Recent Articles

A lie told often enough…

Via Iain Dale comes news of a meeting at Westminster arranged by Nadine Dorries in support of her ongoing efforts to reduce the upper time limit for legal abortions:

On 6.00pm-8.00pm, Monday 28th January 2008, from 6.00pm – 8.00pm, Nadine will Chairing a meeting in the Grand Committee Room, Palace of Westminster, London SW1A 0AA, titled, ‘Time to reduce the upper limit for abortion.’

Nadine said, “The Human Fertilisation & Embryology Bill opens up an opportunity to lower the 24 week upper limit for abortion for the first time in over 10 years .

The Science & Technology Committee report into abortion ignored crucial and valid evidence from world renowned experts that would have supported an amendment to the Bill. My minority report attempted to redress the balance; however, the Committee’s report will be used to inform MPs and ultimately influence their vote.

There were three experts who submitted substantial and ground breaking evidence and they are leading this debate: Professor Sunny Anand – Pioneer in research on foetal and neonatal pain. Professor of Paediatrics, Anaesthesiology, Pharmacology & Neurobiology at the University of Arkansas

Professor Stuart Campbell – Leading expert in 4D foetal imaging. Formerly Academic Head of the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Kings College Hospital and President of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Journal ‘Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynaecology’.

There will be a Q&A session after their presentations which will open the floor to questions from all attendees.”

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Politalks – Episode 1: Peter Hain versus the media

I’m not sure Lee Griffin realised how much work something like this would entail, but the result is very promising. Well done Lee.

Casting the net – Kennedy’s had enough of Clintonian bitching

Welcome to Casting the net, Liberal Conspiracy’s daily web review. As always, please feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments section.

Highlights
Jock’s Place – Is there a point at which Liberal Democrats should want to leave the European Union?
Jock buys into the theory of a united Europe, it’s the reality he struggles with. And the much-predicted presidency of Tony Blair may be the final straw.

donpaskini – Ideologically neutral
Paskini on the government’s flirtation with recommendations from the [David] Freud Report.

The Daily (Maybe) – Countryside Alliance wins Channel Four political awards
“A loose grouping who most people don’t even care what they stand for, let alone know.” [quote]

HangBitch – Catholics
Interference by “Jesus freaks” may prevent Lesbians from producing a child.

NY Times – Kennedy Chooses Obama, Spurning Bill Clinton Plea
The Senator has rebuffed overtures from the former President. Apparently Kennedy is fuming over the Clinton’s “misleading” attacks on Obama.

Dave Osler – New Labour and ‘Jewish money’; cause for concern?
Notes from Dave’s speech to the Jewish Socialists’ Group.

Renaissance Virtues – What a palaver
What has Alan Johnson actually done wrong?

The Red Box/Times Online – Freedom of Information: an important victory against Downing Street
Oh the the games Number Ten plays to circumvent its own Freedom of Information Act.

Elsewhere
Stumbling and Mumbling – A liberal-left manifesto
Mind the Gap – The Personal is Political
Westminster Wisdom – A UN University?
Ken Livingstone/CiF – Davos 08: globalisation in capitals
Robin Lustig/BBC – The Gaza break-out
Justin McKeating – Haji Muhammad Suharto 1921 – 2008
Remembering the Ability in Disability – Social networking sites accused of breaching the Disability Discrimination Act
Liberal Burblings – Spectator on Clegg: The “love-in“ continues
Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats – A bank run averted [history]

You can find this week’s Britblog Roundup at Philobiblon. Enjoy.

If you would like your blog or site to be considered as source material for future reviews, drop me an email at aaronh [at] liberalconspiracy [dot] org with the relevant url. I can then enter it into my RSS reader and monitor it for suitable content to be included. Likewise, if you have a specific article/post you feel deserves a little more traffic, get in touch.

Qaradawi and his visa

I know right-wingers have no consistent standards when it comes to free speech, but I’m yet to hear a good argument for why the cleric Al-Qaradawi, contemptible as his views are, should be denied a visa. After all, if we don’t want to listen to nastiness, we should stop the BNP too shouldn’t we?

Democrats: South Carolina election live blogging

Let the speculation, nail biting, under-the-breath swearing, headline sharing and mud-slinging begin! The voting has started.

12am update: CNN has already called it an Obama win.
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How goes the War On Ken?

No surprises in the Evening Boris yesterday – just the usual three pages devoted to demonstrating that Ken Livingstone is a turd. Boris Gilligan reported that Brenda Stern, the former LDA manager, is threatening to sue over what Livingstone said about her on the Today programme on Thursday. Boris Dovkants wrote an unflattering spread about Rosemary Emodi, the Livingstone aide (and Lee Jasper’s deputy) who got caught in a lie about how a flight to Nigeria was paid for.

Meanwhile at New Statesman and at Comment Is Free Martin Bright has been insisting that his Dispatches programme has been vindicated by Livingstone’s own words since its broadcast. And at The Times, Camilla Cavendish – I wonder which inner city comp she went to – likened Livingstone to “the dictator of a small third world country.” The London Mayor himself has decamped to Davos where he’s found time to blog a broadside in his own defence. It’s been a bruising week for him. But how badly damaged is he? And where do the week’s hostilities leave the state of the mayoral race?
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Socialism and supermarket choice

Dalston has just got a new branch of Tesco. It only opened today, and as I was passing anyway, I stepped inside to take a look. It’s only one of the convenience store format versions, rather than a full-on superstore; but it’s handy and it’s open late, so I’ll probably be doing my mid-week fresh fruit and veg top-up shop there from now on.

For many years, anyone in this part of London without a car – and that’s most people around here – has pretty much been dependent on the large Sainsbury in Kingsland shopping centre. Grumbling about the place is a staple of local bus-stop small talk.

The stock control seriously sucks. Go in there with twelve items or more on your shopping list, and it is almost certain you will not be able to tick them all off. It remains shabby, even after a recent refit. And for those of us who work irregular hours and need to fit the purchase of groceries around such a schedule, the opening times are not particularly convenient.

Tesco will remain open after five o’clock on a Sunday, offering an alternative to the manky fresh produce and ramped up prices on offer from what I think is technically known as the independent retail sector.

Maybe – I even mused to myself as I picked up a packet of new potatoes, a pint of milk, Tesco own brand bog cleaner and some anti-sceptic wipes – Sainsbury will even get its act together as a result of the competition. As the guy on the till handed me change from a fiver, it occured to me that would once have been considered a heretical thought for a socialist.
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The Democrat showdown begins tomorrow

Tomorrow, voters in South Carolina vote for their preferred Democrat candidate. I’ve always supported Obama just so you know my preference. SC is important because the person who wins carries that momentum and glow to Super Tuesday on 5th February, when voters in over 20 American states get to choose their candidate.

Barack Obama is almost certainly likely to win SC because half of registered Democrat voters there are African-American, and in Nevada they favoured him 80-20. Clinton has the Hispanic, ‘downscale Democrat’ and (elder) female vote. Obama has the young, richer Democrats and African-American vote.

I’m hoping that Obama wins by over 15% and Clinton comes third, to put a serious dent in her campaign. Interestingly, yesterday John Kerry came out attacking the Clintons for trying to “swiftboat” Obama. Kerry is still highly regarded among many Democrats and it looks like Clinton is doing a good job of alienating the Democrat establishment. This strategy – using others to attacking Clinton rather than do it himself – should have been conceived ages ago since Hillary is doing it brilliantly by using Bill.

It also looks to be back-firing.
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Breaking the Deadlock – Transparency and Party Funding

I think we all know the situation: while politicians, journalists and bloggers pour assiduously over the financial records of politicians and political parties for even the mere hint of an anomaly that might serve the basis of an allegation of sleaze against an opponent, the review process, under Hayden Phillips, which was supposed to lead to reform of the current system of party democracy, has foundered on the unwillingness of both the Labour and Conservative parties to give ground on what are clearly partisan and private interests. On Labour’s side, its their Trade Union funding that is regarded as not negotiable while the Conservatives have baulked at the suggestion of limits on local party spending outside of regulated election periods.

The whole process is going nowhere and even if does begin to make progress, again, the most likely outcome is a series of uncomfortable compromises that suit no one very well and an increase in state funding for the main political parties that will serve only to widen the already yawning chasm between the political classes and the people they, notionally, represent.

Writing in the Observer, last Sunday, Andrew Rawnsley provided a reasonably fair overview of some of the more recent developments, one peppered liberally with the now standard observation that, by and large, British politics is relatively free of outright corruption and its scandals, such as they are, are often minor and rather trivial; and yet in entreating the main parties to make concessions and support the proposals advanced by the Phillips Review, Rawnsley misses a rather more important and fundamental point; that it is the process by which the rules governing party funding are formulated and agreed that lies at the heart of, and creates, these problems. continue reading… »

Casting the net – Gord the weirdo and a LibDem blog spat

Welcome to Casting the net, Liberal Conspiracy’s daily web review. As always, please feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments section. There will be no NetCast tomorrow, so I’ll return on Monday. Have a nice weekend.

Shooting Hillary

Why not have a game of Presidential Paintball over at Mike Power’s gaff?

Breaking News
Peter Hain has resigned from the cabinet.

Highlights
Quaequam Blog – Pigs 1, Goths 0 (UPDATE)
It seems our own James Graham has created something of a firestorm with his post about a couple of Goths thrown off a bus.

The Yorksher Gob – Still picking on James Graham
Yeah, Jennie’s especially pissed off.

The Daily (Maybe) – Weird news rash
Jim Jay also lays down his thoughts on Gothgate (sorry, couldn’t resist… I’ll stop now).

Obsolete – Scum and Mail-watch: “Cult“ suicides and idiotic sensationalism.
Septicisle at his best, tearing into the tabloid media.

John’s Labour blog – Explaining Tory “Dog Whistle” Politics in London
Michael Howard’s Tories experimented with nasty “dog-whistle” politics, and look where it got them. It seems they’re back trying them in London.

PoliticalBetting.Com – Is the “Gordon’s a weirdo” tag a deliberate strategy?
Mike Smithson follows up Paul Linford’s “This not so charming man” post .

Stephen Tall/LDV – PMQs: Nick sticks it to Gordon on Northern Rock
Stephen has the low down on yesterday’s tête-à-tête between Clegg and Brown.

Shiraz Socialist – Fanatics, bores and sceptic tanks
We need a referendum on Lisbon, because the the argument must be won.

Elsewhere
Robert Sharp – BNP are shit
OurKingdom – Labour’s approach on rights, duties and values
donpaskini – Red Ken and the trots
Robin Lustig/BBC – The values debate
Larry Elliot/CiF – Davos 08: The shifting global balance
Skipper – Intellectual Ideas Motivating Blair and Bush’s Invasion of Iraq
Ephems by Brian Barder – The Americans and us: nought for our or their comfort

Apologies to Jonathan at Liberal England, whose BritBlog Roundup I forgot to plug on Tuesday.

If you would like your blog or site to be considered as source material for future reviews, drop me an email at aaronh [at] liberalconspiracy [dot] org with the relevant url. I can then enter it into my RSS reader and monitor it for suitable content to be included. Likewise, if you have a specific article/post you feel deserves a little more traffic, get in touch.