Hard choices await new boy Huppert

Before the election, a ministerial post must have seemed a distant pipe dream to Clare Fellow Julian Huppert. Now, a few dramatic weeks later, it still is, but the pipe is considerably shorter.
19 Liberal Democrats have jobs in David Cameron’s government. As the new Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge (and one of four Clareites [...]

Campaigns change nothing

When the exit polls came in on election night I saw the same reaction from everyone watching: total shock. Their astonishment was not at the projected hung Parliament we had all been expecting, or at the Tory lead over Labour, but at the thought that the Lib Dems, whose ascendancy had apparently been the story [...]

It may seem like a good idea now, but you won’t be laughing if they win

An inseparable novelty duo, embraced by an adoring nation in the wake of 90 minutes of TV, and propelled from being rank outsiders to serious contenders. If this election campaign really is the start of “X-Factor politics”, then enter Jedward. Nick Clegg and Vince Cable find themselves and their party at the front of the [...]

It’s All About Dave

The surge of support for the Liberal Democrats over the last week is proof of an extraordinary political coup, pulled off by the Labour Party. When people cast their votes on May 6th they will cast them not for or against the government, but for or against the Conservatives. David Cameron is the central figure [...]

To be (a Liberal Democrat) or not to be?

Creative Commons licensed photo courtesy of Flickr user jackhynes.
Many of us on the left feel jaded by the broken promises of New Labour and betrayed by university fees, private finance initiatives in healthcare and the Iraq War. Yet we are not ready to put our faith in David Cameron who is most politely described as [...]

Nick Clegg and me

What do Nick Clegg and I have in common? Yes, that’s right, we’ve both used the bottom left-hand corner of the Varsity Comment page to offload a few political bugbears. Look in the online Friday 23rd November issue on page 10 and you’ll see it. Someone ought to, if only to make poor Mr Calamity [...]

New to The Archive: David Howarth Q&A

David Howarth’s address to Clare Politics provoked an entertaining and animated Q&A session covering the future leadership of the Liberal Democrats and the perennial issue of electability.
As a brief preamble to the first question David characterized the Conservative Party as broadly a party of manoeuvre rather than ideological substance, and the Lib Dem party [...]