Imagine if a Muslim MP declared that he had asked his female visitors to cover-up if they were ‘inappropriately’ dressed. We would be deluged with outraged articles of Muslims trying to “Islamicise” Britain no doubt.

Either way, whether Muslim women with veils are requested they drop them, or women with mini-skirts are asked to cover up, we are faced with really silly debates over these issues.

In order to cut through some of the emotional outrage being hurdled about, there are a few points to be made.

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I’m sorry but I just don’t buy it.

A group of prominent MPs, alarmed at the rise of anti-semitism in Britain, will accuse some left-wing activists and Muslim extremists this week of using criticism of Israel as ‘a pretext’ for spreading hatred against British Jews.

The charge is made in a hard-hitting report – by MPs from all three major political parties – which will be unveiled at a Downing Street meeting with Tony Blair on Thursday.
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Though emphasising the right of people to criticise or protest against Israeli government actions, it says ‘rage’ over Israeli policies has sometimes ‘provided a pretext’ for anti-semitism.

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What is the point of The Sharpener? I don’t ask the question rhetorically but rather as an exercise in some early navel-gazing. It has been just over a month since we re-launched and with the meetup coming up, this seems an opportune time to ask.

Blogs need a ‘reason’ to succeed and do well. You may disagree of course but behind every averagely popular blog is a reason. Or exceptional writing, but let’s not go into that *cough*

More specifically political blogs need a reason to prosper and build their audiences. They need someone to rant at, they need controversies that people can vent feelings over and they need a general editorial line readers can identify with. Most importantly political blogs need attention and committment from the author and hence they need a reason to exist. Read More

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