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22 December 2006

Time up for Blair?

This week's round-up of the political blogs includes commentary on Blair's attempts at diplomacy

By Adam Haigh

Invitations are being handed out this week by Guido Fawkes for anyone wanting to pressure David Cameron to reveal to voters just who is “behind this mysterious anonymous offshore lender in Liechtenstein.” Shouldn’t we know who this substantial funder for the Tory party is?

And Guido isn’t the only one to have found it strange why the opposition party have remained silent on this after the debacle of Labour burying the BAE investigation last week.

BBC political editor Nick Robinson meanwhile used an entry on his blog to question whether the beeb was anti-politics. He was responding to a provocative editorial in the Independent by Steve Richards about the corporation’s coverage of the cash for honours issue.

John Reid’s u-turn on the ID card database got the blogosphere flustered on Wednesday. It wasn’t just Dizzy who had trouble with the government’s logic of keeping the existing database system because it will be “lower risk, more efficient and faster”.

Aaron Heath of Tygerland.net wrapped up the criticism of Tony Blair’s visit to the Middle East, seen on many blogs over the last week, by saying “Blair should come home and stop playing the diplomatic messiah he never was. It’s over Tony; your time is up”.

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Paul Anderson of Gauche is keeping a close eye on the story of the Suffolk murders. Although Stephen Wright, 48, of London Road, Ipswich has been charged with all five murders this story has prompted bloggers to discuss the question of the legalisation of prostitution. Gauche has news of a “Reclaim the Night” march taking place in Ipswich on Friday 29 December at 7pm. He hopes for a good turn out from the people of Ipswich to show they are not deterred by these terrible events over the past weeks.

We are still non the wiser as to whether there is any truth in the story about a man who fled the country wearing his sister’s niqab, whilst being hunted by police over his alleged involvement in the murder of a policewoman. Ellee Seymour is asking whether we really know who and what enters our country. Andrew Sullivan at Daily
Dish
stirs the pot because surely freedom means being able to wear a veil? Doesn’t it?

Guido Fawkes was not afraid to join the bandwagon of jokes against Lembit Opik this week. Check out the brilliantly tasteful graphic of the Lib Dems with the slogan: “The Sexy Alternative”.

Dizzy spotted a Wall Street Journal article that used a very fitting analogy of the relationship between the media and blogs. Many bloggers agree that blogs are indeed “like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps”.

In the festive spirit, as mentioned here by my colleague Owen Walker last week, bloggers did meet in Parliament Square, London, for their carol singing and peaceful protest against the Serious and Organised Crimes and Police Act 2005. Bloggerheads reckons “SOCPA makes unreasonable demands of the police and more often than not they come out of it looking as stupid as this stupid law”. By all accounts Mark Thomas et al led a rather eventful little sing song and the spirit of democracy was rife.

Enjoy the festive break and we hope to see you back in the new year for more of the best news from the political blogosphere.

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