I think NO.6 just about sums up the LibDems. Tactical, not strategic, has been their reaction to almost everything. I first spotted this in a big way back in the '90s. They were strong in local government, but opposed the community charge for short term electoral advantage and thus threw away the chance for local government to be more free of central government financially. They don't change

Well said Roger. Government continues to think that it alone can pick economic winners (British Leyland anyone?), but it never works. Huhne's madness is being driven by political dogma, not by scientific evidence nor economic reality.

I think that a major problem for you, Larrie, and others like you is that increasing numbers of us no longer buy into the whole "climate change is bad and entirely the fault of humans" thing. We don't swallow whole Lord Stern's views and we no longer are willing to sit adoringly at the feet of climate scientists and accept what they say.

A typically insightful piece by Mr Bridgen. I particularly liked the comment about Local Directors of Public Health. I had not thought of them...

On the basis of recent press stories about green policies, Huhne has taken leave of his senses - I trust coalition will not go along with such suicidal daftness.

Well done an d well deserved.

Well said Andrew, a nicely argued article. Of course, the bail outs are not about saving Ireland, Portugal or Greece at all. They are really about saving the Euro, which as you correctly point out is a political project not an economic one.

"Local peace pacts"? I think not. Peace pacts imposed from on high would, I think be more likely.

Thank you for your comments. Starting with Donald Trump - "So what you're basically saying is that schools need to be built like prisons and students like convicts?" - and I think Furor may have been making a similar point. No this is not what I am saying. What I was trying to get at is that schools need to provide a safe learning environment for pupils, but that the open-plan buildings favoured over the past half century or so fail to do this. I am glad to note that you do at least accept my basic point that the building can affect behaviour. Donald has also mentioned two other points in separate paragraphs which are, I think, quite closely related. He claims teachers cannot be expected to control 30+ students, then later talks about changes in discipline. I would agree that disciplinary changes make it more difficult to control higher numbers of pupils, but the built environment also contributes to this problem as do teaching methods for that matter. There are a number of inter-related issues here. In the original article I was seeking to highlight one that I feel does not get the attention it deserves in the popular discourse on this subject. John asks "Or are you saying that we all should be living behind high walls and subjected to 'firm discipline'?" No, I am not. I am saying that for pupils to be able to be educated they need to be in an environment where learning is easy and disruptive behaviour is difficult. I did not extrapolate out to the rest of us, and neither should you. CCTV Installers suggests that by solving one problem area we simply move the "anti-social cretins" on elsewhere. This is to despair of the whole problem and give up. I cannot accept that. By solving a problem in one specific area - in this case schools - we solve the problem there, which is good. Then we can move on to the next problem. Thank you again for your comments.

Have just heard on the radio that the ECJ has so ruled, well predicted Alex. The increasingly strident demands of the powers that be that we must accept what is plainly not true (Global Warming is caused by Humans, the EU is democratic etc etc) is truly worrying. Good book, by the by.

Nice point, well made. Keep up the good work Andrew

"A Lib Dem fights dirty" Are we supposed to be surprised? This is what they are like. Their motives are pure, so therefore they can behave as nastily as they like in order to achieve those highly moral objectives.

So, the Tories in opposition oppose big government ideas. Now they are in government they support big government ideas. And we are surprised?

Well said Alex. I have made my complaint as you suggest.

IF he is snowed in in Norfolk, perhaps he could read up on how the Climate Change Act is costing the UK billions in order to stop climate change and - errr - lower temperatures and give us colder winters.

There is, or should be, a clear distinction between the Conservative Party and the Coalition. It is therefore entirely correct that the Conservative Party should have a policy developing structure - though I am quite relaxed about what form that should take. I don't think this should be especially tied to the manifesto for the next General Election. There are plenty of other elections taking place around the country in which candidates would appreciate a steer from the Party. Not to mention the fact that crises may come upon us - such as Euro bailout, AGW and so forth

Generally good stuff from Mr Middleton. There are some obvious missing points and lack of detail, but on the whole it is going in the right direction. The real problem is whether it will come to anything. Somehow I doubt if CCHQ will put a huge amount of effort into it as they seem to be wedded to the idea that they alone win elections and the associations and members are a pesky nuisance. The lack of distribution given to this document is a case in point

I don't think that is what I meant. I am all in favour of intellectualism, and education, but it is the automatic assumption that the Classical world is superior that I oppose. We English have a perfectly good artistic, political and intellectual tradition without needing to import concepts and ideas from the Classical world as if they were, per se, better. They might be, they might not, but are not automatically so.

Just this once then. It is a special case. What is the betting that the next demand from the EU will be a special case as well?

Methinks a Classical education can go a tad too far sometimes. This is England, not ancient Greece. And in those polis that had this system - if memory serves correctly - you could not refuse to serve.

Hmmmmm. All very interesting. But how would the VOTERS react? I do not think that all Conservative voters and all LibDem voters would vote for a combined party. By effectively creating a centre party, the new entity would shed some LibDem voters to Labour or Greens and some Conservative voters to UKIP or the English Democrats. You can't just take the voters for granted. They have minds of their own and some very varied reasons for voting as they do.

Remind me which Commons Committee Mr Yeo is Chairman of... There is so much that needs doing, but clearly this man will do none of it.

Surely it is the quality of the research that counts,not who funds it. In either case, the CRU at East Anglia falls down. They are funded by governments that are fully signed up to man-made climate change. Also their research is ummmm questionable. It has just emerged that the man who chose which aspects of CRU work should be investigated was - the head of CRU.

I hate to be the bearer of disappointing news, but they have only suspended funding pending the outcome of a review. No doubt the review will be as searching, detailed and unbiased as those to which Mr Yeo refers in such glowing terms.

Unbelievable twaddle. Nobody has been exonerated of anything. The three inquiries, by thier own admission, never looked at the science behind all this. They focussed on side issues and never even looked at - never mind exonerated CRU of - the main problems. If the Chairman of the Committee can peddle this nonsense with such sincerity, the chances of Parliament actually bothering to find out what is really going on at CRU are nil. Beyond that, the idea of individual carbon credit trading is so misguided that it is difficult to know where to begin. God help us.