The writer and author Richard Reeves will take over from Catherine Fieschi at Demos. The latter resigned from the left-wing think tank on Monday. Updated. Continue reading…

When the weather gets warm (at least, that’s the rumour) and journalists & bloggers are stuck in a drought. Try as I might, I can’t find the rage required to get worked-up over this:

Seriously, if you can’t mock the mad right’s lunatic & racist portrayals of Obama in the archetypal liberal arts & current affairs magazine, when and where can you do it?
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SnapsThoughts has a photo essay on the fraughtness of union links with Labour. Each image is accompanied by some thought-provoking words. Highly recommended.

Douglas has news of a sexist Tory. In other news, bears are Catholic and the pope poos in the woods.

Spirit of 1976 discovers his inner Clarkson and feels DIRTY.

Sexual Intelligence Blog reports on John McCain’s reluctance to discuss sexual matters. Not in front of the children, dear.

Jonathan Calder is rather cross about curfews, and people who hail them as a success before they even start.

Lee Griffin has some praise for the home secretary’s plans on knife crime.

Feminist SF covers the finale of the most recent series of Doctor Who.

That’s all folks. Tips to the usual address, and I’ll see you Sunday.

I don’t agree with the conclusion, but Bush strategist Karl Rove’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal about Obama’s campaigning is spot on:

For a campaign that says it wants to end the politics of the Bush-Cheney years, the Obama for President effort has cribbed an awful lot from the Bush-Cheney playbooks of 2000 and 2004.
…
Sen. Obama’s organizational emphasis wisely avoids the Democratic mistake of 2000, when Donna Brazille’s plea for a stronger grassroots focus was ignored by the Gore high command. It also avoids the mistake of 2004, when Democrats outsourced their ground game to George Soros’s 527 organizations. The latter effort paid at least $76 million to more than 45,000 canvassers – many hired from temp agencies – to register and turn out voters. It was the wrong model: Undecideds are more likely to be influenced by those in their social network than an anonymous, low-wage campaign worker.

Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama has harnessed the Internet for persuasion, communication and self-directed organization. A Bush campaign secret weapon in 2004 was nearly 7.5 million email addresses of supporters, 1.5 million of them volunteers. Some volunteers ran “virtual precincts,” using the Web to register, persuade and organize family and friends around the country. Technology has opened even more possibilities for Mr. Obama today.

As I said not long ago, I wonder when the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats are effectively going to start doing the same here. Notice the key word: ‘grassroots’.

Welcome to Casting the net, Liberal Conspiracy’s daily web review. As always, please feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments. There are some excellent posts around the internets today, here is just a taster…

*** GL0RIFY! *** - In the longest trial of its kind in history, an animal rights activist has been jailed for 4.5 years. The presiding judge’s hobbies include “shooting, smallholding, gardening and fishing”. An appeal, based on his apparent conflict of interest, has been launched.

The Daily (Maybe) - There was a by-election yesterday, apparently. JimJay brings us the rundown.

OurKingdom - Anthony Barnett commends Davis’ performance, and takes a swipe - again - at the “sneering” BBC.

Rachel North - Rachel debated liberty on the eve of the election. Here is her speech. Continue reading…

Imagine a left-of-centre political party without much electoral support, chided for not having enough bold ideas, facing a grumbling bunch of institutional backers that accuse it of betraying its ideological roots. Sound like New Labour? You may not be surprised to hear the same being said of the Democratic Party in the United States.

This is the picture painted by New York Times journalist Matt Bai in The Argument. Away from the day-to-day concerns of most Democrat politicians and voters, Bai delves into three tightly-knit and politically-charged worlds seeking to influence the Party and its agenda: billionaire donors, radical bloggers and activist groups such as MoveOn.
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I think the Obama-McCain contest means that we have the chance to see the best of America in this election year.

During these last few months, as I spent time in Chicago and Wisconsin in February during parliamentary recess and then on the doorstep in Crewe and across Greater London in April and May, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what, if anything connects these events. What do they have in common? What direction do they point us in for the future?

There is something about these two outsider candidates that connects with people, whether that is with rural communities in Iowa, casino workers in Nevada or students in Wisconsin.
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I have spent about five hours so far collating reactions to last night’s Who and am still not done yet, so if this is a bit disjointed, blame Russell T Davies. When I’ve finally done I’ll be making Liberal use of this and picturing Rusty in the role of Boss.

Tips to the usual address: all submissions will be considered, although there’s no guarantee of inclusion.

Andrew Hickey has a great post about why the Lib Dems’ current strategy is completely arse-about-face, which neatly encapsulates my own feelings on the matter and chimes with Mike Smithson’s recent post too.

Stuff White People Like dissects Godwin’s Law: “all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.”

Shakesville reports on a fiscal fly in John McCain’s soup.

On my blog there are tips for those who wish to pile the pressure on Heinz like Lynne F. Continue reading…

The Green party has put forward a candidate in the by-election against David Davis. Left of David Davis? Check. A left / progressive candidate? Check. Wants to push for even more civil liberties? Check. So the Labour and lefty bloggers must be rising up in support? Erm… well, there’s Neil Harding… and a lot of tumbleweed rolling by.

[update: non-Greens support also from: peezedtee, Dave Cole, Stuart Jefferey, Socialist Unity, Unbeliever, Pamphlet Labour]

Yes, it really does look like many lefties really will cut off their noses to spite their face on this issue. Well, I’m not sitting here praying David Davis fails miserably because the outcome would a vindicated Gordon Brown willing to push it through with the Parliament Act if the Lords reject the 42 days bill as expected.
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On Monday, Lovemore Matombo and Wellington Chibebe, respectively the President and General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Unions (ZCTU), will stand trial to face charges of ’spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state’. Those falsehoods are, in fact, criticisms they made on May Day of Mugabe’s government and telling the truth about the violence today in Zimbabwe.

As part of their bail conditions, they may not address any political or public gatherings until the conclusion of their case, effectively removing them from the election campaign. The ZCTU has been increasingly opposed to Mugabe since the 1990s and were involved in setting up the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The MDC President, Morgan Tsvangarai, is a former general secretary of the ZCTU.
This is where you come in.
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There can be only one high tech manufacturing sector in which a substantially deindustrialised Britain still claims world leadership in export terms, and here’s a clue; it isn’t advanced medical equipment.

It is rather – as the government proudly revealed yesterday – production of the means of destruction, as the FT reports:

Britain became the world’s largest arms exporter last year, according to government figures released yesterday, overtaking the US which normally occupies the top slot.

The UK won £10bn of new defence orders in 2007 from overseas, giving it a 33 per cent share of the world export market, according to figures released yesterday by the Defence and Security Organisation, set up to promote Britain’s defence exports. Export orders totalled £5.5bn in 2006 …

Lord Jones, trade and investment minister, said: “As demonstrated by this outstanding export performance, the UK has a first class defence industry with some of the world’s most technologically sophisticated companies.”

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Well might Brian Cowen echo the age-old question of Sigmund Freud, what do women want?

The Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty pulled a large number of women voters into the “No” camp. Indeed Cowen and his government, as they scratch their heads at the imponderable, impertinent ignorance of the Irish electorate in rejecting modernisation, freedom, democracy and mama’s apple pie, might well ask what Ireland wants.

The rhetoric leading up to the vote on the Treaty of Lisbon was apocalyptic. A vote against the treaty was a vote against progress; anything less than full-throated support for the treaty was calling doom upon the Irish economy. Even French Foreign Minister and ‘respected humanitarian’ Bernard Kouchner weighed into the debate by declaring that a “No” vote would hurt Europe but that it would hurt Ireland most of all.
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The untimely death of the journalist and broadcaster, Tim Russert, has rocked America’s political and media worlds. Continue reading…

This American Life is a class act at any time, but this recent episode is a must-listen. It is an investigative report into what happened to Richard G. Convertino, the Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted the ‘Detroit Sleeper Cell’ case.

Arrested only days after 9/11, the four men tried in the case were meant to have been planning an attack - two of the men were found guilty by a grand jury, only to have the Justice Department voluntarily asked the judge to throw out the case.

It was supposed to be the first terrorist attack planned from American soil. It was quite unusual behaviour for the department to not only throw out its own case, but then go after its own prosecutor.

The podcast considers whether the decision was taken as part of a vendetta against Richard G Convertino, the prosecutor, who repeatedly ruffled feathers, breaching protocol and failing to get along with his colleagues. But the Justice Department’s attempt to bring criminal charges against Covertino failed and he then he sued them.

All of this is fascinating, but more so are the couple of glimpses of the information at contest in the trial - for example, one piece of evidence was a home video shot at Disneyland. In the podcast, it becomes clear that there’s a section of this video filming a duck pond - the prosecutors argued that some singing translated to an anti-US screed - the defence said it was a song about ducks. (The podcast producers don’t get their own independent translation, sadly enough!)

The case rested heavily on some sketches in a day planner - which could be a map of a US air base in Turkey, or not.

Michelle Schwartz was incensed by some very sexist adverts for Canadian Club Whiskey. She did a parody of the advert from a feminist perspective, and then lots of other people joined in. This link is graphics-heavy, but brilliant. I think I like Your mom was a pilot best…
Lib Dem Jo has been listening to Hazel Blears on the radio. She’s a braver woman than me. I can’t listen to Blears for more than a few seconds without falling into a frothing rage, but Jo managed it for a whole phone in!
Snuffleupagus, an inner city teacher, talks about her incredulity that one of her colleagues is blithely indifferent to her daughter going to a school in Special Measures.
Stephen Glenn has news for the Northern Irish health minister: the “treatment” that she advocates to “cure” gay people doesn’t work. He knows, because he’s been through it. Three times.
Brad Hicks is a big ball of hope and fear when he listens to Obama speak, and thinks that people calling it a “cult of personality” dismissively are missing the depth of his generation’s feelings on the matter.
Cobalt warns American women not to be seduced by the siren song of McCain, with reams of reasons.
And finally, Charlie Stross has posted a “how to behave” guide for commenters on his blog. It’s good general advice for how to behave on the internet.

Welcome to Casting the net, Liberal Conspiracy’s daily web review. As always, please feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments.

Brad Hicks and Meral Ece have two contrasting reactions to Hillary’s concession of the Democrat candidacy. Brad is full of righteous anger, Meral was more inspired.

The BBC reports that some MPs have realised that ID Cards could threaten privacy. In other news, the sky is blue, and the pope shits in the woods.

Over at my blog, a reminder of what we are actually talking about with the 42 days detention plan. Especially depressing in the light of the ICM poll that we reported here yesterday.

Jonathan Calder has tactical suggestions for Lib Dems on how to deal with David Cameron - we should hug him, and stroke him, and cuddle him, and sing to him, and call him Dave; PeeZedTee, meanwhile, has advice for Gordon Brown.

Lynne Featherstone, the relentless reformer, wanted to lower the voting age to 16; the Tories had other ideas.

And finally, Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman are both getting involved with a campaign to say no to age banding on children’s books.

Inspirational, emotional, loyal to her voters - and most importantly - loyal to the party and highly appreciative of the need for Barack Obama’s candidacy. I think today Hillary Clinton shattered all those silly stereotypes that she cared only for herself and not the party. I salute you Hillary Clinton.

Best lines from her speech
“And although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it’s got about 18 million cracks in it.”
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Now that Obama is the nominee, the real election fight starts. In many ways McCain is different from previous Republican candidates in that he has intentionally tried to stop political attacks becoming too personal. For example, he intervened and criticised a right-wing talk show host who, in an introduction, repeatedly emphasised Barack Hussein Obama to make obvious connotations.

Nastiness
On Scribo Ergo Sum, one writer says:

Regardless, this is shaping up to be a deeply thrilling race, yet also one of far more calm and maturity than the whirlwind of hallow nonsense which raged around the last one. That the repeat of 2004 which would surely have been triggered by the {not so long ago seemingly entirely ineluctable} contest of Giuliani-Clinton has been entirely averted is something that we must be immensely thankful for.

No. This is going to be by far the nastiest presidential race you have ever seen and will ever see.
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By now, you won’t need me to tell you that poor Gordon’s political future is as precarious as an icecube in an ocean.

Every day we see stories about the New Scandal!, the latest Poll Shock! or a rumoured Cabinet Coup! and every day we see our nation’s blessed punditocracy bashing their heads against their keyboards and submitting the results under the title of What Gordon Must Do Now.

Run to the left! they cry. No, run to the right! Let’s reconnect with out heartlands! No, don’t forget about our precious marginals! After reading only a handful of these articles, you’re forgiven if your ears start ringing with white noise.
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Senator Hillary Clinton will formally bow out of the race and endorse Barack Obama this weekend. ABC News said it was Friday, initially. the date is now Saturday.