LibDem Blogs - Archived!

I’ve been reading a spate of articles recently concerned with fundamentalism. Antony Barnett and Isobel Hilton have kickstarted a discussion on democracy on openDemocracy, while Bernard Crick wrote a salutory piece in The Guardian on the need for humanists to find common cause with religious people in the face of fanaticism. Also in [...]

Yet another major government computer project has failed; This time it’s the new NHS bookings system. The NHS are one of the UK government’s most IT literate departments, but as we can see, even relatively simple implementation and integration projects have a tendency to fail. When I say “relatively” I mean relative to Blunkett and [...]

There is a tendency on the left in Britain to praise all things Scandinavian and demand that their social policies be adopted here. Polly Toynbee is the most prominent practitioner of this approach, which I once characterised as "pining for the fjords". The introduction to this article from the New Statesman last year puts it more kindly: "There is a law of the Labour back benches: if they do it in Sweden, it must be all right." That article looks at the Swedish experience of school vouchers. This policy was introduced by one of the country's short-lived right-wing administrations, but ...

I’m pleased and flattered to have my last post on this subject listed in Apollo’s October Top Ten - thanks. Meanwhile, I’ve been jousting with Bishop Hill in the comments section of my last post. He’s been giving me a run for my money, although I’m not at all convinced. We’re coming [...]

The Keep Cricket Free site points us to the page announcing the culture, media and sport select committee's inquiry into broadcasting rights for cricket: The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has decided to inquire into the acquisition of broadcasting rights for cricket, including Test Matches played in England. The Committee is particularly interested in receiving evidence on the following: The availability of cricket coverage to television and radio audiences throughout the United Kingdom; The commercial procedures governing the acquisition of broadcasting rights, and constraints imposed by the statutory framework within which they operate; The importance of the income ...

Frank Furedi's website reproduces an article he published in the Times Higher Education Supplement on 16 September 2005. He looks at the role of academics in spreading scare stories in order to increase their influence and gain access to public funds. He writes: In a study on the social construction of the US "hate-crime epidemic", James Jacobs, director of the New York University Center for Research in Crime and Justice, and co-author Jessica Henry, point out that "proponents of social problems, believing that the more serious their problem, the more serious their demand for action, have appropriated the term 'epidemic' ...

Twenty five years ago the United Kingdom took the decision to modernise the Polaris nuclear deterrent and replace it with Trident. At the time, the USSR represented a clear threat to world peace. With background of Soviet power grabs in Africa and South East Asia, the invasion of Afghanistan and the brutal crushing of dissent in the satellite states, the Soviet Union truly was a threat to all the values of Liberalism and Democracy. At the same time Britain committed to take Cruise and Pershing 2 theatre nuclear weapons. It was a difficult, indeed a scary, time but the prospect ...

I read Lynne Featehrstone’s blog with interest yesterday. She said that she had the first question on David Blunketts latest big news dayand that her supplementary was shunned by the Minster for Works and Pensions. So I eagerly awaited this morning's update of Hansard with interest to see what was actually said. What is wrong with asking him: …does he believe that he remains in a position to

The Schools White Paper is a mess. It claims to give power to parents, but as Alice Miles wrote in The Times it is not at all clear how this can happen. She used the problem in North Kingston to illustrate her point, and I think it's worth quoting most of her story: One MP, Susan Kramer, said at Prime Minister’s Questions this week that her constituents, who have been fighting for a new school in Kingston upon Thames, “have been calling me because they are completely confused. Can they have their school?” She got only waffle ...

With the new Citizenship Tests on view and in operation, time to recall one of the funniest Swiss films of all time - The Swissmakers (Die Schweizermacher) which follows the exploits of a special squad in a Swiss Canton charged with the task of assessing citizenship applicants to see if they are sufficiantly Swiss to be allowed in. The scenes with the family from Italy desperately pretending they prefer fondue to pasta and concealing their political inclinations are pythonesque classics. (Hint, it is a bonus for possessors of the Liberator songbook when the family break into 'Bandiera Rossa' at the ...

1. Are we trying too hard to be different? Liberal Democrats need a distinctive set of policies setting us apart from the other parties. At the same time, we need to show that we are concerned about the same things that worry most people. There are areas where our profile is high and our values shared – such as health and the education. Two key areas where we are – let’s be frank – not trusted are crime and the economy. 2. How do people interact? To simplify, people interact in three ways ...

First thing Monday discover I have question number 1 on the Order Paper to David Blunkett as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. And yes - today is the day when he is all over the papers for buying shares in a DNA company and being on the Board without asking the advice of the Advisory Committee - a committee set up to help ex-ministers stay out of trouble. My question is on pensions - which

This morning's Guardian reports at length on the differences between England and Wales over Education and, in particular, reasserts the the position of the Welsh Assembly Government that the latest Government initiative to increase selection and re-introduce grant maintained schools will not apply in Wales. The article is sub-headed "The Blair government's move to give schools more autonomy won't make it across the Severny," effectively inventing a new river, but apart from that it gets most other things right. Almost every reform that teachers in England have been crying out for has long since been implemented in Wales. Testing ...

By Jabez Clegg An entirely personal selection of the best blogs from Liberal Democrats and the liberal diaspora in October. Let's start with the diaspora Mark Salisbury runs a blog from Wigan, full of good beer, friendship, and liberal views. His posting on the drift towards a police state has already been singled out. It deserves a wide readership. Over in Belgium, Paul runs a blog as part of his pulpmovies site. This post on left or right is worth reading. Stephen Tall produced a good post on the education debate. Finally I disagreed on the prescription, but it is ...

Great linguistic academic he might be. Greatest public intellectual alive? No. Chomsky's preference for illogical statements, assertion and conspiracy theories would rule him out - at least in terms of his 'contrubutions' to the public sphere. In today's Guardian he was pulled apart by Emma Brockes. The sequence below particularly indicates Chomsky's bullying, decidedly unintellectual and certainly unacademic polemical style. As some see it, one ill-judged choice of cause was the accusation made by Living Marxism magazine that during the Bosnian war, shots used by ITN of a Serb-run detention camp were faked. The magazine folded after ITN ...