The recent news about control orders makes me a little wary. On the plus side, we’re rolling back one of the most egregious power grabs by the Labour government, and the executive has to relinquish powers to the judiciary on things such as control orders, but on the other hand, the replaced regime has some massive […]
Category: Politics
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Johnson and Balls
What a day for news, eh? Even overlooking Jo Yeates’ (apparent) killer being arrested, we’ve had an onslaught of political news over the past 24 hours, including Andy Coulson quitting Number 10, Tony Blair being hauled in front of Chilcot again, an apparently legendary battle between George Galloway and Alastair Campbell on Newsnight, and, finally, […]
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A customary Mark Twain reference.
Damn you, Mark Cole, for doing the title I wanted to do first. Even so, I was up tonight waiting for the by-election result with bated breath… and we lost by 3,000 votes. It’s actually not bad, if you think about it. The Lib Dems are riding on 8-10% in the daily YouGov polls, but we […]
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Betrayal or pragmatism?
One criticism I often come across when talking about politics, and/or the Liberal Democrats, is that Nick Clegg supposedly “betrayed his principles for a shot at power”. I’ve come across that exact line several times. But was it really a betrayal? I don’t think so. Of course, the Liberal Democrats in the Conservative-led coalition are […]
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e-Petitions: bad for democracy?
So, the Coalition have announced the return of the e-Petitions system previously in effect under Blair and Brown, with one clear change: petitions will be more readily be debated by Parliament. This is touted as a welcome change, where very few, if any, petitions under Labour actually changed government policy. The most notable one that […]