After the thrill of the election campaign and the euphoria of the first TV debate came the disappointment of election night for the Lib Dems as they lost seats and failed to make great inroads into the vote share. Given that they now sit in government, with five ministers around the cabinet table and (at [...]

Filed under: conservatives, libdems, nickclegg on September 22nd, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, today outlines plans to cut the science budget while forging stronger links between science and business. A bit ominous, but not particularly surprising. The really ominous thing about this news is how the BBC has reported it. At the time of writing, the BBC News story quotes “Martin Reese, president [...]

Filed under: culture, jonathanbirch, journalism, ukpolitics on September 8th, 2010 | No Comments »

All five Labour leadership candidates are interviewed in this Saturday’s Independent. It could almost be a spoof from Tory head office. Ed and David give identical answers more than once: closer to ‘Two Little Boys’ than Cain and Abel. Both of them name their parents as the greatest influence on their political careers. Diane Abbott [...]

Filed under: davidmiliband, edmiliband, labour, ukpolitics on August 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

The serialisation of Lord Mandelson’s memoirs, eerily entitled The Third Man, in The Times has attracted the expected attention of the Westminster world. Despite the enhanced level of detail contained within the dark reaches of Lord Mandelson’s book concerning the Blair-Brown feud—barely scandalous after thirteen years of New Labour—Lord Mandelson’s account of his former government [...]

Filed under: corruption, gordonbrown, ukpolitics on July 14th, 2010 | No Comments »

At 8.05 this morning, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg unveiled his latest pet project: the Your Freedom website, an internet forum in which members of the public are invited to discuss the laws they would like to see repealed and the civil liberties they would like to see restored. At 8.30, I signed up, fearing [...]

Filed under: civilliberties, conservatives, davidcameron, jonathanbirch, ukpolitics on July 1st, 2010 | No Comments »

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 [...]

Filed under: jonathanbirch, libdems, ukpolitics on June 10th, 2010 | No Comments »

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 [...]

Filed under: conservatives, labour, libdems, ukpolitics on May 22nd, 2010 | No Comments »

The Labour Party is at a crossroads. It has lost an election, and lost power, but its position is far from disastrous. Labour has nearly a hundred more MPs than the Tories did in 1997, and its in-fighting over the last few years has been nowhere near as debilitating as Tory civil war was in [...]

Filed under: labour, ukpolitics on May 14th, 2010 | No Comments »

Interesting times. With an extraordinary Con-Lib coalition about to be finalised, David Cameron and Nick Clegg must be all but salivating at the prospect of imminent power as a forlorn Gordon Brown skulks off into obscurity and Labour braces itself for a spell in opposition.
It looks like a catastrophe for the outgoing government. But [...]

Filed under: conservatives, davidcameron, jonathanbirch, labour, ukpolitics on May 11th, 2010 | No Comments »

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 [...]

Filed under: libdems, nickclegg, ukpolitics on April 30th, 2010 | No Comments »