The July 7th reports were greeted with a chorus of disapproval about their refusal to assign blame – but the demand for easy answers misses the point.

Last week’s reports on the July 7th bombings were cautious, ambiguous, and very careful to hedge their bets. The same can’t be said of the reaction to them.

The Times managed to get the word “whitewash” into paragraph three of its preview. The BBC’s Paul Reynolds wrote an analysis under the disappointed heading, “Missed chances but nobody blamed,” and unflatteringly compared the reports to the rather more gung-ho American investigation into 9-11.

The Guardian went one better, ending a blog post (“Playing the blame game“) with an invitation to readers to tell the world, “Who do you hold responsible for the failure to prevent the attacks?” Read More

Are Scottish voters second class citizens? Holyrood Chronicles takes issue with the BBC poll saying a Scottish MP cannot be “our dear leader”.

The Mutualist: Vulgar Libertarianism Watch
Why real foreign aid doesn’t include more corporate welfare

No, not the latest Blair joke (or, Blair: Joke), but Justin. So, the first instalment of his Magic Lantern Society will be next week.

Backing Blair: Humour
So now you know: there is at least one funny joke about Blair

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