I’m actually quite pleased with our little demo. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic when we assembled in Trafalgar Square, where various speeches were made of which not one word was audible (note to the various orgs involved: I’d happily spring for some batteries for the loud hailer. I mean, my student union would have got that…
Read More I don’t know what they mean by that…Does anyone know what time the Liberal parliamentary party and federal executive committee meetings happen? I presume the first will be at the House and the second at party HQ…
Read More Resisting the stitch-upSo how did I spend the election night? As it happens, I decided to go to bed about 1am, noting that I was beginning to get as drunk as most of the people on the BBC visibly were and there was still a while to go before any really substantive data came through. Did anyone…
Read More a great time to be a crazy backbencherSo, that election. I should be out delivering leaflets; but my leaflets haven’t turned up. Such is life in the sinister Lib-Dem election machine. More interestingly, it’s been a week of truth. We kicked off with David Yelland‘s and Michael Wolff‘s pieces about the likely panic in the Murdoch world about the Lib Dem surge…
Read More thuds and screams in WappingThis is right, as is this. But what’s this? I essentially joined the Liberal Democrats back in 2004 in order to escape the – ah, thanks, flyingrodent – belligerent content-free woofing blaring out of every other political entity, and here’s the party’s leader in Scotland, whining because they let a guy out of jail to…
Read More most of the people watching this are in fact my sworn enemiesLynne Featherstone MP: for workers’ representation, against managerialism, for Iraqi employees. WIN. More seriously, I’m increasingly convinced by the argument that the fundamental driver of the economic crisis is the falling labour share of national income. This was J.K. Galbraith’s take on the Great Depression; despite the roaring 20s, wages had been flat for years.…
Read More some MPs considered beneficialWhat is the legacy of the so-called “loony left”? The conventional wisdom is clear; it was all their fault, for panicking the swing voters and preventing a sensible, Newish Labour solution emerging earlier. Well, how did that work out? And it has always seemed disingenuous for the Labour Party establishment to blame local councillors for…
Read More Loonies 2.0After MySociety’s triumph on the MPs’ expenses issue, this looks interesting: the Lib Dems are putting out a call for geeks. This was followed up by a survey being sent out; I’ve filled it in, so I may end up spending the next election twiddling bolts on Chris Rennard’s particle accelerator. Apparently, there’s to be…
Read More our futuristic “mailing list” technology will render your crude oppression meaninglessSo, if World President Brown was to ask me what to do about the headless Viktor Bout empire, and the operators like it, what would I say? Here’s what I’d do: Let’s draw up a big list of dodgy airlines. Better, let’s use rules; ex-Soviet aircraft, or old 737s, based in the UAE, registration in…
Read More Operation Firedump – the great rampcheckOh bloody fuck. He’s at it again. George Osborne is in his white coat, on the stage, flogging his snake oil. All he needs now is a gospel choir. I think we’ve pointed this out before, but here goes. The Bank of England was nationalised in 1946. It’s part of the State. The money in…
Read More The Conservative Party: Can’t Be Trusted With Glue