Andrew Hickey | Liberal Conspiracy

Vote Liberal Democrat

by Andrew Hickey March 28, 2010 at 9:00 am

From Hagley Road to Ladywood’s pre-election series.

A lot of people don’t get the Liberal Democrats.

I think this is to do with the fact that we’re portrayed in the media (and, indeed, used to portray ourselves) as centrists, which given that the parties of the ‘left’ and ‘right’ in the UK are both right-wing authoritarian corporatist parties with little but brand names to distinguish them, leads people to dismiss us without really bothering to investigate what we stand for.

The fact is, the Liberal Democrats are a fundamentally different kind of party to Labour and the Conservatives. Not because of our policies – though these do differ substantially from those parties – but because of our philosophy. I don’t have much space, so I’ll give two examples.

The first is this, from our constitution, printed on the membership card of every member:

“the Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity”.

Is this something you can really imagine ‘New’ Labour or the Tories saying? continue reading… »

79 Comments ¦ 28th March

TODAY’S TOP STORIES / 23rd April

by Andrew Hickey April 23, 2009 at 2:04 pm

BUDGET – NEW 50% TAX RATE

Nationwide
Opposition label Budget ‘fantasy’
MPs expenses plan rejected by Tories and Lib Dems
Ministers to announce CO2 plans
Campaigners call for regulation of Facebook racists

International
Hundreds of Sri Lankans killed in no-fire zone
Financier at centre of US mortgage crisis found hanged
ANC take lead in election count
Bush aides approved torture, says report

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Andrew Hickey

Mark Steel on institutionalised violence in the police.

Several people have posted about the Budget, including Darrel at the Social Liberal Forum who sees ‘Labour’s swansong’ as an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats, Charlotte Gore who considers it “tough on wealth, tough on the causes of wealth”, and Anton Vowl who has a budget-day drinking game.

Costigan Quist, on the ‘terror suspects’ who were uncharged but deported anyway.

On the same subject Septicisle thinks the Government, not the people, should be in terror.

Dorian at postmodernbarney on the conflict between wanting to denounce homophobia in the media and wanting to see good-looking men on TV.

And I have some very strong opinions about recent posts on this site.

And finally Basic Instructions tells us how to save the Earth, or browse through previous Netcasts

(ps. Apologies for the lateness of this netcast – I’ve been away from the internets. Aaron)

1 Comment ¦ 23rd April

Why I am not a Libertarian

by Andrew Hickey December 26, 2008 at 11:02 pm

Recently, there appears to have been an influx into the Liberal Democrats of Libertarians. This is typified by the members of ‘Liberal Vision‘, which is in turn part of a Tory organisation called ‘progressive voice’ (essentially a bunch of Objectivists).

Now, in many ways I agree with libertarians on many subjects – which is, of course, why we can be in the same party – I am all for more personal freedom, for a lack of government interference in people’s lives, for the restoration of recently-lost civil liberties and so on. But libertarians seem, to me, to have two big holes in their thinking, both of which are summed up by some recent comments by Nick in this thread on Liberal Conspiracy (scroll down).

‘Nick’ is following the libertarian ‘party line’ almost exactly: the government should not interfere with the workings of the market when companies are failing. Not only should they not spend any money bailing out the companies (a reasonable, debatable position) or on retraining the workers so they can get jobs elsewhere (a much less reasonable position in my view) – they should not even pay unemployment benefit to the people who lose their jobs, because the money would be better allocated by the market.

Now, there are two distinct errors here.
continue reading… »

119 Comments ¦ 26th December

Liberals should be fighting Tories, not Labour

by Andrew Hickey July 1, 2008 at 8:19 am

I am going to make a prediction – the Liberal Democrats are going to lose the next election.

Now, this may not strike you as one of the great feats of prognostication. The Liberal Democrats have never won an election and the Liberals last won an election before the first world war. Even though in the council elections and the Henley by-election we came in second place, I don’t think there’s a single person in the country who actually believes we’re going to win a General Election in the near future.

But I don’t mean we’re not going to gain the majority of seats; I mean we’re actively working against our own interests. The decisions being made are going to actively damage the party – and, more importantly, damage the chances of getting some of our principles put into practice.
continue reading… »

49 Comments ¦ 1st July

¦ ¦