Tag Archives: a fortunate life

Blast from the past: Paddy Ashdown on principled opposition

As I’ve watched the shameful shenanigans in the House of Commons this week over Lords reform, one event from our not so recent past kept popping into my head. Those of us of a certain age can remember the eventful passage of the Maastricht Bill through Parliament in 1992/93.  Even though they agreed with the principles of the Maastricht Treaty, Labour teamed up with Tory Eurosceptics to try to undermine the Government.

The Liberal Democrats, enthusiastic about closer European partnership, played no such games. I would be lying if I said I had taken this entirely calmly at the time. After …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 19 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Tim Rogers
    Sorry Jack. You are so wrong. The gas will not stay in the ground because Norway will take their share and then ours. You may want to feel pure in heart but we ...
  • Steve Trevethan
    Why not start by making our obscure taxation set up transparent and consistentently progressive so that all may know how it actually functions and that all are ...
  • Tim
    Mick is right as to where John was a council leader (despite being a Sunderland fan). Can we correct the article?...
  • Nick Baird
    You can always look at any single tax in isolation and make arguments against it. So the first question is do we need to raise more tax somehow, and the second ...
  • Tim
    Hywel - the source of the "Norwegian gas is cleaner than UK gas" is here - https://www.petro-online.com/news/fuel-for-thought/13/sp-global/two-thirds-of-uk-and-...