Tag Archives: george kendall

Mark Pack

In praise of… Tom Brake

By Mark Pack | Wed 29th February 2012 - 9:25 am

Before I was winning chocolate at the weekend, I was campaigning in Croydon and Sutton as part of the excellent Action Day organised by George Kendall and others. It is no secret that the reason Liberal Democrats from across London are now paying rather more attention to Croydon than before is because significant parts of it may be moved into Tom Brake’s constituency.

It is typical of Tom that in amongst all the heat and rhetoric of the Parliamentary boundary review process, he has been quietly getting on with thinking ahead and acting. Rather than just abstractly debating what his constituency boundaries might be, he and the Sutton team (including the excellent Ruth Dombey) have started working with colleagues in Croydon to build up the strength of the party there.

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 4 Comments
Fred Carver

Opinion: 80 million people like this

By Fred Carver | Sat 19th February 2011 - 2:42 pm

In my previous post I said I thought the role of social media in Tunisia was a bit of a red herring. I wanted to expand on that thought.

As I said on my own blog Wikileaks and social media played a role in Tunisia, and also in Egypt, but these things should be understood as helpful tools, not the root causes themselves. I thought the Foreign Policy article George Kendall cited was weak and the case for Wikileaks as a direct cause of the protests somewhat thin – even by the Foreign Policy article author’s own …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 10 Comments
Fred Carver

Opinion: Interesting proposal, Mr Kendall, but who is “us”?

By Fred Carver | Wed 16th February 2011 - 3:55 pm

George Kendall’s piece on Julian Assange was quite good. If it wasn’t I’d scarcely bother replying. And no, I am not Mr Assange’s spokesman, but as Mr Assange’s spokesman is quite busy I thought I’d jump in and attempt a defence.

Firstly I think Tunisia is a bit of a red herring here, and it would in any case provide only an empirical proof to say that Wikileaks is good or bad based upon one revolution or several. It would say nothing about the general morality. I’d much rather argue from general principles, as George Kendall then goes on to do.

As I can see it there are two elements to his proof:

  1. That some things do need to be kept hidden
  2. That the decision as to what those things should be should be taken by elected leaders.
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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 6 Comments
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