So what are the Lib Dems for?

Lets go to Nick Clegg's website and find out

Then Click on that button there on the left hand side, yes the one that says 'What we stand for', and Coalition Agreements,

Yup, absolutely nothing. Stands to reason, when you think about it.

Anybody still 'Agree with Nick'?


HT Mathew Barrett @MBarrettCH

New Dawn for Britain

I am reliably informed that the real name of Libertas UK is not indeed Libertas UK at all. Due to some slightly naughty activity on behalf of one Bridgit Rowe, who registered the name Libertas UK with the Electoral Commision.

I understand that Mr Ganley's party is to be called, the slightly Moaist sounding,

New Dawn for Britain Party

Ooops.

Skimming through the Electoral Commission's list of parties I was interested to note this one. Yes 2 Europe, was set up Mr Brendan Donnelly, the former Tory MEP, then candidate for the defunct pro-European Conservatives in the 1999 elections, then the Lib/Dems and now Director of the think tank, the Federal Trust. With Mr Donnelly is another of the usual suspects, Professor Stephen Haseler. With them is a Ms Alison Sutherland, who I think is the legal advisor to the Local Government Association, and could be the daughter of former EU Commissioner Peter Sutherland.

I wonder if Brendan has told the Lb/Dems he has set up another party?

Will Karim be a Tory banana skin

The defection today of Sajjad Karim the North West Euro MP for the Lib/Dems to the Conservatives has highlighted where Mr Cameron is taking the Conservative Party.

Mr Karim has made a few interesting comments in his time, infamously attacking the Tory Party as homophobes,

Tory apathy in the face of rising homophobia should come as no surprise as, today, the Conservative camp is rife with contradiction. Whilst Cameron attempts to paint a glossy image of a gay-friendly party in the UK, he is also desperately trying to get into bed, at European level, with Poland's openly homophobic 'Law and Justice' party. I just hope the British public see Chameleon Cameron for who he really is!!!

He is also opposed to the independent British nuclear deterrent.

He is a devotee of climate change and is public in his support for the idea of ,"100 per cent carbon free, non-nuclear electricity by 2050".

Then again he could satirised as the member for the sub-continent as almost all his interventions in the Parliament's chamber, on his blog and in the press are focused there. Including scarcely veiled attacks on Tories such as Nirj Deva.

Of course he was firmly on the side of free speech during the danish Cartoon affair, saying, "The European media should take on the view of the ... Muslim community on this issue," and has spoken sympathetically about Hamas in an EP debate, "Hamas has rebranded itself as a change and reform movement and has maintained a state of calm in the run-up to these elections". Being fair to him in this debate he also called for Hamas to drop "its charter calling for the destruction of Israel and recognises the Jewish State’s right to exist".

Elsewhere he has voted time and time again in favour of such things as the European Constitution. All of which no doubt recommends him to the boy Dave.

Or could it be that the Lib/Dem claims are right and the fact that he came 2nd in the Lib/Dem NW Euro selection last week, at a time when there will be 7 not 8 seats available there (he came last of 8 last time) and that it is likely that up to 3 Tories from the region will be retiring has something to do with it?

Given the Tories recent propensity for thought control of their membership, I wonder how long it will be before Mr Karim finds himself on hot water.

Update
Tory Diary poses an interesting question in the light of this statement by Tim Nohope the leader of the Tory MEP delegation,

The discussions themselves which I have carried on with Sajjad have, by necessity, been confidential and obviously sensitive but I am certain that the outcome will be of great mutual benefit to both him and us.

So will he be fastracked onto the list?

"I do not give a toss for the environment so long as I can stuff my pockets and those of my company full of gold."

According to Chris Davies, Lib Dem MEP for the North West, this is a statement from Michael O'Leary. Davies was talking about the Emissions trading scheme and said this,

"This report, he said, says that up to 2 billion people within 20 years face severe water scarcity, partly because of climate change. "We have to do something about this. Michael O’Leary of Ryanair may be the unacceptable face of public relations for the airline industry. But he speaks a lot of truth when he says very clearly: ‘I do not give a toss for the environment so long as I can stuff my pockets and those of my company full of gold.’"

Now I have looked around the net and I canot find any reference to the comments asribed to the Irishman, I am sure that he must have said them because Mr Davies is a stickler for that sort of thing. He is however barking mad, as this comment in today's Mirror suggests,

"Mr Davies wrote in a local paper: "What's the single most effective thing couples can do to play a part in combating global warming? It is to have no more than one child."

"Yes, er well no, hang on, or sorry..."

Reports from the pre-recording of Nick Clegg's appearance on TV AM this Sunday suggest that he may just have blown a gasket in the leadership race
From PA we hear this,

"Mr Clegg said that the pupil premium policy would mean schools receiving an extra £2.5 billion, tied to the number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds they have. This would bring funding per head for the poorest pupils up to private school levels and give schools an incentive to attract children from low-income families.

Rather than parents being given the money in vouchers and choosing where to spend it, the premium would go direct to schools to pay for smaller class sizes, bonuses for teachers, one-on-one tuition or extended hours learning, he said.

Some £1.5 billion of the bill for the premium would be paid for by removing tax credits from parents on above average income, but Mr Clegg acknowledged that there was £1 billion "gap" which he had not yet decided how to fill.

Asked if the cash would come from taxing the better-off, he replied "Yes, er well no, hang on, or sorry..." before adding "I'm not fixed in my own mind about where that money would come from".

The Lib Dem home affairs spokesman said he expected some of the extra cash to come from cutting Government waste and bureaucratic duplication, but said he was
ready to be "creative" in finding ways to raise it.

He has already floated the idea of a 10% tax on non-domestic earnings of "non-domiciled" foreigners resident in the UK in order to raise £1 billion to cut council tax for households in the lowest-value properties, he pointed out.

Mr Clegg said he believed it would be possible to "break the stifling grip of two-party politics" in Britain within two general elections if he became leader.

Yeah go Nick, so the people who will suffer are those who are in work but cannot quite afford private education. And they will be taxed more for the privilege.

Priceless, a bit like his policy. What he obviously doesn't understand, apart from basic economics it appears, is that the ethos of the school is almost as important, if not definitively more important than the industrial quantities of cash poured down its gullet that he suggests.

If the money followed the child, by dint of giving the parents a voucher to spend where they see fit, then the results would be more than impressive.
Take a look at this recent publication 'School Choice' from Cato if you want to see why.