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Author Archives: Matt Burrows

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Opinion: Cherish the independence of elected members

By Matt Burrows | Tue 2nd September 2014 - 4:38 pm

I was alarmed initially by the title of Mark Pack´s piece “Lessons from Rennard #4: who gets the party whip is a matter for the whole party”. As it turns out I find myself in agreement with much of it.

Rightly he points out that the smaller the group the more disproportionate influence one person will have. I like his suggestion of referring decisions of removal of the whip to the Federal Appeals Panel. Some scrutiny of the decision from outside parliament will be beneficial to Party and the individual. If adopted, I hope this would apply only to cases of personal misconduct.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged Parliament and whip | 8 Comments

Opinion: In and Better

By Matt Burrows | Sat 31st May 2014 - 9:09 am

Well, that was grim. The results for the Liberal Democrats from the European Elections were awful and there’s no varnishing over it. For sure there will be a review of the European aspect of the campaign as well as for the locals.

Despite what the results show, as a party we were right to make the positive case for being IN. Who else was going to do it? We are a liberal and internationalist party and we showed we had the stomach to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged catherine barder and eu | 26 Comments

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Op-eds

The future of war has arrived: It’s the Navy (Edward Marsh)
The law has never told you which door to use (Tanya Park)
Lincolnshire – a flawed reform of local government and why it matters (Nigel Lindsay)
Welcome to my day: 3 August 2026 – some thoughts on migration… (Mark Valladares)
Tom Arms’ World Review (Tom Arms)

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Recent Comments

Nick Baird
@Jana - there is a huge difference between the relatively confined space of the Black Sea (and the Azov Sea in particular) and the North Atlantic where the area...
Steve Trevethan
Might the "Future of War "and its present state also be affected by decisions relating to deciding who are the actual enemies? Might the Russia-Ukrains war b...
Edward marsh
Thanks for the comment Jana. I’m not sure it’s “wrong” per say as the navy has a wide reach of maritime security responsibilities, many I outlined, the ...
James Hargrave
A timely piece given current events. Chronic underinvestment in our energy resilience (especially gas) has left us very exposed, and assuming that isn't solved ...
Jana
This article started well but the conclusion is wrong. Ukraine has successfully forced the surviving elements of the once mighty Russian Black Sea Fleet to retr...