Author Archives: Kelvin Macdonald Fraser

Opinion: Big Society + political activism = community politics

By Kelvin Macdonald Fraser | Fri 21st May 2010 - 12:20 pm

I’m sure I’m not the only Lib Dem struggling to come to terms with the realisation that there is life after going into coalition with the Conservatives. It may not be eternal life (even five years might be too much to hope for!), and it certainly isn’t paradise (the nation’s economic predicament has more of Armageddon about it than Nirvana) but life it most definitely is.

Despite already being subjected to obsessive scrutiny and outrageous cynicism from a surprisingly hostile media, and regardless of some premature and unhelpful ‘noises off’ from disillusioned tribalists in both parties, there is an …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 10 Comments

Opinion: Justifying the unthinkable

By Kelvin Macdonald Fraser | Fri 14th May 2010 - 12:00 pm

Like all Liberal Democrats, I would never support a Tory government. Most of us have spent many years asking countless people to vote Lib Dem to “keep the Tories out”, but I actually think that’s exactly what we’ve done.

Without the Liberal Democrats the Tories would have a majority now. So many Lib Dems seats are Tory/Lib Dem fights, and it’s because the Lib Dem vote held up in places like the South West that Mr. Cameron did not get the majority he needed to enable him to go ahead with the sort of traditional Tory policies that were in his …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 24 Comments
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    No argument on reform. My worry is the word "higher". It tends to lose elections. The real scandal is not the rates, it is a tax code so complex the wealthy can...
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