Yvette Cooper gave a speech on immigration today. It was one of the most disheartening things I’ve encountered this parliament, and that’s amazing given, as Nick Clegg once so beautifully put, it’s a shitty time to be a liberal. I’ll summarise as best I can: according to Yvette, there is a group of “liberal […]
Holiday in Beirut, part two
We headed out of town, south, past the Hezbollah controlled suburbs. Driving past them on the motorway gave me the same feeling previously felt when going past South American shanty towns, or actually come to think of it a bit like scooting past South-Central Los Angeles in the same fashion. These southern suburbs have been […]
What the Polish MEP joining UKIP’s group in Brussels means – and how it isn’t what everyone says it means
UKIP was very recently on the verge of having its grouping in the European Parliament, the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy, essentially disbanded. The members of the group would have lost out on what amounts to around a million quid in funding as well as having allotted parliamentary time to make speeches on the […]
The Lib Dems, ethnic voters, women MPs, and the diversity question
I have just been nominated Lib Dem blogger of the year, which I’m more chuffed about than I possibly should be. I’ve never really won anything, so the idea that I have a one in five chance of breaking that duck is somewhat cool to me right at this moment. Anyhow, the reason I’m telling […]
To the Russell Brands of this world I say engage – you have no idea how easy it is
I am what may be described as a politics geek. I work in the Westminster bubble; so do most of my friends, in some capacity or another. But it wasn’t always thus. I have always been interested in politics – when I was fifteen years of age, I sat and watched the Iran-Contra hearings for […]
PMQS Review – May 7th, 2014
Verdict: Miliband wins, but only because Cameron was memorably awful Review: Ed split his questions allotment in two today: the first half was about rent controls and the second half was about the Pfizer-AstraZeneca takeover. The top section was all about Miliband’s rent control proposals. This was the leader of the opposition providing the Prime […]
Cameron’s pyramid debate scheme
David Cameron has dropped his long held reticence to having another round of Prime Minster debates in 2015 by coming up with an new format for them hitherto unknown (or at least someone in his office has): 2-3-5. Or probably 5-3-2, but we’ll get to that in a second. No, this is not a reference […]
UKIP’s European elections campaign is starting to remind me of Yes to AV
I worked on the Yes to AV campaign as the Treasurer, all round money guy and person who kept everyone out of prison. And I know, more than anyone really, that the actual name of the campaign was not Yes to AV, but I am not for the life of me about to write Votes […]
Nigel Farage’s “Canadian Model” and why it won’t work in Britain
In the wake of Farage’s decision not to stand himself in the impending Newark by-election, the nation of Canada has been evoked by UKIP once more. In an article in the Telegraph by Chris Hope, it is said that the lesson of Deborah Grey, a schoolteacher from Beaver River, Alberta, was instructive in helping Nigel […]
PMQS Review – April 30th, 2014
Verdict: Cameron wins Review: Miliband had one of those weeks in which he asked what amounted to the same question six times. And it was territory he’d already covered – the Royal Mail sell-off. Now, whatever you think about the sell-off, whether there were dodgy elements involved in the “sweet sixteen” or not, surely even […]