Shane Greer

I’ll be debating the Glasgow East by-election tomorrow (Thursday) night from about ten to midnight, with the result coming in somewhere over the hour that follows.  So if you fancy listening to me jab Labour with a stick (and let’s be fair there’s nothing quite so much fun as getting stuck into Labour) then tune in. 

It’s that time of year again:

Take Part & Win £100 worth of Political Books!

In early September TOTAL POLITICS, in association with APCO WORLDWIDE will publish the 2008-9 Guide to Political Blogging in the UK. It will contain articles on blogging by some of Britain’s leading bloggers, together with a directory of UK political blogs, and a series of Top 20s and Top 10s. The book will be available at the Green Party, TUC, Labour, LibDem and Tory Conferences, where TOTAL POLITICS will have exhibition stands.
We’re asking for your votes to decide the Top 100 UK Political Blogs. Simply email your Top Ten (ranked from 1 to 10) to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com. If you have a blog, please encourage your readers to do the same. I’ll then compile the Top 100 from those that you send in. Just order them from 1 to 10. Your top blog gets 10 points and your tenth gets 1 point.
The deadline for submitting your Top 10 is Friday August 15th. Please type Top 10 in the subject line. Or you can of course leave your Top 10 in the Comments on this post.
Once all the entries are in a lucky dip draw will take place and the winner will be sent £100 worth of political books!

The rules are simple:
1. Please only vote once
2. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents are eligible or based on UK politics are eligible
3. Votes must be cast before Friday 15 August
4. Blogs chosen must be listed in the Total Politics Blog Directory.
5. You must send a list of TEN blogs, ranked. Any entry containing fewer than ten blogs will not count.
6. Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name
So, once again, the email address to send your TOP TEN BLOGS to is…

toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com

Shock horror, the UK has a drinking problem.  We like to binge, and then we like to cause trouble in the streets.  Okay, that’s not true for all of us but fear not, Labour has a ’solution’ to the problem that will effect us all; an end to happy hours if the drinks industry doesn’t ‘act more responsibly’.  You see it’s not the fault of the binge drinker, it’s the fault of the pub and supermarket that sells them the drink.  Personal responsibility counts for nothing it would seem, but then why would it when we’re governed by a party incapable of accepting responsibility for anything (and in this case that does indeed extend to the effect the relaxation of licensing laws has had on the binge drinking problem). 

Cheap alcohol isn’t the cause of binge drinking, although it’s certainly a facilitator.  The cause is our own failure to take responsibility for our actions.  And if Labour want somebody to blame for that they need look no further than the party who for 11 years have avoided blame at all costs and taught the nation that something is only your fault if you can’t persuade people somebody else did it.  

…back again, Shaney’s back, tell a friend. 

Ok, so it’s fair to say I didn’t quite keep to my promise of returning to the blog by 12th June.  Things have been a little hectic of late with the magazine launch and as a result I simply haven’t had the time for the blog.  My intention is to get things going again in the not too distant future, but the reality is that I can’t currently commit to it.  Accordingly I have decided to focus instead on my blogging for the Telegraph’s Brassneck blog. 

Fear not though, the shanegreer.com blog will be back to normal sometime later in the year!

As you’ll have gathered from the lack of blogging things are a little hectic at the moment; apparently launching a magazine is time consuming (who would have though!?). That being so I’ve decided to stop blogging until 12th June, when things will have calmed down a bit.

Until then though I’ll still be blogging at the Telegraph’s Brassneck blog and on the CPS blog.

Both politics and blogging have been a bit light today (although in fairness the latter is nobodies fault but my own). The LibDems however have used the lull to kick-off their re-launch; and let’s be fair that’s exactly what it is. Forced into a corner by the rise of two-party politics and with their its against the wall the cuddly party has come out kicking, and in particular kicking in the direction of the Conservatives.

But whilst to some the howls of Nick Clegg might sound shrill when compared to the meaty conflict between Brown and Cameron, it would be a mistake to discount the remarks as merely the last desperate flinches of a dying animal. Make no mistake, Clegg is gearing up for the political fight of his and his party’s life - the fight to remain relevant in British politics.

The battleground for this fight will surprise many, but considered fully this particular theatre of political war may very well provide the LibDems with a very realistic hope of success.

Where is the battleground? Henley.

And make no mistake, the LibDems can win there; it just depends on how you define victory.

For what it’s worth though the film was awful, really awful.  Really, really awful. 

Seriously, who thought mixing aliens and Indiana Jones was a good idea!? 

…Edward Timpson will be sitting behind David Cameron during PMQs tomorrow? 

Hmm…

It’s a sign of the times, or perhaps more accurately a sign of the degree to which the Party’s image has changed, that the Conservatives have today been able to propose boot camps for the unemployed.  Imagine if such an announcement had been made this time last year; something tells me Labour would have been quick to attack the Conservatives, claiming such a policy would amount to effective slave Labour. 

Today though Labour had very little to say other than to dispute the number of people they’ve apparently helped into work. 

The political agenda is now very much in David Cameron’s hands.