Tag: Power

Liberalism redux

It’s conceivable that I am just about the last Liberal Democrat blogger to post something in the aftermath of the General Election horror show. Plenty has been said. There is no doubt plenty more to say. I thought I’d add something to the mix. A little of the […]

Speaking money

Yesterday evening the Festival of Economics 2014 kicked off with the author John Lanchester in conversation with Izabella Kaminska of the FT. Lanchester, who is promoting his book How to speak money, had some very interesting and important things to say about the language of finance. His key […]

Independence, devolution and power

Independent on Sunday front page – “Who to believe” #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers #indyref pic.twitter.com/I5DyzXeMPl — Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) September 13, 2014 When I first saw this tweet, late last Saturday night, my immediate and admittedly facile response was “Neither of them”. Alex Salmond was propounding a vision for an […]

Extracting apologies from the unrepentant

The Liberal Democrats seem to be getting into an almighty tangle over the Rennard affair. Stephen Tall offers a good overview of the state of play. It seems no one, apart from Lord Rennard and his chums, feels the outcome of the Webster inquiry is satisfactory. Many also […]

Selling justice by the pound

To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.                                                                       Magna Carta Any country or Government which wants to proceed towards tyranny starts to undermine legal rights and undermine the law.                                                                Margaret Thatcher When Chris Grayling was appointed Lord Chancellor in […]

Hilton’s horrors

I keep returning to Steve Hilton’s comments on the rigidities and redundancies of the senior civil service, as reported in the Sunday Times. It all strikes me as a bit rum. Hilton was making three main points. First, that members of the Government were only finding out about […]

Nick Clegg, liberalism and leadership

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 […]

Democratic deficits

Liberal democracy faces profound challenges. Radically different future trajectories present themselves. We are living through momentous times. In Britain the media has spent the last fortnight preoccupied with the Hackgate scandal. Incremental, and ongoing, revelations have exposed the inner workings of the nexus between Westminster politicians and the […]

Greece and the augurs of global disaster

Current events in Greece are genuinely transformational in more ways than one. Clearly the Greek economy is in a heck of a mess. It is not at all obvious whether either of the future directions on offer – eye-watering austerity, on the one hand, or default, exit from […]