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	<title>Ephems of BLB</title>
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	<description>Brian Barder&#039;s blog</description>
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		<title>Four Last Songs at the Prom</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If April is the cruellest month (and I could never see why it should be), September, signalling the decline of summer and the approach of autumn, is surely the saddest.  So Strauss’s Four Last Songs at the BBC Prom on 4 September, almost always moving, were intensely so on this occasion, not just because of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2831</link>
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		<title>How to vote for Labour&#8217;s leader: more complex than it looks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This week I was going to vote for 1. Diane Abbott, 2. Ed Miliband,  3. David Miliband, 4. Andy Burnham, and 5. Ed Balls.  But I have been persuaded by an expert’s analysis of the voting system for the leadership election that this would be risky. I now plan to vote 1. Ed Miliband, 2. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2826</link>
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		<title>Five Days in May (III): the lessons for Labour</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In the five hectic days between the election results on 6 May 2010 and the appointment of David Cameron as prime minister on the 11th, Labour never had a chance of a deal with the LibDems that would have kept Labour in office, even under a new leader. Some LibDems have suggested that they were [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2814</link>
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		<title>In those Five Days in May, the LibDems made the wrong choice (with 21 &amp; 23 Aug updates)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The LibDems made the wrong choice in May, not in going into coalition with the Tories instead of with Labour, but in going into coalition at all.  With the experience of 100 days of coalition government, and with hindsight, we can now see that the LibDems were wrong to go into coalition with the Conservatives:  [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2799</link>
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		<title>Cameron’s 1940 double-fault: we were neither a junior partner nor ‘alone’</title>
		<description><![CDATA[David Cameron dropped a memorable clanger in Washington, saying the UK was the &#8220;junior partner&#8221; in the World War II fight against Germany in 1940 – and then dropped another one trying to correct the first.  He was speaking on 22 July 2010, the second day of his first trip to the US as prime [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2787</link>
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		<title>Diplomacy: the national interest or the ethical dimension?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In an article in The Hague Journal of Diplomacy I discuss the two traditional rival views of the function and purposes of diplomacy:  the (often competitive) pursuit of the national interest, versus the (mainly collaborative) pursuit of the greatest good for the greatest number &#8212; what the late Robin Cook, in a much misquoted phrase, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2775</link>
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		<title>In the coalition politics era Labour should court, not vilify the LibDems</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Several lessons for Labour need to be learned from Nick Robinson&#8217;s BBC programme Five Days that Changed Britain, broadcast on 29 July, about the five days in May between the election and the formation of the Tory-LibDem coalition government. The first and most important lesson was summed up towards the end of the programme by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2739</link>
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		<title>Lockerbie resurgens:  al-Megrahi, the myths and the unanswered questions</title>
		<description><![CDATA[David Cameron’s visit to Washington this month (July 2010) collided with the resurrection by some American Senators of the controversy over the release in August 2009 on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government’s Justice Secretary of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted (quite possibly wrongly) of responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.  Many, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2725</link>
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		<title>On July</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Kabul conference and David Cameron’s pilgrimage to Washington have generated plenty of articles and interviews agonising about Afghanistan.  Ministers are asked what would happen in that country if “we” withdrew “our” forces next week [approved answer: the Taliban take over the country again, invite al-Qaeda back, bombs explode all over London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2714</link>
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		<title>End of the UK or a federal rebirth? (With 18 July update)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[“Is this the end of the UK?” was the title of a characteristically provocative and elegant article in the London Review of Books [Vol. 32 No. 10 · 27 May 2010] by Dr David Runciman, who saw in the contradictory swings and nagging anomalies of British contemporary politics an unravelling of the constitution that might [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2702</link>
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		<title>Nothing fair about a graduate tax, Ed and Vince (with update pm 15-7-10)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Ed Miliband, second favourite after his big brother for the Labour leadership, has written a piece on his campaign blog in which he argues for a graduate tax as a fairer alternative to tuition fees.  Four of the five candidates now favour a graduate tax and the press reports that the coalition government is actively [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2684</link>
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		<title>David Miliband: time for some policies?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The reception for David Miliband&#8217;s Keir Hardie lecture on 10 July 2010 has been rapturous in some quarters &#8212; e.g. John Rentoul in an Independent newspaper blog, and, more surprisingly, by Jon Cruddas, standard-bearer of the left in the Labour party (&#8220;the most important speech by a Labour politician for many years&#8221;).  This is an [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2677</link>
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		<title>A comprehensive report on IPPs demands urgent reform</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In a recent blog post (here) I recommended some daunting facts and figures on Indeterminate Sentences (IPPs) published earlier this month in a Prison Reform Trust &#8216;Bromley Briefing&#8217;.  The text of the relevant section of the Factfile is here. The Prison Reform trust has now (8 July 2010) published a 74-page report,  Unjust Deserts: imprisonment [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2665</link>
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		<title>IPPs: some facts and figures to trouble us (with update 8 July &#8217;10)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The other day in a blog post about Indederminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPPs) I described the cruelty and injustice of the IPP régime, under which repeat offenders who have served the punishment part of their sentences are nevertheless kept in prison, sometimes for years, until they can satisfy a parole board that if released, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2650</link>
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		<title>Afghanistan: the dog that still doesn&#8217;t bark in the night</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s extraordinary that the national political discourse isn&#8217;t dominated by the war in Afghanistan.  We have been engulfed in it for nine years already and almost every bulletin brings news of yet more deaths of young British men and women &#8212; not to mention the far more numerous deaths of innocent Afghan men, women and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2637</link>
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		<title>Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPPs) once more (with update 25 June 2010)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In August 2007, nearly three years ago, I wrote (again) in this blog about the scandal of Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPPs), under which people sent to prison for, often, quite minor offences, can&#8217;t be released, even after they have served the &#8216;punishment&#8217; part of their sentences, until they can convince a Parole Board [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2625</link>
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		<title>BP, the oil spill, and the Congressional committee</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m generally a fan of the American constitution, its Bill of Rights, and especially of the American commitment to due process.  In the words of the Fifth Amendment, No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury &#8230; nor shall [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2617</link>
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		<title>Whither the Labour opposition? Part 2 of an open letter to The Leader</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Harriet, If the Labour Party is going to make a healthy recovery in time for the next election (which, despite the CameroClegg&#8217;s pronouncements about a fixed term, may turn out to be much less than five years away), we all need to recognise and admit that the coalition government has got off to a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2608</link>
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		<title>Gaza, the Israeli blockade and international law</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It would be madness to venture a personal view on the latest Israel-Gaza conflict unless from under a double-thickness cycle helmet and from deep inside a suit of armour, but a cool, clear statement of the relevant provisions of international law can perhaps be recommended in reasonable safety:  it&#8217;s at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/israels-naval-blockade-pitches-and-rolls-with-the-law-of-the-sea/article1589981/ In the words of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2600</link>
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		<title>Sorry for David Laws, but he&#8217;s not a victim</title>
		<description><![CDATA[All sensible people are bound to sympathise with David Laws as his soaring ministerial career crashes almost before it has taken off.  I&#8217;m not too sure, though, about what is fast becoming the conventional wisdom among the commentariat:  namely, that he has paid a high price for his perfectly honourable attempt to preserve his privacy [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2596</link>
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		<title>More media bloopers (with additions 25 May &#8217;10)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Some jewels from the print media &#8230;the day after an email exchange about liberty between Tony Blair and I was published in the Observer, &#8230; Henry Porter, The Observer 16 May 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/16/henry-porter-civil-liberties-coalition &#8230;an exhausted-looking Boulton jabbed his finger and furiously refuted Cameron&#8217;s claim that the Sky man wanted to see David Cameron in Downing [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2590</link>
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		<title>Whither Labour now: an open letter to The Leader</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Harriet, Decisions about what kind of opposition Labour is going to be obviously can&#8217;t wait until the leadership elections in the autumn:  it falls to you to set the tone and issue the guidance as soon as you possibly can.  I was pretty horrified to see Alan Johnson on television today attacking, in his [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2583</link>
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		<title>About losing, and where to go now</title>
		<description><![CDATA[For one brief shining moment it looked as if Camelot might be possible after all:  the LibDems and Labour share much common ground; very many &#8212; probably most &#8212; LibDems see themselves as left of centre and in many cases are deeply anti-Conservative. The Labour Party is gradually moving to support for some kind of change [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2571</link>
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		<title>A Labour-LibDem government must be better than any alternative</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My Google Alert service has belatedly noticed this: Twitter / LabourList: Brian Barder on what Gordon&#8217;s people should say to Clegg&#8217;s people if parliament is hung &#8230; http://www.barder.com/2526 Brian Barder on what Gordon&#8217;s people should say to Clegg&#8217;s people if parliament is hung&#8230; http://bit.ly/9wKCI0. twitter.com/LabourList/statuses/13413302414 I wrote this two days before the election and put [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2566</link>
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		<title>We&#8217;re in full-blown crisis, but obsessed with the wrong one</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The media, electronic and print, are in one of their periodic feeding frenzies over the hung parliament and the leisurely horse-trading (very much the right word, alas) over who might form a British government one day.  The prime minister, in office but no longer in power, has very sensibly gone home to Scotland, where he&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2560</link>
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		<title>Election: more reflections, 5pm Friday</title>
		<description><![CDATA[5pm on Friday 7 May 2010 with only one more result to come in today:  Tories 305 (36.1%), Labour 258 (29.1%), LibDems 57 (23.0%). I don&#8217;t think that the LibDems have any serious alternative to signing up to Cameron&#8217;s not particularly generous offer and getting the best deal they can in terms of policy concessions.  [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2558</link>
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		<title>Election: how it looks on Friday morning</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s 1030am on Friday 7 May, the morning after the night before.  Enough results are in to make it arithmetically impossible for any one party to win an overall majority in parliament.  As expected, the Conservatives will be the biggest party and will have won the biggest share of the vote.  Labour will be the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2551</link>
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		<title>If there&#8217;s a hung parliament: the final postscript</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In my previous blog post I sketched out a possible message that Gordon Brown&#8217;s emissary might usefully deliver to a representative of Nick Clegg, the LibDem leader, in the event of a hung parliament.  This took the form of a statement of the Labour government&#8217;s intentions regarding its programme to be submitted to parliament, to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2534</link>
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		<title>What Gordon&#8217;s people should say to Clegg&#8217;s people if parliament&#8217;s hung</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If there&#8217;s a hung parliament after Thursday&#8217;s election, whatever the position in terms of votes cast and seats won, Gordon Brown constitutionally remains prime minister until and unless someone else can demonstrate beyond doubt that he is better able than Brown to command the confidence of a majority of MPs.  I have discussed these rules [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2526</link>
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		<title>Some thoughts before voting</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Two items of required reading before Thursday&#8217;s election: In the London Review of Books, Vol. 32 No. 8 · 22 April 2010, Jonathan Raban analyses David Cameron&#8217;s &#8216;Big Society&#8217; philosophy which apparently steers many Conservative Party policies and plans.  We knew already that it derived from the strange ramblings of one Phillip Blond of Respublica, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.barder.com/2521</link>
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