Fears are mounting for the mental wellbeing of the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke.Most significant of which is Rachel's post on a meeting the Home Secretary had with her father.
I came across the following quotation from Ian M Banks today;Some good stuff on ID cards and those cartoons. Welcome to the blogroll Unkle.
“…if in a sizable population there are one hundred rebels, all of whom are then rounded up and killed, the number of rebels present at the end of the day is not zero, and not even one hundred, but two hundred or three hundred or more; an equation based on human nature which seems often to baffle the military and political mind.”
If only Blair /Bush understood this before their ill-conceived invasion of Iraq.
I don't understand it either. But I'm guessing it says that you can take our liberty, but you'll never take our freedom to download porn.Sort of on topic, but very very funny. Or maybe I just need to sleep.
If you have time TODAY, and want my undying gratitude, please email ... deadline for consultation on a UK-wide Badger Cull is tomorrowFollow up to Paul's post on the badger cull from last December
That we're going to be saddled with ID cards because Home Office ministers don't want to back down and admit what an utterly poorly thought-through idea they are, how ineffectual they will be in fighting terrorism?Which reminds me, need to get in touch with whoever's running No2ID locally.
Do you think that if we ran a publicity campaign to let people know that the left/right distinction is French, then we could rely on latent British Francophobia to finally abort the distinction?Well, something has to. "The Lib Dems move Right", "That's a left-wing policy". Um, no. It's neither. left vs right is and ill-defined, misunderstood term that is abused by the commentariat (especially in the MSM) who show little understanding of the history. By the definition of what was meant when the term was coined (ie political reform at the time of the French Revolution) the LibDems are, and always have been, the most extremeyl left-wing of all parties. But these days they mean economic policy only. Outdated terminology used by media types looking for another "split".
A principled liberal alternative has never been more needed than when there are people being abused and held without trial at Guantanamo Bay. The Prime Minister calls it “an anomaly”.It was going to happen eventually. Membership renewed. I am now, once again a Liberal Democrat.
Let me address him directly; Prime Minister, this is not an anomaly - This is an outrage.
But under this government, the “anomalies” are becoming the norm. schemes to keep citizens under house arrest; Identity cards; A Labour party member – a Labour party member - Walter Wolfgang arrested as a terror suspect for daring to heckle at the Labour Party Conference; taken into custody for shouting ‘Rubbish’ at the Foreign Secretary. I hope they don’t introduce that in the House of Commons? otherwise I will be joining him.
And members of the public like Maya Evans arrested outside Downing Street just for reading out the names of British soldiers killed in Iraq; Who knows what this government would have done with Siegfried Sassoon, or Wilfred Owen, if it had been in office during the First World War.
Once Westminster was the cradle of democracy; Under this government it is becoming the graveyard of democracy.
Mr Balloon said he was in favour of NICE things and against NASTY things.I'm not quite sure I believe I'm adding a toy elephant to the blogroll, even if the owner isn't anonymous. Dave Cameron = Mr Balloon. Not quite sure yet myself, but then, every politician needs a suitable nickname, right?
He said he was in favour of saving the ENVIRONMENT because that was NICE
But he was against stopping people from making POLLUTION because that would be NASTY.
My head may be full of wool but this seems sensible to me. I don't know why Daddy is foaming at the mouth!
I have now looked up VACUOUS: Devoid of matter; empty – this is how balloons WORK isn't it!
My government doesn't care. It has contempt for the ordinary people. My government tells us of a new 'respect agenda' yet it shows us no such respect, even when we turn out protesting in the streets in our millions. It orders dissenting voices a kilometre away from Parliament. Since New Labour came to power, the number of people voting has gone down to the lowest levels ever; meanwhile we have seen the largest public protests ever in this country.
Maybe, soon. But we're doing an office move over the weekend, been planning details all week, so I'm busy. In the meantime, can someone tell Huhne that he lost already, and the adwords campaign ought to be cancelled? I may have wanted him to win, but this is silly.One for the free marketeers who support first past the post to ponder.He is, of course, completely correct. The fact that it's bad for democracy and breaks badly when you throw more parties intot he mix is another good reason to support STV.
The two party system is non-competitive. It is comparable to a captive, demand constant, oligopoly market in which consumers have a choice between only two approximately equally sized suppliers.
My predecessor, Robin Butler, cleared both Jonathan Aitken and Neil Hamilton. They both turned out to be lying. Robin was an upper class toff who could not believe that a member of the establishment would lie to him. I have no intention of repeating that mistake.Update:Missed this one from Craig:
I simply do not believe her. Let me be perfectly plain. I am calling her a liar. Go on, sue me.
