Daily View 2×2: 5 January 2010

With the thought that there are only 353 days to Christmas and considerably fewer until the General Election, we launch into today’s Daily View.

On this day in 1918, the Free Committee for a German Workers Peace, which would become the Nazi party, was founded. In 1941, the aviator Amy Johnson, disappeared over the Thames Estuary and was never found. And 28 years ago today, Peter Sutcliffe, a 35-year-old lorry driver from Bradford appeared in court, charged with 13 murders of women in West Yorkshire.

Happy birthday to the second most famous son of Abbots Langley, footballer, actor and current Celebrity Big Brother ‘inmate’ Vinnie Jones, who is 45 today and to former US Vice President Walter F. Mondale, who is 82.

2 Interesting Stories

With the thought that some of you may have already noticed other parties’ pronouncements in the news yesterday, here are two more slants on the coming election.

 We’re being outgunned by slick Tory machine, says Labour’s Andrew Slaughter

The Labour MP for Hammersnith believes that his chances of re-election are being hampered by a lack of funding compared to his Conservative opponent. Slaughter said;

“People should be concerned that money is being poured into seats like this and the consequences of that for democracy,”

Funny how Labour never saw this as a problem when they were the ones bringing in large donations?

[Times]

Balls calls for education debates

The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls has challenged his opposite numbers to a televised debate on education policy in the run-up to the next general election.

[Guardian]

These debates in narrow subject areas are seen by Labour as a way of demonstrating their superior policy in those subjects which have been traditionally strong for them, such as health and education, but I wonder if such debates, rather than the much-heralded Leaders’ debates, may be where the Liberal Democrats can make real headway.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Prince Charles throws a spanner in the works

Peter Black believes that the heir to the throne should face up to his responsibilities and give evidence to the Chilcott Inquiry on the Iraq War. Peter says:

[Prince Charles] is said to have had the same access to documentation as the Prime Minister but drew a completely different conclusion, based on what seems to be a far more mature evaluation of the key figures pressing for an invasion than was made by Tony Blair. In that context his contribution to our understanding of the issues would be invaluable. It is time he accepted this and subjected himself to proper questioning on his role.

Con Home hypocrisy on Wootton Bassett….

Over at Moments of Clarity, Darrell Goodliffe draws some interesting conclusions between Conservative Home’s attitude to free speech for the extreme Right and for extreme Muslims.

So, it is ok to be a ‘preacher of hatred’ if your skin colour happens to be white? Is this really the message that the Conservative Party and its adherents want to send; is this, inconsistent and hypocritical vision of democracy its contribution to the ‘battle of ideas’ within the ‘war on terror’?

That’s all for today. Hope that those of you who made it into work/school/college also make it home safely.

Please let us know if there are any blogs or bloggers that you think we are missing out. Post up a comment sharing them with us.

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