Author Archives: John Pugh

There is a strand in Liberalism stemming from the Utilitarians that is totally dismissive of the concept of human rights. Bentham called such rights ‘nonsense on stilts’. John Stuart Mill, often considered the founder of modern liberalism, viewed such rights as individuals were conceded to have as depending on what led to the greatest happiness of the greatest number at any one time. Rights could change as circumstances and individuals did.

Given that, it is perhaps surprising that Liberal Democrats seem to fear, almost as a knee-jerk reaction, any call for a review of Human Rights legislation. After all Schedule 1 …

Something strange is happening in Liberal Democracy.

If truth be told the Liberal and Liberal Democrat party has always in its highest echelons consisted of two tribes: Asquithians and Provincials. The creative and social tension that existed when Lloyd George and Asquith vied for power has never altogether disappeared.

* Asquithians are well connected (city, army, bar, media), internationalist and economically liberal and at times libertarian;
* Provincials have strong community roots, favour social liberalism,regional autonomy and at times a degree of moral conservatism.

Jeremy Thorpe was the very archetype of the former. Cyril Smith the latter.

However there is little …

There is a section in Douglas Adams’ great work Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where the residents of earth decide they have had enough of consultants, public relations men, telephone sanitizers and other non-productive sorts. They send them out into space in a specially selected spacecraft for VIPs, claiming the planet is about to be consumed by a huge, inter-galactic goat.

My pre-dilection is to fill the craft with London think tanks (with a few honourable reprieves). Why?

Because they are collectively responsible for the sheer absence of radical thinking in British politics, the explanation of why party manifestos, rhetoric and …

For quite some time now I have been referring to Lib Dem News as “Pravda”. Did it coincide with the departure of Lord Greaves?

However this week it has excelled itself. I can cope with the consistently unfunny cartoons, tired rhetoric, pictures of people holding up placards and/or recanting their membership of other parties. Embarassing predictions of an election cancelled last Saturday only serve to tell us about ludicrously early print dates.

Perhaps the cartoon of Cameron lamenting his poll ratings is meant to be deeply ironic and there is a good article by Duncan Brack about John Stuart Mill’s …