in Blackpool, BBC News Online featured a few pre-conference puff-pieces, including one with millionaire* Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, Liberal gets tough on pub hours, by Justin Parkinson, BBC News political** reporter, focusing on Ms. Featherstone’s “biggest hit so far”, her “querying of the impending liberalisation of pub licensing laws in England and Wales”.
Curiously, amongst all of Featherstone’s ‘tough’ words, Justin omits to mention the Lib Dems policy to legalise drinking at the age of 16! Just the sort of typical two-faced Lib Dem hypocrisy that any journalist worth his or her salt ought to be probing.
From Hansard, Jan 25th, 2005:
Kevin Brennan: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that it is Lib Dem policy to legalise drinking at the age of 16? Does he think that that will contribute to a reduction in binge drinking?
Mr. Foster: The answer is yes. I do not think that I could explain the position more clearly.
Link courtesy of the excellent, if currently somewhat sporadic, LibDem Watch.
* Not mentioned by Justin either. ** And here was me thinking they were all political reporters at the BBC – just like criminal lawyers: “why? aren’t they all criminals?” 🙂
Pete,
Regarding your comment, “…Riyadh, Damascus and Tehran need to be reminded of the awesome firepower of the US and of the folly of meddling in Iraq. I can’t remember Bush saying anything about this and he damn well needs to.”
I agree. I, too, get aggravated when Bush doesn’t say what he needs to say. This isn’t the first time.
Denise W | 23.09.05 – 1:49 am | #
There were many valid reasons that the US and UK could have used to justify taking out Saddam. Instead they used the pretext of WMD. One has to ask why. So long as the West is reliant on Arab oil, diplomatic double speak has to prevail for fear of making various states, (who might be subject to similar reasons as those for Iraq), nervous. I’ll leave you to figure out which and why, but I believe it’s what makes it difficult to be too aggressive in tone.
‘Iran is surrounded by sea and land.’
as opposed to…?
Everybody thought Saddam had WMDs. They thought this because Saddam wanted them to think so. The falsification was his, not Western Intelligence’s. Even to those of us on the outside he sure acted like he had something to hide – which he did.
While SH did not have stockpiles of weapons he did have an ongoing R&D program. His plan was to get the sanctions lifted, with the help of his willing cohorts in the the West, and then use his oil money to rebuild his WMD capacity.
I am quite sure the Liberal Left would have preferred we waited until *after* Saddam had those weapon stockpiles and had used them to intervene. The Left is always enthusiastic about giving nasty dictators an even break.
Finally the WMDs were only one of several grounds for invasion. President Bush also named human rights abuses and defiance of UN orders and peace treaty terms. But the Leftist media choses to harp on WMDs.
It amazes me that we still have people moaning about ousting Hussein. Clearly some of you believe it would be better if he were still there, or better to leave the Iraqis to Al-Qaeda. Shae on you.
I wonder, reading some of the posts, whether some of you have any idea of the threat the west faces: the possession by rogue dictatorships of nuclear weapons/ WMDs and their use of terrorist networks to distribute terror to enemies in a manner which they believe leaves them unaccountable, and guarantees total destruction.
Iran will use their possession of nukes to blackmail the west. They will very likely provide nuclear weapons to terrorists, as they believe Allah ordains this use. That reality keeps our leaders up at night. My personal belief is that the Americans are eventually going to use nuclear weapons to stop Iran and North Korea, on the same logic as Japan 1945 – by doing so they will prevent millions of deaths in the west, as well as the partial/total destruction of our way of life.
What you’ve got to remember Ted is some people *want* our way of life destroyed. Oddly enough these tend to include those who have benefited most from it…go figure.