Tag Archives: New Politics

Whips in the middle

Over the last few weeks there have been a number of stories about over-enthusiastic whipping.  Around three months ago I was talking to a back bench Conservative MP about what life was like being in a coalition*. Though the MP … Continue reading

Posted in Party Politics | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Picking a crowd for crowd-sourcing

A while ago, I listened to a debate on Radio 4 about crowd-sourcing which turned out to be considerably less interesting than I had hoped. But I’ve been trying to make some conclusions for ages, because it’s a central part … Continue reading

Posted in Big Society | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Is Miliband’s “British Promise” one to watch?

Ed Miliband spoke at the weekend to the Progress conference. It hardly won critical acclaim: a New Statesman blog called it the ‘worst speech he has ever delivered’ and John Rentoul wasn’t impressed by its ‘cliché-wridden verbiage.’ The speech did have one … Continue reading

Posted in Social Justice | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Purple Book is Cameron’s Big Opportunity

A piece a couple of weeks ago by Rachel Sylvester (£)attracted a lot of attention. “Purple and orange: united colours of a coalition” it describes efforts by “New Labour” to revive itself and to make itself relevant to the Labour … Continue reading

Posted in Party Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Coalition Government must not stall on House of Lords reform

Reform of the upper chamber is a Conservative policy as much as a Liberal Democrat policy. Reform was mentioned in the 2005 Conservative manifesto, and suggestions outlined in a 2008 White Paper long before the Coalition agreement was drafted. The … Continue reading

Posted in General | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments