Liberal Burblings

Archive for December, 2007

Nick Clegg has appealed for co-operation from Gordon Brown and David Cameron to fix “Britain’s political system”:

Our system of government is the stage on which the battle of political ideas takes place. That system must be fair, accessible and strong. In its present state, I do not know a single person who would use those words to describe it. Members of Britain’s political establishment need to ask themselves why voter turnout has fallen so far and so fast, why mass membership of political parties is becoming a thing of the past, and why people feel not just that the political system is rotten but that it operates in a way that prevents them from changing it.

Nick describes our political system as the “most centralised, ossified and unresponsive system of government in Europe today”.

Nick makes a heartfelt plea:

So, if Gordon Brown and David Cameron are serious when they say that they want to cooperate, here is the litmus test. They should join the Liberal Democrats in establishing an independent British Constitutional Convention that would bring together representatives from all political parties and from every corner of British society. Its remit would be the construction of a consensus on the reforms needed to reopen the political system and revitalise public trust.

There is nothing new in the proposal for a constitutional convention. Ming often suggested it, mainly based on his experience of the Scottish convention. But Nick Clegg has very attractively packaged this proposal and coupled it with a real challenge to the other party leaders:

So here’s my invitation for David and Gordon: join me in forging a new consensus on the future of British government. No gimmicks, no gestures – just hard work and real action. Are you ready?

Well done Nick Clegg! Let’s hope something gets moving as a result of this initiative!

After a glimmer of hope, events have taken a disturbing turn in Kenya, as highlighted by Lord Steel:

This afternoon with 21 seats still to be declared the Commission was giving the lead to Raila Odinga by 4.3 million to President Kibaki’s 4 million. Later these figures changed to 3.8 million each – giving Mr Odinga a lead of under 40,000 votes with no other constituencies announced. “Mr Odinga has been clearly ahead throughout the two days of counting until now.

Here on the party’s website.

A long time ago, when I had hair and my student grant was sufficient to fund a sumptuous lifestyle in the Union Bar, I dabbled in a bit of economics. I vaguely remember something about M1 and M2, and the increase of the money supply causing inflation.

So I did wonder if injecting an extra £25 billion (or is it £50 billion?) into the “money supply” via Northern Rock might not do an awful lot of good for the inflation rate.

It is nice to finally find someone in print speculating on the same subject. Simon Hoggart in his Diary today says, while commenting on the police pay situation:

As for inflationary pressure, what on earth is Northern Rock going to create?

Mind you, presumably £25 billion is peanuts in the scheme of things (e.g government expenditure of £600 billion-odd annually).

I welcome input from someone who knows what they are talking about on this subject. There usually seems to be someone with a PhD in most subjects floating around.

I see that the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (below) is planning an attempt to re-emerge on the airwaves, minus writers. That’s a joke in itself. The whole programme revolves around good writing.

At least Letterman is trying to a deal with the unions to come back on the airwaves with writers.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp_e1g0nrcs&rel=1]

It’s worth buying the print version of the Guardian today to see the centre spread on “The world according to Google”, which is illustrated by some fascinating graphs. The accompanying article is available here and links to some of the graphs on Google’s own website.

It is interesting that Ron Paul (above) is winning the US Presidential race, according to Google searches in Britain. In December he got about three times as many search hits as all the main Democratic candidates put together. I also notice that Mr Paul has done very well on the Newsvine presidential poll in my right-hand sidebar.