Tag Archives: nick cohen

I agree with Nick, I have left too

By Michael Cooke | Wed 23rd September 2015 - 3:40 pm

I have just joined the Liberal Democrats. It has been a long time coming, but I finally did it. The final straw was the brilliant Nick Cohen’s piece in The Spectator titled “Why I’ve finally given up on the left”. I agree with Nick, I too have left; I have found my proper political home.

I used to vote Labour and I voted “Yes” in the AV Referendum in May 2011, I am a pro-European and I always identified as slightly centre-left. Then came 2015: the Conservative majority, the SNP landslide in my native Scotland, and the election of the hard left within the Labour Party.

I have always been a liberal, I realised recently. I have always been willing to listen to the most beyond-the-pale viewpoint out of a sense of tolerance. Freedom of speech is something fundamental and core to liberalism, something with which I have a strong affinity.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 103 Comments
Caron Lindsay

The lessons we must learn for Nick Clegg’s next holiday

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 25th August 2013 - 11:24 am

Nick Clegg’s two spells of holiday this Summer have been characterised by the Home Office in particular getting above itself in his absence. Both the party and Nick’s Special Advisers should have learned from the furore over the “Go home” poster vans. The Home Office pulled a fast one by implementing this pilot without telling the Liberal Democrats. The response from the Party was the right one – that they were “disproportionate, distasteful and ineffective” and Vince Cable saying a few days later that they were stupid and offensive. The problem was that the response came out by …

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Stephen Tall

Nick Cohen: Labour members are “in despair” of trying to unseat Lynne Featherstone

By Stephen Tall | Tue 22nd January 2013 - 9:30 pm

Lynne FeatherstoneThe Observer’s Nick Cohen isn’t Lynne Featherstone’s biggest fan: “I cannot tell you how much I dislike this stupid, two-faced and dangerous politician,” he writes affectionately in The Spectator.

He later labels her a “menace”, a “hypocrite”, and curses her “wittering” (I wonder if that’s a verb he’s ever applied to a male politician, by the way?).

All of which means poor Nick is in despair. Why? Because, he laments, Labour is completely failing to get its act together in Hornsey and Wood Green, allegedly one …

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Stephen Tall

As Leveson reports… Why I’m sticking up for ‘Press freedom with no buts’

By Stephen Tall | Sun 25th November 2012 - 8:30 am

Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal will report this week. His recommendations on the future of press regulation are the subject of intense speculation, with essentially three positions being staked-out:

What’s being proposed

‘Independent regulation backed up by statute’
Advocates, who include Evan Harris and the Hacked Off campaign group, argue that the only way to ensure the press does not abuse its position in the future is for it to be regulated. But, they insist, this should be independent both of government and the press, the two main …

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Stephen Tall

Your essential weekend reader — 12 must-read articles you may have missed

By Stephen Tall | Sat 24th November 2012 - 8:15 am

It’s Saturday morning, so here are twelve thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices…

The lottery of life: Where to be born in 2013 – The Economist‘s annual list of the top quality-of-life countries: ‘Being rich helps more than anything else, but it is not all that counts; things like crime, trust in public institutions and the health of family life matter too.’ Britain comes 27th. (The Telegraph has a picture-only version here.)

The burdens that Israel should not have to bear – Brendan …

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Stephen Tall

Your essential weekend reader — 8 must-read articles you may have missed

By Stephen Tall | Sat 27th October 2012 - 8:15 am

It’s Saturday morning, so here are eight thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices…

Why don’t we trust politicians? – The BBC’s Nick Robinson takes politicians to task, doesn’t let the media off the hook either… while Labour’s Rachel Reeves mouths platitudes.

The BBC regains its honour – Nick Cohen links the Beeb’s problems with Newsnight and Jimmy Savile to the wider question of institutional trust: ‘We ought to be extending anti-managerialism into every private and public hierarchy.’

The Savile inquiries: giving truth a …

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Mark Pack

Lords reform, Boris Johnson and Louise Mensch: Guardian podcast

By Mark Pack | Fri 10th August 2012 - 2:07 pm

This week’s Politics Weekly podcast from The Guardian features, ahem, myself alongside Martin Kettle, Nick Cohen and Tom Clark. Lords reform, Boris Johnson’s political future and the Corby by-election (so far, dreadfully lacking in jokes about trouser presses) all feature.

Nick Cohen made a particularly good provocative point about Boris Johnson – saying he’s the only Conservative in the UK to have won a major election since John Major won the 1992 general election. It makes the Tory right’s view of him rather contradictory: they really dislike some of his policy preferences (such as on immigration) yet also love him as …

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Prateek Buch

Conference fringe: Defending free speech – keep libel laws out of science

By Prateek Buch | Mon 7th September 2009 - 7:02 pm

With a harsh economic recession continuing to bite, with Westminster politics remaining in the doldrums and with a global climate change summit fast approaching, legal action taken against a science writer may be far down your priority list as party conference season approaches. And yet, the British Chiropractic Association’s attempts to silence Simon Singh’s critical comments reveal fundamental flaws in Britain’s libel law, and threaten to undermine the freedom of expression that insulates us from the very worst consequences of public and private sector failures.

It is in this context that I invite all Lib Dem Voice readers to attend a fringe event I’ve organised at this year’s conference. The event is entitled Defending free speech – keep libel laws out of science, and will take place in the Marriott Highcliff Hotel’s Blandford Syndicate room 3 at 13.00.

We will hear an illustrious panel of speakers discussing how legal threats are being used to suppress scientific debate, and how Britain’s libel laws must be reformed:

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Posted in Conference | Also tagged , , , , , and | 28 Comments
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