Thoughts on politics and life from a liberal perspective

Friday 12 March 2010

Bridget Fox, Jonathan Sheppard and David Weber on House of Comments Podcast - Episode 17

The latest "House of Comments" podcast with myself and Stuart Sharpe of the Sharpe's Opinion political blog is now live. The website for the podcasts is here and the seventeenth episode which we recorded on Tuesday 9th Feb is available to download via this page here (raw mp3 file here if you prefer). You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here. Or you can listen to it right now here:



The format is to invite political bloggers on each week to discuss a few of the stories that are making waves in the blogosphere.

This week we were joined by Lib Dem PPC for Islington and South Finsbury Bridget Fox, founder and editor of Tory Radio Jonathan Sheppard and David Weber the editor of the group blog The Daily Soapbox.

We discussed the Digitial Economy Bill and amendments which many Lib Dems including Bridget are seeking to change, hung parliaments and the postal strikes.

If you are a political blogger and would like to participate in the future, please drop me an e-mail here.

3 comments:

David Weber said...

Hi Mark,

I think you've linked to the old podcast site. http://www.houseofcomments.co.uk doesn't work for me, but http://www.houseofcomments.com does.

David

Richard Gadsden said...

On "who gets the first crack" in a hung parliament - in 1974, Ted Heath (outgoing PM) got the first crack at forming a government, in spite of having fewer MPs than Wilson.

David Weber said...

I know, but interestingly, the more likely of the two (rather unlikely) possibilities looks to be the other way around: Brown getting more MPs, but less seats.

In the event of this happening, I suspect the Lib Dems would be more inclined to support the Tories on a Confidence and Supply basis, given how much they've built their reputation on the idea of proportional representation. They've also got more of a presence.

I've been thinking of the whole topic of how much the Lib Dems should 'support' the government post-election, and I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that it can't just be a 'pick and choose' basis. This isn't just about legislation, this is about who's in government. The Liberal Democrats, in order to guarantee a certain stability, will need to state who they will support on a supply and confidence basis, simply to avoid troubles similar to those of Canada.