It has become de rigueur for every election to have at least one online quiz that tells you how you should vote. The 2011 Scottish Parliament electon has Scottish Vote Compass. I have not exactly found myself becoming hooked on the Scottish Parliament election campaign. To be honest, I care much more about the alternative […]
My views on the Liberal Democrats in government
I was asked a question in the comments to the previous post by an “anonymous fan“. (A fan? Wowser.) What do you make of the Lib Dems being in government and to what extent do you still support them? I thought the question would be of wider interest, so I have decided to respond in […]
Letting my Lib Dem membership lapse
A couple of weeks ago I allowed my membership of the Liberal Democrats to lapse. It is not that I have ripped up my membership card in disgust. Quite the opposite — I have found surprisingly little to be upset with the coalition government about. Nonetheless, I think governments are for opposing, not supporting. So […]
Tentative thumbs-up for the Conservative—Lib Dem coalition
A few days ago I wrote optimistically about the prospect of a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Now that we have a coalition for real, I feel even more cheered. Part of my argument in my earlier post was that there needs to be cultural change in politics. When I listened to […]
Why a Conservative—Lib Dem coalition may not be a bad thing
No doubt, election night was a very disappointing one for me. I was involved in the Liberal Democrat campaign in Dunfermline, and I attended the count. There was disappointment in Dunfermline — but we always expected it to be very difficult to hang on there. So while it was very disappointing to lose in Dunfermline, […]
General election predictions
Last week, blogger extraordinaire and all-round-good-egg Malcolm Harvey invited me to predict the outcome of the general election in Scotland. You can see Malc’s predictions here. I see no harm in sharing my predictions. I won’t, however, share the rationale, because there isn’t much of one. My main prediction, though, has been that Labour will […]
Is it worth voting?
If, like me, you have a reputation among your friends for being particularly knowledgeable about politics, you probably find that when election time comes they turn to you for advice on how to vote. But while I may have more interest and knowledge in politics than some of my friends, I am not really the […]
There is a good reason for the lack of updates
I don’t often write about myself here these days. Despite the fact that I went to all the effort to set up a personal website, I do think it is a tad self-indulgent to bang on about myself. However, some readers may be interested in recent developments in my life. Regular readers will know that […]
Glasgow North East candidates campaigning online
Something I have noticed about the Glasgow North East by-election is amount of innovative online coverage there has been from the media. All Media Scotland has reported on interesting methods of covering the election which have been adopted by three Scottish newspapers. The Scotsman has invited the candidates from five of the main parties to […]
Debating the leaders’ debate
There has been a fair bit of chat in recent weeks about the prospect of a televised leaders’ debate in the run-up to the next general election. This sort of chat always comes up in the run-up to any election, but there appears to be an extra momentum this time round. It seems as though […]