Is that it then? Has the single transferable vote system allowed the Liberal Democrat leadership to breathe a huge sigh of relief? The motion to drop the Health and Social Care Bill won the first round of the ballot to select an emergency motion to debate on Sunday […]
You get the sense that the fashion for political party leaders sending New Year messages to supporters and party members isn’t one that will endure. Or at least it probably shouldn’t. Dan Hodges in the Telegraph yesterday speculated on whether Ed Miliband had been captured by aliens and […]
The speech on the open society Nick Clegg gave at Demos yesterday started with a brilliant encapsulation of the problems facing our society: But our politics and economy are distorted by unaccountable hoards of power, wealth and influence: media moguls; dodgy lobbyists corrupting our politics; irresponsible bankers taking […]
When doing away with our yearly ritual of moving the clocks forward and back is condemned because a change would mean we’d be using “German” time I think we know we’re in trouble. When Conservative MPs like Julian Lewis feel able to go on record to criticise senior […]
On Sunday we had an interesting juxtaposition. The Observer declared that Ed Miliband ‘opens the door to future co-operation with the Liberal Democrats’, contrasting Tory policies with ‘progressive ones’ and inviting Liberal Democrats to join him on the side of progress. This resonates with his previous attempt to […]
Over at the Telegraph today Benedict Brogan posted an interesting piece under the title David Cameron isn’t a winner – and that’s where his problems begin. The thrust of his argument is clear from the title: Cameron’s failure to secure any sort of majority last May fundamentally weakens […]
Quite a few bloggers have now offered a perspective on the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference. Some significant positive developments occurred. The amendments to the conference motion on NHS reform have attracted most attention. The support for the emergency motion on banking reform was equally emphatic. They both represent […]
These are troubling times, for many reasons. If you’re interested in the politics of the Liberal Democrats then you’re driven to ask precisely what’s going on. For those who considered they were joining a tolerant and federal party of the centre–left, the omens seem to get worse by […]
We all know about the cuts. And the claims that getting the public finances in order will act as a spur to a revival of private sector economic activity. We’re all – quite possibly including the Government – less clear on exactly how that revival is supposed to […]
Nick Clegg’s Hugo Young speech last night is already generating plenty of comment in the old and new media. It was structured around a distinction between “old” and “new” progressives which is highly contestable. The characterisation of “old” progressives was not even a gross simplification. It was a […]
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