Recent Articles

Battered and bruised

Labour are beginning to look like a punch-drunk former champ. They seem addicted to the buzz, but whenever they enter the ring they invariably get an almighty mauling. Last night was always going to be a shoo-in for the Tories, after all it’s Henley. But for Labour to be battered and bruised into fifth, behind such towering political heavyweights as The Greens, is quite the humiliation. It’s still uncertain that the up-and-coming challenger, Slippery Dave Cameron, has the stamina and power to win the Title belt, but surely he’s where the smart money is at…

Freemania – They don’t call him “Slippery” for nothing. Tom takes a look at some less-than-honest campaigning by the Tories.
Shiraz Socialist – It’s over for Labour, and the sooner the Left realises that it’s “no longer a viable vehicle for progressive politics in this country”, the better. Touché.
Sunder Katwala – The worst thing Brown can do is allow his tenure to splutter away hopelessly. He needs to be radical and to “get on and govern”.
Ali Gledhill – Yeah, Labour had it coming, but the real losers are the Lib Dems who, yet again, couldn’t capitalise. They’re bereft of ideas and are still conducting themselves appallingly. continue reading… »

Nadine’s Shame (updated)

Today, two very different but inextricably linked news stories caught my eye.

In the first, I find (via The f-word) that Nadine Dorries has tabled another amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would, if accepted, reduce the upper time limit for abortions to twenty weeks. Dorries is seemingly taking a leaf out of the European Union’s book. She didn’t get the answer she wanted last time, so she’ll keep right on asking the same question over and over again until she gets the answer she wants.

Meanwhile, about 1300 miles away in Bucharest, a Romanian government committee will decide today whether to allow an 11 year girl, who was raped by her 19 year old uncle, to travel to the UK for an abortion.

The uncle has, not unsurprisingly, ‘disappeared’.
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Davis faces 25 rivals

A total of 26 candidates – half of them independents – will contest the Haltemprice and Howden by-election. The full list is here. h/t modernity.

On ‘Open Source Campaigning’

Yesterday at the Blog Nation Event, Dan Hardie gave an account of his experiences running his Iraqi Interpreters campaign. He mentioned my post on Open Source Campaigning, but said he thought that ‘open source’ wasn’t an appropriate label, because you need a heirarchy and a leader to run an effective campaign.

To clarify, I’m not sure that the ideas of ‘leadership’ and ‘open source’ are mutually exclusive. Open Source coding projects tend to have a core team of dedicated developers, but individual tasks to code are farmed out to volunteers. Likewise with Jay Rosen’s ‘open source journalism’ – an editor or lead journalist still writes up the piece, but dozens or hundreds of other journalists are able to perform the many discrete pieces of research required.

So it is with Open Source Campaigning. You still need someone like Dan to lead the campaign and make strategic decisions, but the leg-work can be decimated if the lobbying or writing to individual MPs is shared throughout the network.

Cross-posted at my own place, obviously.

Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day

It’s a dark day for me as a Liberal, but I find myself in agreement with the Daily Fail. I despise the Mail, and pretty much everything they stand for, but Harperson’s Equality Act definitely has a sting in the tail.

In my view, Positive Discrimination is still discrimination and it is wrong. Even in this limited way, endorsing discrimination perpetuates it, rather than eradicating it. It adds vast amounts of resentment for little perceivable benefit.
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Davis welcomes Icke challenge

Nuff Said.

Icke running against Davis

Conspiracy theorist David Icke is also running in the Haltermprice by-election, Hopi Sen reports, to protest against Big Brother. Erm…

How the left should resolve their problems

After much serious thought on the subject I have come up with the answer to all the squabbles on the left.

I considered serious political theoretical and strategic discussion but decided to cut to the chase, yep all the old bitter battles as to who did what in 1981 or more recent spats with the SWP could be settled by a cage fight.

Apparently :
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How about some freshly squeezed Prejudice in the morning?

Welcome to the Thursday casting the net. It’s Henley by-election today so exciting times for 24 hours and I’m sure a wealth of links fo Aaron tomorrow. Yesterday was the blog nation event, and this week has provided great material to blog on, so here are the links. Feel free to post up your favourite links in the comments, especially thoughts on last night’s Lib Con event. As always please send lovely tips to tips[at]liberalconspiracy[dot]org!

Brian Barder – What Jacqui Smith said yesterday regarding Homosexuality and Iran is completely unacceptable and it certain seems to have irked a fair number of us out there.
Max Dunbar – A thoroughly interesting and, from my perspective, spot on analysis of a recent occurrence on Big Brother. With so much tension around, the actions of the few muslims and immigrants in the house are bound to be under scrutiny.
Beeblebear/ukpolitics – If you’re brown and muslim then the moment the police break in to your house to arrest you you’re targeted by the media immediately. Kiddy fiddling, fascist, white terrorist? Well you’ll make the paper only when charged.
Neil Harding – He doesn’t like Labour MPs unless they’ve got a spine.
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Pictures from Blog Nation

Yesterday around 80-90 people met up at our first Blog Nation, held at the Guardian newsroom in London. Here are some pictures…
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