British values classes considered
Bobby Charltons all round, south of the border anyway.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s lies exposed
The Dutch MP is revealed to have told a number of lies to gain asylum in the Netherlands.

In Britain they first came for the foreigners. A variation upon Pastor Niemoller’s famous warning about the dangers of turning away because you are not today’s victim.

On the one hand, we have a government which is going to tell the future generations that all is well. That we have “freedom, fairness, civil responsibilities [and] democracy”. But then notice the clever avoidance of the words rights, and liberties that are normally associated with the word “civil”. Then assess that in comparison with yesterday’s headlines, telling us how “the Prime Minister wants the government to have the power to override court rulings”. Might it then be worth considering that you can’t square the two?

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First the good news. The Liberal Democrats narrowly beat Labour in the local elections as a percentage of the national vote (with 27%). This being a 22% increase on what they managed during last year’s General Election, you could say they have not had a bad few weeks. After all it is only the second time in recent history they have been ahead of Labour.

The bad news is that the LibDems may as well not have existed in these elections; on face value it was a straight transfer of power from Labour to Conservatives. They shuffled around the edges.

I want to make two points in this article. The first is that there needs to be a better discussion of whether Sir Ming Campbell needs to make way for a new leader who has more impact. Secondly, that LibDem blogs need to start becoming more strategic. Read More

When Gerrard equalised my brain almost burst
Gratuitous partisan weekend football linkage. Sorry, Hammers.

99 Tonnes of Guns
The Bosnia-to-Iraq arms export business

Ukraine’s ‘Orange’ future was bright; now it’s uncertain.

“A very large percentage of people,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “really believe that the ills from which they suffer would be cured if a certain political party were in power.” At the time Russell was writing, what is now Ukraine was ruled over by a murderous madman for whom political parties were an unwelcome distraction; so much so, in fact, that he got rid of all of them that weren’t his. Read More

Mali: everyone’s favourite destination
Next stop on the new Dash for Africa.

David Cameron’s speech at the Business in the Community Forum has caused a bit of a stir. The tradecraft seems to be pretty obvious. Vague mutterings about Tesco and inappropriate knickers for girls connects young smoothiechops with the concerns of middle class women in marginal seats. He chats their chat. He gripes their gripe. And he looked so dashing communing with the polar bears. So, then: just another factoid down the idea pipe. Maybe, but maybe something else is going on as well. Read More