Guest Post Liberal England Sunday, April 01, 2012 Six of the Best 238

Guest Post

Liberal England

An amusingly eclectic mix of culture and politics from Jonathan Calder

"Well written, funny and wistful" - Paul Linford; "He is indeed the Lib Dem blogfather" - Stephen Tall
"Jonathan Calder holds his end up well in the competitive world of the blogosphere" - New Statesman
"Charming and younger than I expected" - Wartime Housewife; "Bitter and obsessive" - Mark Littlewood

Sunday, April 01, 2012

Six of the Best 238

"Instead of, say, three main parties and some fringe ones, what we have in effect are dozens of parties which dominate public bodies and which all remain in office, regardless of elections and the politicians passing through. One of the scariest and most formidable of these parties is the national security and anti-terrorism party, which dominates the Home Office, the police, and the 'security services'." Jack of Kent on reports that the government wants to be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK.

Alex's Archive is concerned by those reports too.

The Libertine tells us that four young bloggers interviewed Lib Dem President Tim Farron at the party's Federal Conference last month.

"Right from the start I was fascinated by the story of this man who went round the countryside asking people to sing for him. Even though the people he met hadn’t actually written the songs they sang, he was still asking them to share a part of themselves, of their memories and childhoods. The fact that they were willing to do this, even though he was a complete stranger to them, shows that they had a natural pride in their folksongs and also that they were warm-hearted and open-minded enough to want to share them." Zanyzigzag's Blog writes about Cecil Sharp's trips to Somerset to collect folk songs.

Go Litel Blog, Go... documents the demise of Rothwell Town Football Club.

The cute lambs of spring 2012 are celebrated by Martin Brookes - and I have borrowed one of his photographs.