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I was interviewed today by Sonia Rathwell for Channel 4 News for a profile of now-former Lib Dem cabinet minister Chris Huhne. Here’s some of what I said: It could be said that the former secretary of state for energy and climate change has a rather chilly public persona – but despite something of a [...]

Over at LibDemVoice, Mark Pack and I debate how Lib Dem party higher education policy can move forward now £9k tuition fees are a reality. You can find the original piece, with comments thread, here. Below is the blatantly copy ‘n pasted version… In the week of the publication of university application figures, LibDemVoice co-editors [...]

There were two alternative ways of reporting yesterday’s figures on the university application figures, the first since the introduction of £9k maximum fees. The Guardian’s reality… The first way is to look at the figures, and try and understand what they might be saying even if they don’t fit with your ideological position. To its [...]

I noted yesterday how the Telegraph had been forced to retract its false claim that Chris Huhne had tried to plunge Michael Gove into trouble by leaking his let-taxpayers-fund-the-new-royal-yacht letter. Today’s Independent covers the resulting row, while Matthew Bell’s diary highlights columnist Cristina Odone’s bit-part role: As discussed elsewhere in the paper, The Daily Telegraph [...]

The Daily Telegraph has been forced into a humiliating climbdown after making what it now admits were false claims about Lib Dem cabinet minister Chris Huhne. The paper had splashed on allegations that it was Huhne who had leaked the letter from Michael Gove suggesting taxpayers might make a gift of a new royal yacht [...]

I’ve been on holiday this week — what a relief not to be sat at a desk, staring at a screen all day… Instead, I’ve been sat on my sofa staring at a screen all day. Mostly doing productive stuff, but also messing around with this blog to add a few new features to the [...]

Next week, 9th January, my new job begins. And so too does my new daily commute, starting with the 6am bus, lasting some 4.5 hours each day. That’s a lot of time to try and fill productively. Some of the time I can occupy with reading and writing — a mix of work and pleasure [...]

Here are my most popular posts of the last 12 months… so if you don’t like them, you’ve only yourselves to blame: 1. For your delectation: the Oxford comma, a cartoon, two strippers, JFK, and Stalin 2. Why do politicians talk such rubbish about Oxbridge? 3. My personal Lib Dem Top of the Blogs, Golden [...]

“Y’know those times when you don’t have enough time to write a post…? Well, why not let’s just email each other til we have enough words?” I paraphrase, but that was the pitch Dr Mark Pack, my LibDemVoice Co-Editor, made to me when I was sortofgrumbling that I lacked bandwidth to contribute more to the [...]

Ever since Alan Watkins’ death, the political commentator to whom I turn first and whose opinion I value most is Andrew Rawnsley. But that doesn’t mean I always agree with him, and today is a case in point. Here’s the conclusion to his profile of Labour leader Ed Miliband: … those of his critics who [...]