House of Comments

#LDConf Special

We went to the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference to chat with Mark Pack, Alex Foster and Sara Bedford from the LibDemVoice.org team about how the conference has been going and what’s been happening. We talked about the Digital Economy Bill, the ‘defection’ to the Lib Dems of former Conservative MEP Edward MacMillan-Scott, and the new ‘Liberal Vs Authoritarian’ MP ranking system at ‘rank dot libdemvoice dot org’.

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10: The Police State

In this week’s House of Comments Podcast, we’re joined by Lib Dem blogger and councillor Sara Bedford, and Allen Green, convenor of Westminster Skeptics and writer of the Jack of Kent blog.

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We chatted about:

• Greg Stone’s resignation as a Lib Dem PPC after being ‘outed’ as the author of a number of lewd comments about ministers and other politicians made on the Guido Fawkes live chat last year. Is he paying too high a price for having made these comments anonymously?
• The banning of Muslim protest group Islam4UK in advance of their planned demonstration in Wootton Bassett has raised many eyebrows. Is it right to pre-emptively ban an organisation such as this – and could banning them just give them the publicity they desire?
• The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Britain’s police stop-and-search powers are illegal and constitute a breach of the right to privacy. Are the police becoming too powerful in this country?
• Last week’s ‘Snow Plot’ attempted coup was short and sweet – but will it cause lasting damage to the Labour Party, or do they appear more united behind Gordon Brown in its wake?
• Finally, Parliament has released a Flash-based computer game with the intention of giving 11-14 year olds a taste of life as an MP. Is this the right way to go about engaging the youth?

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