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Politics

Civil liberties, and the Labour and Conservative parties

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 […]

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Politics

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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Politics

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 […]

Categories
Politics

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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Education Politics

Labour and Tuition Fees: An Addendum

Today’s the day that MPs will vote on whether to raise the cap on tuition fees. And, as they have been doing since Browne was published, Labour are currently digging into the Lib Dems for not caving into them breaking the NUS pledge. Including Tom Harris, MP for Glasgow South, who as you may recall, […]