Sweet Nothings

I love the fact that the government has just revoked export licences for arms to Bahrain, because they're worried that any weapons sold might end up being used for slightly unsavoury purposes, like, oh I don't know, the gunning down of anti-government protesters perhaps. I'm sure up until now all munitions purchased by the Bahrainis (Bahrainers? Baha Men?) from ourselves have been put to nice, friendly uses. The revolutionary events taking place in the Arab world have been quite an eye-opener really. Before this year I didn't really have a clue as to the political situation in these countries. Having read a lot more about Mr Mubarak and his ilk lately, it's easy to see why the Western powers had been quite happy for folk to remain in the dark. Egypt, for example, was regarded as a tourist hot spot who were nice to our friends the Israelis - not like those nasty other Arab types in Lebanon, Iran and suchlike. Now we know that it was a repressive dictatorship all...

From a spokesman for the Department of Education, as quoted on the front page of yesterday's Guardian , in response to allegations that the coalition may be trying to sneakily re-introduce pupil selection in schools: "Ed Balls's leadership campaign is so desperate it is reduced to confecting lies that even a child can see through." Wow, really showing your belief in the potential of the next generation there, guys. Good work.

Looks like we have ourselves a hung parliament, then. What last night’s results signify depend on who you’re asking: the Tories will claim that the nation has decisively rejected Brown as leader (as indeed the Sun does this morning), but Labour can rightly point to D-Cam’s failure to gain an overall majority, a quite spectacular one considering the polls a year or so ago, the longevity of the present government and the current state of the country. As for the Lib Dems... well, putting a positive spin on things is going to be awfully difficult. Still comfortably stuck in third place, probably with fewer MPs than before, many will blame the first past the post system for their current plight but that doesn’t fully explain how they have failed to capitalize on the goodwill gained by Clegg’s debate performances. Clearly all the people who were considering switching the “yellow vote” ended up not doing so, perhaps they were briefly caught up in the novelty of the moment before being ultima...

7:35pm Here we go again. Tonight’s third and final Prime Ministerial debate is centered around the economy, so there will likely be much emphasis by each man on how they won’t make crippling cuts vital services, and few if any categorical assertions as to what will actually be getting cut, and how deeply. You could say each will be anxious to paint themselves as “less parsimonious than thou”. Parsimonious, by the way, is a great word. One synonym is “niggardly”, another great word but one which I don’t expect anyone to be pulling out of the hat this evening (unless Griffin turns up unexpectedly). Although it would make for a fine act of political suicide. Speaking of which... Yes, sadly the economy is threatening to be overshadowed this evening by the dreaded Bigotgate debacle. I won’t go into this in detail because it makes me too angry, suffice to say that Mrs Duffy’s comments, such as “all these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?” (um, Easte...

Welcome back. So, where were we? 8:42pm Oh, so apparently that's the end of the international affairs portion. Next question: (asked by a bit of a hottie, hello Mary) why should anyone trust any of you ever again? Clegg refers to the "old parties" again, and does his bit for voting reform. Dave is keen for none of this nasty expenses-fiddling stuff to ever happen again. Lots of closing of stable doors long after the horse has legged it here, methinks. Nick sounds like he's coming onto Mary. Hands off! Gordon is making a fair point about the significance of politics, but of course it's the politicians who are the problem rather than politics itself. Dave reminds us we are all in this mess. Gordon is emphasising that things must become more transparent, but he pronounces it "trans-pear-ant" which is most distracting. 8:54pm Grace has brought up 5 children for most of her life. Well done love, what do you want, a medal? Oh, a better pension, I se...

7:30pm I’d love to say I deliberately waited until the second live leaders’ debate before blogging on the subject so that I could analyse the debate whilst making penetrative and insightful comparisons with the first one. Obviously the truth is I was just too lazy to bother, but things have worked out rather well as I could never have foreseen how huge the impact of ITV’s vaguely Kraftwerkian extravaganza would be. As a natural Lib Dem voter I was rooting for Nick Clegg from the off, and my own opinion on him or any of the parties hasn’t really changed. He didn’t appear to put in a masterly, Obama-esque - certainly not a Bartlett-esque - performance, although it was interesting to note just how much freedom he was given to expound on his own views whilst Dave and Gordon concentrated on bickering amongst themselves. Gradually you did get the sense of "the big two" realising what was happening as they started to challenge Clegg, or in Brown’s case agree with him on pretty ...