Lib Dem scientists publish briefing on Covid-19 and mental health

Three prominent psychologists have written a briefing on public mental health and Covid-19 for the Association of Liberal Democrat Engineers and Scientists.

Paul Gilbert, Felicia Huppert and Kate Brierton advocate a compassion-based approach to aid people's recovery and resilience.

They say people in the public eye should avoid suggesting that everyone ‘ought’ to be damaged or traumatised by their experiences. Instead they should point to people’s courage and acknowledge the opportunities for transformation and growth.

The psychologists emphasise that even when people experience unusual symptoms, such as flashbacks or sleep difficulties, these may not represent a mental disorder but be normal responses to an abnormal, high-stress situation.

They say:

By focusing on people’s natural caring and soothing emotions, and developing a compassionate self to intermediate between perceived threats and responses, compassion focused approaches to public mental health show significant promise as interventions to tackle mental health disorders and enhance mental health and wellbeing during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Felicia Huppert is the mother of Julian Huppert, the former Lib Dem MP for Cambridge.

A reminder of why everyone always receives a great reception on the doorstep

Dispiriting afternoon doorknocking - lots of people saying they just won't vote this time. They didn't vote LD before, but even so :( #fb

— Julian Huppert (@julianhuppert) May 15, 2017

There was a rare outbreak of honesty from a general election candidate today as Julian Huppert, who hopes to regain Cambridge for the Liberal Democrats, sent this tweet.

Generally, of course, every candidate reports that they have received "a great reception on the doorstep". So much so that you see people making fun of such tweets whenever they appear.

Why do they do it?

One reason, as I blogged a couple of years ago, is this:

Let me to take you back to a Guardian account of the Hartlepool by-election of 2004 and what happened to the Liberal Democrat candidate Jody Dunn: 

On August 27, Dunn had written in her blog about a dispiriting evening out canvassing with Simon Hughes. "It didn't just rain last night, it poured," she wrote. "In fact the evening became one of the more farcical moments of the campaign. We'd picked what appeared at first to be a fairly standard row of houses. As time went on however, we began to realise that everyone we met was either drunk, flanked by an angry dog or undressed." 

We have all had evenings of canvassing like that. But the account goes on: 

The blog had continued with a joke about how Dunn looked like Worzel Gummidge in the rain. Ed Fordham had checked the copy as usual before posting it online. Nothing he read had sounded alarm bells. 

The Labour printing machines turned again, and this time Hartlepool woke up to the news on its doormat that Dunn had accused them all of being "either drunk, flanked by an angry dog, or undressed". 

And given the opportunity, other parties would no doubt behave just as Labour did. 

So it's much safer always to say you have received a great reception on the doorstep than tell the truth.

Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf

In recent weeks I have been thinking of Michael Haneke’s film Time of the Wolf, which I must have seen at the Renoir, near St Pancras, in 2003.

It was set in a Europe that has been struck by some unexplained catastrophe. Refugees wait at wayside station for trains that may not come or may not stop if they do.

I found it hard viewing - I would not have said at the time that I enjoyed it - but days later found myself thinking about it. Fourteen years on I am thinking about it still, because recent political events are starting to make it look prophetic.

Bright Lights finds redemption in the film too:

For all this atmosphere of barely contained violence, there is opportunity too for simple acts of compassion, sharing, and human communion. A bowl of milk is given, not bartered for. A man lets Eva hear a snatch of classical music on his Walkman. An old man entertains the children with a razor blade swallowing act. 

And there is myth-making. In the original group under Koslowski’s leadership, Béa (Brigitte Roüan) told of the 35 Just, a select group whose mission is to safeguard humanity. The old man (Claude Singeot) elaborates on this with a tale of bonfires being lit in villages, sites for acts of individual, redeeming self-sacrifice. 

Which leads then to the powerful climax of the film, set at night on the railway track outside, with the guards doing their rounds, the darkness illuminated by the light from a bonfire on the track itself. Ben awakens in the middle of the night, with all his fears and tensions breaking forth in the form of a nosebleed. 

His face now streaked with blood, he goes to the railway track outside, stokes the fire there, and stands in front of it. With his (and our) memory resonating with the old man’s tale, he proceeds to strip, standing naked, leaning towards the fire. 

The camera stays on the back of one of the guards resting some distance off - in fact, he’s the one who accused the Pole, established by the story so far as violent and brutal - and then, as he becomes aware of what’s happening, tracks with him to the right up to the bonfire. 

Which is where he "saves" Ben, hugging him to his body, and offering him a vision of optimism and hope - all the more striking for being voiced by this violent, unpleasant, negative character:

I found this vision of redemption a little pat, given all that had gone before, but I would like to see the film again today.

A final point...

The film stars Isabelle Huppert and I wonder if Julian Huppert should start pronouncing his surname the way she does - Ooo-pair.

It could be the key to victory in sophisticated Cambridge.

Later. Isabelle and Julian Huppert are related.

Student paper tips Julian Huppert to regain Cambridge

Writing for Varsity, the Cambridge student paper, Matt Green surveys the current political scene.

He concludes:

What does that mean for Cambridge? Current trends suggest a profound problem for incumbent Daniel Zeichner. The boundary review favours the Liberal Democrats locally and combined with the lack of leadership provided by Labour over the EU – arguably Cambridge’s most salient issue – Zeichner faces an uphill struggle to maintain his seat. On current trends, it is likely that Huppert will win over liberal Cambridge at the next election.

Lib Dems could take back Cambridge under new boundary proposals

That's the headline on an article on the website of Varsity, which styles itself "cambridge’s leading student newspaper".

Looking at the Boundary Commission proposals for the Cambridge constituency, its author Harry Curtis says:

If enacted, they would introduce voters in the Queen Edith’s ward in the south of Cambridge – which contains Homerton College and Addenbrooke’s Hospital – and the Milton ward, northwest of the city to the constituency. 

Local election results from the newly added wards suggest that the proposed boundaries will change the balance of power in the city’s politics. 

Current Labour MP, Daniel Zeichner took the seat last year by 599 votes, a majority that could be wiped out by the newly included areas where the Liberal Democrats polled 1,298 more votes than Labour in the 2015 local elections.

Julian Huppert: Nick Clegg failed to extol the positive virtues of the Liberal Democrats

Julian Huppert, the former Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, is now teaching at the city's university,

He has been interviewed by its newspaper Varsity:

"The Tories outgunned us at the last election," he tells me, agreeing that Cameron’s party took credit for all the good policies. 

"It was Lib Dem pressure on the Tories that caused inequality to fall during our time in government," he asserts with conviction. 

Throughout the interview it’s clear that Huppert is deeply passionate about helping people and his party, at one point reciting verbatim the start of the Liberal Democrat constitution. 

Clegg, for him, had consistently failed to extol the positive virtues of the Liberal Democrats and the importance of removing obstacles such as poverty from people’s lives.

George Grimes Watson 1927-2013

[Later. More on George Watson here.]

I learn from Mark Pack that the Liberal Party thinker George Watson died last year. I am sorry that I missed his death at the time

Watson was part of the party's intellectual renaissance under Jo Grimond. Mark links to a tribute by Julian Huppert:

“George Grimes Watson was a great thinker, an English don and a life-long liberal. 

“He stood for Parliament in 1959 in Cheltenham, unsuccessfully, and then became a Fellow at St John’s College Cambridge, where he became a noted scholar in literature, literary criticism and liberal political thought, including being a key member of the unservile state group, rethinking liberalism and welfare. 

“His 1959 campaign literature shows how little has changed, with one section saying 'Liberals made them get rid of identity-cards – but the State Still has far too much power in our lives’, ‘The Home Secretary thinks the police ought to tap private phone-calls’ and 'We need the European Common Market – Tory policy closes the door of Europe in our faces.' 

“He was a deep thinker and a great liberal, and is much missed.”

As Julian's tribute was posted today, I fear I may not be the only person to have missed George Watson's death.

According to his Wikipedia entry, Watson was taught by C.S. Lewis and went on to teach Douglas Adams himself.

I have read Watson's The English Ideology, which was subtitled "Studies in the Language of Victorian Politics".

As I recall, it is more interesting than that may make it sound, Watson argues that the English ideology is representative government and that the writers who described and championed it, such as Disraeli and Trollope, deserve more attention than its flashier critics such as Ruskin and Carlyle.

The reason for Mark's post today is that the Electoral Commission’s table of party donations for the third quarter of 2014 reveals that George Watson left almost a million pounds to the Liberal Democrats in his will.

I hope we spend it wisely.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: An inflatable Julian Huppert

Tuesday

Not liking the sound of this Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill - "I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing," as my old friend Clarence “Frogman” Wilcock used to say – I attend a Westminster press conference where Clegg is explaining his support for it. I turn up early to be sure of a good seat, and who should I find arranging the stage set but his special advisers Freddie and Fiona?

They are taking turns with a bicycle pump, attempting to get some air into a large balloon that has had a collection of bristles stuck on it. “Whatever is that, you two?” I ask. “It’s an inflatable Julian Huppert,” they explain. “Because everyone is being so unfair about Nick and seems to love Julian, we thought we would bring this along so Nick can hide behind it when he makes his case today. But it seems to have a slow puncture.”

Just then the pump parts company from the valve in the inflatable Huppert, which proceeds to deflate with an all too familiar sound. “I am afraid you have let Julian down,” I observe. “Though, come to think of it, perhaps he has let himself down?”

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

• The elves in my covert

Lib Dem snooper's charter victory is great, but we must be vigilant

The news that Nick Clegg has vetoed the Communications Data Bill - or snooper's charter - as currently drafted is hugely welcome, and together with this week's reform of the libel law, has done much to restore my faith in the Liberal Democats as a liberal party.

It is particularly welcome if you read the briefing activists were given on this bill a year ago. I find I said at the time that:

My first impression was that it had been produced by a child who had been allowed too much Sunny D. Random phrases are underlined or rendered in bold and some get both treatments.

There does seem to be a pattern here of progress being made only after Lib Dem activists have risen against their leadership.

Think of libel reform, where only 10 days ago a "Liberal Democrat spokesman" was blithely telling the Independent:

"Unfortunately we are in a Coalition and this was one of those areas where we could not get our Conservative colleagues to agree with us."

After that poor Tim Farron was monstered on Twitter, Julian Huppert went to work and substantial reform of the libel law was secured - though I never quite grasped why we didn't simply vote for the full reform package in the Commons to begin with.

And this patter predates Nick Clegg's leadership. Donnachadh McCarthy has an article in the current Liberator recalling how Charles Kennedy was effectively bounced into opposing the invasion of Iraq.

The wisest comment on today's events I have seen is this tweet:

Important thing about #snooperscharter is that it isn't a Tory bill, just as its predecessor wasn't Labour bill. It's a Home Office bill.
— Heresiarch (@Heresy_Corner) April 25, 2013

And that means that the danger has not gone away. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and all that.

At least it is encouraging to read the comments below the Conservative Home article by Michael Ellis, the Tory MP for Northampton North. He relies on much the same arguments as the original Lib Dem briefing and they are little better received by that blog's readers.

GUEST POST How Liberal Democrats can help fight for privacy rights in Europe

Peter Bradwell, policy director for the Open Rights Group, asks whether the Internet will continue to be a kind of 'surveillance state' or if people will instead be given the tools to seize control over their personal information and how it is used. 

In the past year Liberal Democrats have had a good stab of standing up for citizens' privacy rights. The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg demanded that the Home Office's 'snoopers' charter' be subjected to the scrutiny of a Joint Committee. Julian Huppert MP was a key figure on the Committee and was integral in highlighting the faults with the proposals.

All of this was underpinned by an active membership who worked hard to emphasise the illiberal nature of the Home Office's plans. That fight continues.

But another equally important front has opened in the fight for our privacy. This time the debate is unfolding in the European Parliament. The same principles are at stake. And just like with the Communications Data Bill, Liberal Democrats could play a key role determining what sort of law we end up with.

The Data Protection Regulation was proposed by the European Commission last January. It is now being considered by MEPs in the Parliament, with a number of committees voting on what amendments they would like to see. To simplify the seemingly complicated European policy making process, these opinions will be important in the negotiations. A more final Regulation will come out the other end of those negotiations. I'll come back to the committees, and why the Liberal Democrats have an important role, later.

Privacy law is not a fertile pasture for humour, so excuse this rather weak joke. My new favourite answer to the question: "What do you think about privacy online?" is: "I think it would be a good idea."

I did say it was weak. But the point is that we have surrendered control over when we give personal information away and over how it is used. Bruce Schneier is a well known security expert. This week he said "The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time."

Information about us spills from our devices and the services and apps we use, sharing the sites we visit, the things we like or comment on, the prices we pay, the people we contact and the places we go. Too often we do not control how and by whom our personal information will be used. Too often the data is not secure enough, with abuses and mistakes going effectively unpunished.

The mass of personal data we leave behind is increasingly used by institutions and organisations to make many important decisions about us. These profiles affect everything from the marketing offers we receive through to the credit ratings and insurance decisions we are subject to. The information feeds those who wish to learn about our movements, personalities, histories, relationships.

We do not have to acquiesce to this state of affairs. We should have no truck with arguments that about genies being out of bottles. Weak laws and weak enforcement helped to create this environment. A new and powerful Data Protection Regulation will help fix it.

It could give people more control over their data and hold those that collect and use it to account.  It would give us, for example, a stronger definition of consent, stronger rights to have our data erased, and enable us to find out about and challenge profiling. For more on the key issues, you can read the short briefing on our website.

The European Commission's proposed Regulation looks very promising. But it is coming under intense lobbying pressure from US data monopolies, the US government and the ad industry. They are seeking amendments that would, for example, weaken the definition of consent, undermine the rights to erasure and 'portability' and create broad 'legitimate interest' carve outs.

Some of these businesses are built on the absence of meaningful privacy online. They are telling law makers that we should not have stronger privacy laws because it would harm their business. The tail is having a good go at wagging the dog.

If these lobbyists get their way, we believe privacy rights for EU citizens would be severely undermined. We would forego a unique opportunity to build a data economy based on a respect for people's privacy. The Regulation could set the rules for the next 20 or so years.

Putting people in control of their data gives them a meaningful stake in decisions that affect them. It is a principle should be an integral part of a liberal democratic digital economy. The Data Protection Regulation is Europeans' shot at getting this principle into law.

Some Liberal Democrat MEPs have very important positions in this policy making process. And we are concerned that they may support the more worrying positions taken by those lobbyists opposed to stronger privacy rights.

For example, on 10 March Baroness Ludford wrote to the Financial Times saying:

concerns have been put to me about aspects that are inflexible, bureaucratic or not user-friendly by European academic and medical researchers, business-to-business marketing companies, telecoms suppliers, insurance groups and banks, the CBI and Federation of Small Businesses well as – yes – American IT companies.

Baroness Ludford's position is extremely important. She sits on the LIBE Committee, which is the lead Committee in the European Parliament for the Regulation. They will vote on an opinion next month. Members are currently considering their position. (For more information on the process and the Committees involved, see the guide from European Digital Rights.)

We were concerned at her failure to mention the interests and rights of citizens. Last week Open Rights Group and Privacy International wrote to Baroness Ludford, urging her to support a strong Regulation that gives people more control over their personal information. You can read our letter on the ORG blog. We will be meeting Baroness Ludford to discuss our concerns soon.

Data protection law can seem like an arcane, complex beast. And it sort of is. But there are simple principles at stake. The outcome of this process will settle whether the Internet continues to be a kind of 'surveillance state'. Or if instead people are given the tools to seize back control over their personal information and how it is used.

This is how Liberal Democrats in the UK can help us get a better law. If you want to see a strong Regulation that gives people more control over their data, contacting Baroness Ludford as soon as possible to explain why would be extremely useful. You can contact her at her European Parliament email address.

Peter Bradwell tweets @peterbradwell.

Julian Huppert calls for an end to the war on drugs

Julian Huppert, Lib Dem MP for Cambridge, writes for Comment is Free following the publication of the home affairs select committee report on drugs policy:

Despite 50 years of criminalisation, illicit drugs are now the third most valuable industry in the world, after food and oil. Presidents of supply countries, such as Colombia, are desperately calling for a rethink. 

We're stuck in a pointless "war on drugs". It's not working and it costs us heavily, in human terms – with people addicted, incarcerated and burgled – and in financial terms. The UK spends more on drug policy than any other country in Europe, but has the highest usage of several class A drugs. 

Every person who uses drugs in Britain is treated in exactly the same way: as a criminal and a prisoner. Far too little effort and support is given to treatment; to helping people come off addictive drugs.

Six of the Best 301

"Welcome to Pyongyang" - Simon Titley, writing on Liberator's blog, mourns the overwhelming advantage enjoyed by incumbents in internal Liberal Democrat elections.

"Scientific research drives economic growth, innovation and improved wellbeing, yet science is underfunded and undervalued in the UK. Commitment to long-term investment in scientific research is crucial to keep our future economy strong and competitive." In the New Statesman Julian Huppert, Lib Dem MP for Cambridge, emphasises the importance of science to our economy  - and name checks Market Harborough's Nobel laureate William Bragg in the process.

David Kaiser and Lovisa Stannow, in the New York Review of Books, look at the problem of rape in American prisons.

Artemis Cooper, in History Today, reflects on Patrick Leigh Fermor’s flexible approach to historical fact.

"Edith Nesbit does something much more special – something that only a tiny handful of truly great writers can do. She takes our world – the ordinary one of trains and coal and cooking and brothers and sisters and arguments and games – and she shows us that it too is fabulous." Frank Cottrell Boyce, writing on the Guardian Books Blog, looks at the magic of The Railway Children.

Sptialfields Life presents some photographs of Bow Cemetery in the snow.

Those new Liberal Democrat committee co-chairs in full

Several new Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee co-chairs have been appointed by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

Paul Burstow has also been elected as chair of the parliamentary party. The former chair Lorely Burt stood down after being appointed as parliamentary private secretary to Danny Alexander.

The new appointments in the House of Commons are:

• Gordon Birtwistle - Business, Innovation and Skills
• Mike Crockart - Energy and Climate Change
• Julian Huppert - Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities
• John Leech - Culture, Media and Sport
• Greg Mulholland - Work and Pensions
• Alan Reid - Transport
• Mark Williams - Wales
• Roger Williams - Food and Rural Affairs
• John Thurso - Constitutional and Political Reform in addition to the role he holds for the Scotland committee.

The new appointments in the House of Lords are:

• Lord (Jonathan) Marks of Henley on Thames - Justice
• Lord (Monroe) Palmer of Childs Hill - Defence
• Lord (Mike) Storey - Education
• Lord (Martin) Thomas of Gresford - Wales

Thanks to the East Midlands Lib Dems site, which has the full list of Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee Co-Chairs.

Julian Huppert coming to Northampton, 5 September

Julian Huppert, Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, is coming to Northampton on 5 September.

Northamptonshire Lib Dems are holding a fundraising event, starting at at 8 p.m. at Kingsley Park Working Men's Club, 120-126 Kingsley Park Terrace, Northampton NN2 7HJ. All proceeds will go to Paul Varnsverry's campaign in the county's police and crime commissioner election. Tickets are £10 and there will be a buffet included - you do not have to be a member to attend.

The organisers need to know numbers for the buffet, so If you intend to come please let them know.  You can pay via a cheque made payable to Northamptonshire Liberal Democrat Group and sent to: Cllr Chris Stanbra, 9-10 Skagerrak Close, Corby, Northamptonshire NN18 9EF.

Whatever Bradley Wiggins said, compulsory cycle helmets are a bad idea

This morning's papers were full of reports that Bradley Wiggins had called for the wearing of safety helmets to be made compulsory for cyclists. However, later reports, such as this one on BBC News, suggest that was not his intention.

I am not an enthusiast for compulsion. As Julian Huppert, Lib Dem MP for Cambridge, says on the Spectator's Coffee House blog, there are many other practical things that can be done to make cycling safer:

We need to improve dangerous road junctions, install priority traffic lights for cyclists and we need the adoption of a 20mph speed limit in residential streets. Every city should have a cycling commissioner promoting and advising on cycle safety. 

Sadly, the dedicated cycle paths and routes that I see in my own constituency are seriously lacking across many other parts of the country where consideration and safeguards for cyclists fall far below that which is desirable let alone acceptable. 

I would also like to see more training for drivers, especially those of heavy goods vehicles, on how to deal with cyclists. This should be covered fully in the driving test.

Besides. there are strong pragmatic arguments against making cycle helmets compulsory too.

I have often heard it said that the chief result of introducing such a measure in Australia was to reduce the number of cyclists - and worsen public health as a result. I have now found some evidence to support that claim.

In 2006 D.L. Robinson from the University of New England in Australia published a paper entitled "No clear evidence from countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets" in the British Medical Journal.

His conclusion on the effect of compulsion on the number of cyclists was:

Before helmet laws, cycling was increasing. Australian census data show cycling to work increased by 47%, from 1.1% in 1976 to 1.6% in 1986. This trend continued in states without enforced helmet laws, where the average proportion cycling to work increased in 1991, contrasting with an average decline for other states. By 1996, when all states had enforced laws, only 1.2% cycled to work, with a similar proportion in 2001. Thus all available long and short term data show cycling is less popular than would have been expected without helmet laws.

His Table 1 gives the figures from observations of the number of cyclists made at the same locations before and after the law was changed.

So compulsion is questionable both in principle and practice. Of course there are times when it is sensible to wear a helmet, but there are also times when there is little need and I would rather leave that judgement up to individual cyclists.

After all, as a society we suffer from too much attention to possible risks rather than too little.

Draft Communications Bill violates the Coalition agreement

I decided not to take part in the telephone conference with Julian Huppert this evening. Thanks are due to Helen Duffett for organising it, but I decided that having a curry and going to my writing club would be a better use of my time.

In her account of the conference, Caron Lindsay tells us we have "169 days to help Julian Huppert protect the internet from the prying eyes of the state". Well, I am sure we will all try to help him, but wouldn't it be easier if Nick Clegg had stuck to Liberal Democrat policy (not to mention his past, rather dramatic, statements on civil liberties) and refused to endorse the bill in the first place?

It seems odd that the job of Liberal Democrat activists is now seen to be campaigning against the proposals of a government of which the Liberal Democrats are a part.

And if you think that ignores the reality of coalition politics, let me refer you to the Coalition Agreement:

We will be strong in defence of freedom. The Government believes that the British state has become too authoritarian, and that over the past decade it has abused and eroded fundamental human freedoms and historic civil liberties. We need to restore the rights of individuals in the face of encroaching state power, in keeping with Britain’s tradition of freedom and fairness.

It is hard to see how today's bill can be reconciled with that.

Latest Lib Dem views on the interception of communications data

Earlier this evening I took part in a conference call about government plans for new communications monitoring powers with Julian Huppert MP and one of the party's Westminster advisers. Many thanks to the inestimable Helen Duffett for organising it.

In truth, I did not learn a lot more than was in Julian's excellent Liberal Democrat Voice article from this morning. But the tone was a lot less fraught than in the last such call, when the party's powers that be seemed intent on defending the Home Office position.

One thing I did learn is that a Home Office briefing on the proposed new bill is floating about on the internet - it is here on the DeHavilland site, for instance - but we were assured that things have moved on since it was written

How much has really changed remains to be seen, but it is encouraging to see reports like this one from today's Guardian:

The bill to track everyone's email, Facebook, text and internet use has proved to be one of the most controversial within the coalition and has been slow-streamed in the government's legislative timetable after last-minute coalition talks. 

The measure, criticised by civil liberty campaigners as a "snooper's charter", has been taken out of a more general Home Office- and Ministry of Justice-sponsored crime and courts bill, which ministers need to get on to the statute book as fast as possible. 

The decision to have a standalone bill follows Nick Clegg's insistence that it must be accompanied by the "strongest possible safeguards".

The most interesting point raised in the discussion was the extent to which we should value the opinions of the big internet companies. If they tell the Home Office that what is proposed is technically impossible that will aide the anti-snooping case. But they have their huge commercial interests will not necessarily support a libertarian position.

I was reminded of an observation by John Harris:

The computer industry came of age in the 1990s, that giddy phase of American and European history when authoritarianism was assumed to be on the wane. For sure, it's still nice to live in a liberal democracy, but given that the world has since moved in no end of sinister directions, isn't our unthinking embrace of the cloud ... an ill-advised throwback?

15 Lib Dem MPs sign letter against extension of snooping powers

A letter from 15 Liberal Democrat MPs expressing concern at the Coalition's plans will appear in tomorrow's Guardian. It stops short of an outright condemnation at any extension of snooping, but it more encouraging than any we have heard from the leadership so far:

It is absolutely vital that the public get a chance to see and debate the details of any proposals to extend state surveillance, not just being presented with a Home Office fait accompli. It is also essential that the initial plans include adequate safeguards – which should be stronger than the current weak controls. 

Liberal Democrats in government will not follow the last Labour government by sounding the retreat on the protection of civil liberties in the United Kingdom. It continues to be essential that our civil liberties are safeguarded, and that the state is not given the powers to snoop on its citizens at will.

The MPs who have signed the letter are:

• Julian Huppert
• Annette Brooke
• Malcolm Bruce
• Mike Crockart
• Andrew George
• Mike Hancock
• John Leech
• Greg Mulholland
• John Pugh
• Alan Reid
• Adrian Sanders
• Ian Swales
• David Ward
• Mark Williams
• Roger Williams

Nick Clegg talks to Julian Huppert about phone-hacking

Which Lib Dem MP looks like Leon Trotsky?

According to Michael White in this morning's Guardian, it is "brainy Dr Julian Huppert" from Cambridge.

Later. It has been pointed out to me that Julian's middle name is Leon. It makes you think.