and all things Tory. There are so many things wrong with his piece that it’s difficult to rebut concisely, but here are a few thoughts. According to Sacks, multiculturalism, notwithstanding the good intentions, has resulted in segregation of groups,

MEP Awards 2007

Congratulations to Michael Cashman the West Midlands Labour MEP. He has won the Parliamentary Magazine's MEP of the Year Award for Justice and Human Rights. Michael was the only British MEP to win any of the awards, it is a little disappointing that no British Liberal Democrat won any of the ten awards.

The EU and Israel/Palestine

As a candidate, and if elected as an MEP, I want to prioritise the EU's role in the Quartet that's seeking to bring about a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. As an active officer of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, I have spent many years fighting for a strong Liberal Democrat voice in favour of a two-state solution that brings peace, justice and security to Israelis and Palestinians alike. I have done this on the Conference platform and fringe, in private discussions and in the media, including being twice interviewed by a reporter on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme. If you ...

Video: Why I’ll be voting for Chris

Hopefully the first of many - and if you want to make your own, please do it and tell us about it! - here’s a video from Mark Mills explaining why he’s voting for Chris (click here if it’s not displaying below). You can ready Mark’s endorsement on his blog.

How this blog influenced Chris Huhne's leadership campaign!

The claim may be slightly exaggerated... Yet, just a few days after i commented on the need for a debate over the mechanism of choice in public services, Chris Huhne has made the first soundings on the issue. I can't find the links at present, but several papers were reporting that Huhne was warning against embracing the choice and competition agenda that both the Conservatives and Labour have relentlessly pursued over recent years. I am delighted that this issue has been raised so early on in the leadership campaign; in my view there exists no more important debate in domestic ...

I met Ming a few days before he decided to retire as our Leader.

If Brucie can host Come Dancing - why did Ming feel he had to bow out of being our Leader for a younger version?It beats me!

Big Ask

Finally it’s half term! A few days of catching up with everything before the next push until Christmas. This has been an interesting week. Tuesday was our Area Partnership where we were promised improvement to street cleaning that’s in a dire state and our shopping centre feature may or not be repaired in time for Christmas! Wednesday I attended a special meeting with the Head of Six Town

Oxfam closes at Yate

It's sad that the well-established Oxfam shop at Yate closed last week. Apparently the cost of the shop lease made it uneconomic. Our nearest Oxfam shops are now Thornbury, Malmesbury, Dursley, Keynsham and a number of shops in Bristol. Put your postcode in on the Oxfam shop finder page to locate your nearest shop. And don't forget that you can buy lots online, too - one of the most novel ways of giving a present is through Oxfam Unwrapped, with gifts like "Build a Bog" and "Teach a Teacher". We ought to acknowledge the contribution of staff and volunteers at ...

Well done England

Well what an exciting World Cup it has been. Yesterday's match was a cliff hanger. I am sorry to say the ref was right, it was not a try. It was amazing the number of people in the pub last night expressing a view who it then became clear that they didn't have the slightest idea of the rules of the game. The two things to remember are: 1. The line is OUT. Unlike in soccer, where the line is in.

Brown and Blair - the squabbling continues

Earlier this year I wrote a piece previewing how Gordon Brown might turn out as Prime Minister. One issue I picked up on was just how long-running and deeply rooted in the Labour Party is the internal fighting and bickering around Gordon Brown himself:This dates much further back than Blair announcing he would not fight another election. As Philip Gould has recounted, it even goes back before the 1992 general election: "The whole thing was so debilitating because every time Gordon appeared on TV, someone in John [Smith]'s camp would say, 'Look, it's another bid for the leadership', Patricia [Hewitt] ...

Messers Huhne and Clegg on the TV

Watched Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg on the Andy Marr show this morning. Both on good form. Then read the newspaper coverage. Pretty clear that the Times et al are weighing in for Nick 'the bookies favourite'. However, in the Liberal Democrats, that might not be the signal the party is waiting for. We're an ornery lot and don't like being bounced. We were bonced into Ming really - and had Chris been better known and had he been in Parliamnet more than six months, I think he probably would have won. He went an awful long way from a ...

Chris on Sunday TV

Both of the BBC’s Sunday political shows naturally featured the leadership election, and if you missed them, they’re available to watch online. You can see the Andrew Marr show here and The Politics Show here. There’s also a transcript of the section about the leadership on Andrew Marr available here and Mark Littlewood’s analysis of the candidates for The Politics Show can be read here.

The man who thought his political career was a hat

I cannot be the only one to be relieved that all this hat business is over. Every time I stepped outside my front door last week I had to duck and jab my umbrella at the heavens lest I be decapitated by the flocks of flying hats circling the ring. Everywhere you looked people were about to throw hats, or fending off clamour from hat fanciers trying to persuade them to throw hats, or looking for all the world as if they were about to throw hats but then unexpectedly chickening out. Of course it was clear from the start that the unwary risked a clip round the ...

Agreeing with James Graham

Having spent the last few days away at ELDR in Berlin - I have been catching up with the blogs and have found myself agreeing with James Graham (shock horror!) on a couple of points. One is the comment he made in relation to the last general election campaign........"We spent so much time trying to widen our appeal in so many different directions that no-one knew what we were for." He also observed that our 10 point plan, and failure to link it with our underpinning philosophy gained us voters but not supporters. Absolutely!!!! This is an issue close to ...

Why Labour are Wrong to Want Clegg

Labour, I think, make the automatic assumption that their voters are more economically left wing than the voters of the other parties. I do not think this can be taken as an automatic given. Most people fall into the “I don’t care, stop throwing ‘isms’ at me” category. Since Labour’s end to the commitment to nationalise industry, Labour’s appeal has been broadened to those who want “social justice” but don’t want to go down the Socialist road. No-one’s really arguing for moving away from the mixed economy model anymore and so there’s no reason to presume that at least half ...

There has got to be a Leadership Hustings in the North East this time

Posted by Chris: I hear that there is to be another Lib Dem Leadership Hustings at Leeds Civic Hall, at 3pm on 3rd November 2007. This is a nice venue, which was packed to overflowing when the Leadership Hustings were held there last time. We shall enjoy the day out and a chance to visit Leeds market, even though it clashes with Leeds United's game at Carlisle. Leeds is near enough for us to attend without much travelling but I am led to understand that this is the only north of England Hustings so far planned and there is unlikely ...

Ken's discounted bus travel: time for a proper evaluation?

At the end of August I did a post about the Mayor of London's half price (for buses only) Oystercard scheme. If nothing else, the Mayor's scheme seems to have generated a lot of interest. I've had a few emails as well as the couple of comments on my blog - but have noticed that it's one of the most regularly searched for items that people arrive at my blog from. The original post summarises my basic feelings about the scheme. And the emails and comments I have had have not so far been ones from people eternally grateful to ...

'One 3rd of People Living in London were Born Abroad'

Friday's Evening Standard had this article: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ , showing new figures from the Office of National Statistics. Out of London's total 7.4 million population, about 5 million were born abroad, demonstrating that London is a truly international city, and one that is unmatched in its dynamism and vibrancy. Whilst accepting that central government benefits economically from international migration, it hasn't passed on those benefits to the public services, to address concerns about pressure on local services in some areas. The settlement on public sector spending announced by Chancellor, Alistair Darling, is not one that is being warmly welcomed by London's ...

A chance to reunite the Liberal family

Michael Meadowcroft , the former Liberal MP for Leeds West, has this week joined the Liberal Democrats. In 1988 Michael did not join the Liberal Democrats but remained with the continuing Liberal Party. Michael said "the political situation now is very different to what it was 20 years ago when I and a number of colleagues felt unable to commit ourselves to the new merged party." He went on to cite three main reason he felt need attention - the continued occupation of Iraq, ID Cards and the serious threat from xenophobes and conservatives of Right and Left who believe ...

Celebs vs Cerebral

Candidate A has an article in the Telegraph today bigging up his social justice credentials. Candidate B has an article in the Observer today bigging up his celebrity friends and that he’ll be meeting Halle Berry this week. Candidate A is definitely giving the activists, including me, what they want. But Candidate B seems to be doing a much better job at communicating with broader public. It seems to me that if Candidate B is to avoid being dismissed as a bit of fluff, he has got to start offering the membership a bit of meat. But if Candidate A ...

Loo's Muze............Gagged

Last week I received an email informing me that as a Euro candidate I was not allowed to endorse a candidate. Now, of course, the candidates may well be relieved at this news! The reason myself and other candidates have been thus silenced, is, in my view, a complete misinterpretation of the rule which states that we cannot have any endorsement in our literature from a "known" Lib Dem. I can accept that, not all candidates will have access to such endorsement. What I can't accept is this being interpreted as us not being able to endorse a candidate - ...

Come And Join Us

On Friday I was unanimously reselected as the Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Torbay. This is a formal process we have to go through before an election and the meeting was arrang...

Is it left versus liberal?

Some early positioning statements by the leading candidates seem to suggest they are positioning themselves along the axis that defines at least two of the three major positions that set out a clear vision for the Liberal Democrat party. The first position can broadly be defined as a centrist 'liberal coalition' strategy. The Liberal Democrats need to reunite the tribes of liberalism, liberal conservatives, liberal social democrats, liberal greens of course liberal liberals, build a clear platform that appeals to those voters and pushes Labour and the Conservatives back to the positions preferred by their wing-nuts on the left and ...

My choice for leader

............OK in 2050!

The druggie versus the hoodie

What’s worse? Huhne’s LSD-associated past, or Clegg’s past encounter with peyote? Seriously for a minute, is that Times article on Huhne accurate? According to it, Huhne’s name is on the article. But according to the copy which I pilfered from that nice Mr Fawkes (February 2006, by the way), no name appears anywhere on the article, probably because if anyone admitted to writing the article they’d have been kicked out of university. {Isis article on drugs} Can anyone see Huhne’s name on this page? I’ll happily issue a correction if I’ve missed it. But I suspect that Guido would have ...

Report from the Newbury Hustings

Having finished a month of back-to-back hustings in the European Selection, it was nice to be a spectator rather than a candidate. The Euro Selection Rules mean that I cannot, for now, publicly endorse either leadership candidate. I’m rather flattered by the equivalence the rules put on that and an MP not being allowed to publicly endorse me {:-)} Also, I won’t extensively summarise what the candidates said because I didn’t take a note (I also wish I’d timed the applause for an objective comparision) and I wouldn’t want to misrepresent anyone. So, here a just some completely neutral value-free observations about how things went at Newbury. ...

Lib Dem leadership contest: Podcast of a floating voter, episode 2

Podcast RSS feed (Apologies, I’m still mastering things like sound levels and editing out my fluffs, and my enunciation goes a bit to pot when I get over-excited) Now that both of the Liberal Democrat leadership candidates have laid out their stalls in their launch events and the first hustings, I feel like one of those odd people at a dinner party who, when proffered a box of After Eight mints sucks their teeth and waggles their fingers over the box to choose one. Your choice is confined to taking an After Eight, or not taking an after Eight - ...

Football Stadia Tour 1: Dens Park

I've returned to my blogging just in time for the second quarter of the season in the Iron Bru Scottish Football League Division 1. So maybe this is an opportune time to start my personal take on the various venues that I come across on my travels. For the rest of this season there will be nowhere new to visit as the first quarter including the cup games has taken me to the strange fields once

Where is Socks?

Hillary Clinton's attempts to soften her image so as to win the women's vote in next year's Presidential elections are threatened by the mysterious fate of Socks the First White House cat according to The Sunday Times. They tell us that as 'the “first pet” of the Clinton era, Socks, the White House cat, allowed “chilly” Hillary Clinton to show a caring, maternal side as well as bringing joy to her daughter Chelsea. So where is Socks today? Once the presidency was over, there was no room for Socks any more. After years of loyal service at the White House, ...

Chris Huhne winning on Didcot Parkway platform

I have evidence that you can find nominators for Chris Huhne in the most unlikely situations. Returning from a wedding in Chippenham yesterday, I found myself stranded on Didcot Parkway station waiting for a connection. But I was fortunate enough to bump into a Lib Dem member I knew, also waiting for a train. “Who do you think you’ll be supporting?” I asked, innocently. “Oh, Chris Huhne,” he replied. By coincidence, I had a nomination form in my rucksack. He signed, and the train got me home eventually.

Elementary logic # 19

Last week Turkey declared its intention to send troops into Northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish insurgents, and George Bush addressed the White House press corps as follows. “Yes, we know there is a terrorism problem in Northern Iraq. But there are better ways of dealing with it than…” Please complete his sentence using your background knowledge. (a) uuuh….how they’re dealing with it. (b) lighting the beacons of Minas Tirith to call upon the horsemen of Rohan for aid, for the great King Theoden is under a curse, as it is said. (c) invading Iraq.

Chris writes in the Telegraph, and other press

Chris has an article in today’s Telegraph - End the reign of the Tory Twins - pointing out how we as a party differ from Labour and the Tories. There’s coverage of the article in the main news section of the paper as well as a comment piece from Charles Kennedy. Elsewhere, the Times goes back to the 70s to get an article about Chris, the Observer has coverage of yesterday’s hustings as well as commentary from Andrew Rawnsley. BBC News also has coverage of the hustings, as well as a video report from the event (click on the ‘watch’ ...

Voting Fraud in Bradford

The BBC are reporting that seven men have been charged with voting fraud in Bradford relating to the last General Election. This makes me want to ask two questions. 1) Are they politically involved in any way ? If so, the political party in question needs to throw them out of their party, should they be found guilty. 2) Why has it taken 2 and a half years for the police to investigate this ? Isn't it about time the police had a national unit who are trained and understand electoral law so these things can be swiftly dealt with. ...

Your Sunday papers

The Sunday Telegraph says: In an article for this newspaper, Chris Huhne aims the first personal shot at Nick Clegg - claiming that his rival risks being seen as little more than a “Tory twin”. You can read the article here and make your own mind up. While in the Observer a saccharine, though at times revealing, interview [...]

And the winner is…the Liberal Democrats!

It is of course something of a cliché, but the leadership contest does allow us some airtime and public interest to talk about what the Liberal Democrats believe in some places where the broader public may hear. And I have been pleased with the way that as they have been interviewed over the last week first over Ming’s resignation and now in the leadership contest, various senior Liberal Democrats have used the opportunity well to get across some of the key beliefs and values that are important to us. To many of us who spend a lot of our time ...

From Barking to Barnes and a Battersea Barn Dance

Yesterday I was in full campaign mode, thankful that the London weather is unseasonably mild and sunny. In the morning, I was out delivering residents’ surveys in Eastbury ward in Barking and Dagenham, which the LibDems used to hold, before the recent local surge of the BNP — a situation London region is keen to reverse. Then to Barnes in Richmond, out and about meeting party members and admiring people’s gardens. On to Greenwich, where Councillor Harry Potter (sic) hosted a delightful ‘Meet the Candidates’ event, though only three of us ten Euro-hopefuls had showed up by the time I had ...

So it turns out there may be gay characters in Harry Potter after all

I wrote a post after the final Harry Potter book came out speculating about the backlash there would have been from the christian right if JK Rowling had included an openly gay character in her books. Some, of course, choose to read my post as general whinge about a lack of representation, but hey that's their hang up not mine. Well I guess we are about to find out. And could JK have chosen a

Second Thoughts

I’ve been getting into an interesting discussion with James Graham over on “Quaequam Blog!” about just what Clegg actually means by broadening the appeal of the party. Haven’t we already tried that and it failed? James makes a good point, that throwing random “popular” policies at people that aren’t connected to any kind of vision is doomed to failure as a strategy. Is Clegg offering that or something more? Parties are successful when they connect to a mass movement of people through shared values, a building of trust and a shared identity. Self interest rarely enters into it and frankly, ...

RE: Obama’s Policy on Nuclear Disarmament

London Liberal, I always intended this blog to be a forum for debate and so I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to debate you by posting something that I completely disagree with {;-)} Firstly I would direct you to my previous post on the Lib Dems Nuclear Policy and why I believe that it is wrong. Secondly I would start by saying that your proposition that there is clear blue water between the issues of proliferation and disarmament is not the case in fact nor in international law. The nuclear non proliferation treaty of which ...

Day 2482: "The Sun" commits Treason

Thursday: Yes, I say that "The Sun" supports TREASON – or, if they're going to print a full page cartoon showing RAF Spitfires preparing to attack the Prime Monster's plane, is there some explanation that is not GLORIFYING TERRORISM? Perhaps "The Sun says…" that a MILITARY COUP is FUNNY – perhaps they would like to say that to Ms Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan… though maybe not on a day when she's nearly been EXPLODED by (allegedly) FORMER GENERALS! We SHOULD hold a referendum on the European Reform Treaty. We should vote YES. But I'm not agreeing with "The Sun" here, ...

Sunday 21st October 2007

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