Welcome news from the House of Lords last week, where Lib Dem peer and government spokesperson for International Development, Lindsay Northover, for the first time said the British government believes that girls and women raped in armed conflict are protected under international humanitarian law, even when domestic law in the country in question says something else.
Right, time to set the alarm clock extra early for tomorrow morning to do a Radio 5 Live interview as it’s the week of the Mid-Term Review.
Last January I wrote 
Framing, that is the way in which a choice is presented, is often key to winning political (and indeed non-political) debates. Consider the following two statements, for example:
It’s great to see Lib Dem London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon awarded an MBE in the New Years Honours.
The first edition of the new Liberal Democrat party magazine, Ad Lib, went out to all party members earlier this month. Future copies will only go to 
The Sun running a story about the attitude of politicians to drugs reform is fairly commonplace. A Liberal Democrat politician calling for the drugs laws to be reviewed is fairly commonplace. What is however rather less common – and so all the more significant – is for 
We have commenced work on reforming electoral law. We expect to open a consultation in late 2014. A report with recommendations to Government will be published in summer 2015…
Back in the summer 
There’s been a lot in the media today from opponents of equal marriage about how the state mustn’t go about redefining marriage.
Night time workers. Work at night, sleep at day. That’s not being a scrounger. Shame so many Conservatives and so-called populists crudely label them all as scroungers with their blunderbuss rhetoric for having the temerity to draw the curtains at home when they’re sleeping after a long session at work.
Here is a safe prediction: whatever the Leveson report recommends for British journalism, there will be an awful lot of duff arguments rolled out. Despite much of the debate being couched in how important it is for the press to tell the truth and how many difficult judgements there are to make, we’ll hear plenty of simplistic rhetoric based on shonky factual foundations. 
Martin Tod recently 
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