Author Archives: Charlie Garnett

Charlie Garnett

Opinion: The Liberal Democrat legacy is unwritten; Labour’s unchanged.

By Charlie Garnett | Tue 18th May 2010 - 4:10 pm

Every vote, member, volunteer and supporter that the Lib Dems have lost as a result of entering into a coalition with the Conservatives will be missed. For most, I assume that this will not be a decision that they take lightly. Instead, it will arise as a conviction, from a small seed of doubt. Doubt about whether or not they believe they can be complicit in a Tory Government. I wish them well, and hope that they will be as open to returning as they have been to leaving.

However, to those still wavering on the brink, perhaps you might …

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Posted in Op-eds | 37 Comments
Charlie Garnett

Opinion: Michael Gove is a banana

By Charlie Garnett | Wed 5th May 2010 - 5:11 pm

Michael Gove is a banana. I’m not being rude, he confessed as much this morning on Radio 4: “If that’s democracy then I am a banana”. This in reference to the potential for a Lib-Lab coalition brought about by our archaic first past the post system.

Well, he might not be a banana, but I should imagine that he would rather argue that he is, indeed, a particularly yellow type of fruit, than admit that our democracy is a sham, perpetuated only by a broken electoral system. For the Conservatives to admit that FPTP should be changed would be a disaster. …

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Charlie Garnett

Opinion: A vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the Lib Dems

By Charlie Garnett | Thu 22nd April 2010 - 3:30 pm

A vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the Lib Dems. It is not a vote for the Conservative or Labour Parties. It is not a way of ‘Letting Gordon in through the backdoor’, or of tacitly consenting to a Cameroonian ‘DIY’ society. It is a vote for the Lib Dems.

Since the debates, the other two main parties have woken up to the idea that people may genuinely want a change in British Politics but, whether because they are deliberately obtuse or have simply been too well conditioned by their duopoly on power, neither seems able to grasp …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 5 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • David Le Grice
    Throwing one's hands up and saying that voters always had trouble knowing what we stand for is really missing the wood for the trees. As a smaller party that's ...
  • David Sparrow
    Interesting and thoughtful article in the Guardian online, I agree now is not the time the only beneficiaries will be the Tories and Labour but Ed does need to ...
  • Peter Davies
    The Labour Party has been remarkably unsuccessful at excluding the middle class. They have the second most middle class membership of any major party (The Green...
  • Tristan Ward
    @ Jason Conner "But there are some very wealthy upper middle class people on this site by the looks of things and I am not one of them. " Are you suggesti...
  • Tristan Ward
    @ David Raw Historically, Tristan, when the party moved to the right (2010-15) the consequence was that the number of Lib Dem M.P.’s dropped from 57 in 201...