Posts Tagged ‘ Liberal Democrats ’

Liberal lateral thinking

In view of the FDP’s success in the recent German elections, I thought it might be worth flagging up some articles that have appeared in the UK liberal corner of late – one on the Times from Rachel Sylvester, and one on Liberal Vision. The gist of them is that the Lib Dems in the [ READ MORE ]

Up the Lib Dems?

Anatole Kaletsky, former such a loyal Labourite, has seemingly abandoned his previous adulation for all things red, and instead appears to have embraced the Liberal Democrats as the “dominant part of the Left” in view of the desperately shoddy state of British socialism. I rarely agree with him, but for once I’m willing to buy [ READ MORE ]

At the crossroads

Every time I sit down to watch the news these days I get an ever stronger impression that we’re about to hit a crossroads in terms of the direction the UK can go, politically and (by implication) economically. Just today we have the news that Japan, the ‘sick man of the world’ of the last [ READ MORE ]

A new age of transparency?

As with most scandals, the gigantic fuss caused by the MPs’ expenses revelations that have already claimed several scalps in all 3 main parties, and look set to claim several more (if only by virtue of some MPs preferring to jump rather than being pushed and standing down at the next general election), is slowly [ READ MORE ]

Tory sleaze

I’ve had a fair amount of private criticism from readers of this blog that I have a tendency to focus too much on Labour errors and misdemeanours, and thus implicitly give the Conservatives an easy ride, while completely ignoring the other parties. The latter is merely a function of Westminster being what is called in [ READ MORE ]

Opinion polls

For what little they’re worth: BPIX/Mail on Sunday: Con 45pc Lab 23pc LD N/A YouGov/Sunday Times: Con 43pc Lab 27pc LD 18pc And the Times also has an interesting analysis of the predicted voteshare in the European elections being held on 4.vi.09: Con 40pc Lab 25pc LD 27pc Unfortunately, the way the Lib Dem vote [ READ MORE ]

MPs expenses

When it isn’t smear emails offering some hard evidence of endemic Westminster sleaze, it’s what the blogs have called “troughing” – elected representatives from all shades of the political spectrum not only making one set of rules for the country and another for themselves, but also lining their pockets with multiple layers of the taxpayers’ [ READ MORE ]

Broken Labour

I feel sorry for Labour. Well, almost. Actually, no I don’t, not at all – they’ve been screwing over the country for the last 12 years, and it’s time for a change. There is pretty much nothing now that can reinvigorate their electoral prospects – even if the entire Cabinet are canonised, they are and [ READ MORE ]

The sinking ship

Everyone in the political blogosphere has already seen the polls by the Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday giving the Conservatives a 17pc and 19pc lead respectively, so I thought I’d bring them to the attention of those of my readers who don’t follow them as avidly. Specifically the figures are:  (Telegraph) Con 43pc Lab 26pc LD [ READ MORE ]

Change we need?

The recent turmoil involving Damian McBride, Derek Draper and Guido Fawkes is obviously the big story of the moment, and I was rather expecting matters to quieten down before I came up with a value-judging assessment of the whole affair. As it seems, however, the revelation by Guido, prefaced by this cryptic (and possibly in [ READ MORE ]

Day 33 (29.vii.08)

Lecture day today, so a slightly earlier rise than usual – which, to be brutally accurate, doesn’t mean waking up earlier, since I always tend to ‘wake up’ at 10:00; it’s just the lounging-around time spent grunting drowsily at the tentative fingers of daylight stabbing in through the gaps in the curtains that varies depending [ READ MORE ]

Day 21 (17.vii.08)

Another lecture day today – this time on Kymlicka and multiculturalism. Much more my line of business, given that my animated response to the discussions in tutes back in Hilary term of hate speech, the offence principle, and general limitations of liberty have led me to adopt a rather hostile attitude to theoretical attempts to [ READ MORE ]

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