The Guardian published an Op-Ed today which attempted to make sense of the recent, and public, disagreements between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have been having over the recent efforts to make AV reform a big election topic. The Lib Dems had been granted their precious referendum after agreeing to enter government with the Conservatives, yet now it seems the Conservatives are doing a splendid job of sabotaging the vote for vote reform.

The two parties had come into government saying that they would agree to disagree on some things, but that they would remain composed and leave petty party politics out of the picture. The AV reform fight is panning out much differently.

With an insouciance worthy of Kenneth Clarke, William Hague, yesterday surveying the skirmishes breaking out across coalition territory, declared himself untroubled. Feelings always ran high during campaigns, he said. So they do; and it was always foreseen that David Cameron and Nick Clegg would be taking opposing sides in the referendum on the alternative vote. But what’s happening now hardly reflects the civilised “agreement to disagree” that had been planned. Condemning the “no” campaign for “lies, misinformation and deceit”, Mr Clegg made it clear to yesterday’s Independent on Sunday that he blamed the party led by David Cameron for this dirty work. True, he refrained from accusing Conservative co-chairman, Baroness Warsi, of using the tactics of Goebbels, but his colleague Chris Huhne had done that for him. And the falling out is by no means confined to AV. Hardly had Mr Clegg declared his dedication to the cause of social mobility than David Cameron appeared to wave it away.

It once appeared that David Cameron and Nick Clegg were really best buds in government. They stood tall next to eachother as each was criticized incessantly for the cuts and increased student fees. Yet now, as the Lib Dems ramp up their most important policy, the Conservatives are no where to be found. With the May 5 vote just around the corner, it appears the Lib Dems will need coalitions for awhile to ever have a chance to stay in government.

Photo: Getty Images via New Statesman

The Guardian reported today that the leader of the Liberal Democrats in government, Nick Clegg, is firing back at his critics who say he has strayed from the core values of the Lib Dems over the last few months. Clegg has been criticizedfor compromising with his values for the Conservatives and a place in government, and the upoming AV reform vote could be hit by his unpopularity. Many people used to be in favor of AV reform, yet Clegg has suffered immensely from the student fee debate and the cuts overall.

Clegg gave a speech which was directed at the falsehoods that opponents of AV reform continue to attempt to deny people the choice tey deserve during elections.

Another Lib Dem cabinet minister, Chris Huhne, warned earlier this week that the party’s alliance with the Tories was being damaged by bitter sniping, saying the no to AV campaign was indulging in “downright lies”.

Clegg said those who argue that AV would lead to more coalitions and “broken promises”, yet claim to want a “different kind of politics” where parties can work together in the national interest, “have to grow up a bit”. “Compromise is not a betrayal,” he said.

The Lib Dem leader, who has been lambasted for his party’s U-turn on tuition fees and its position on the pace and scale of public spending cuts, said “difficult compromises” had to be made because the party had only 57 MPs out of 650.

Clegg cited the fact that Liberal Democrats are indeed not in the majority, but are in a coalition that requires compromise. Unfortunately for the Lib Dems, although they compromised, the Conservatives appear to think they did not, and they do not support AV reform.

Photo: Dan Kitwood/PA via The Guardian

The New York Times reported today that among the many solar companies starting up in Northern California, some are taking to the ocean and putting solar panels on the water. This unique idea has yielded 144 panels on pontoons so far in efforts to use solar power while keeping valuable wine land undisturbed in the precious Napa Valley. Although this market seems like a small niche for the solar industry, it could be a large market globally as people try to turn their liquid assets into earning power.

Countries with large amounts of water resources and sun, yet have electricity shortages, could be looking to use this technology.

Chris Robine, SPG Solar’s chief executive, said he had heard from potential customers as far away as India, Australia and the Middle East. When your land is precious, he said, “There’s a great benefit in that you have clean power coming from solar, and it doesn’t take up resources for farming or mining.”

Sunengy, based in Sydney, said it had signed a deal with Tata Power, India’s largest private utility, to build a small pilot project on a hydroelectric reservoir near Mumbai. Solaris Synergy, meanwhile, said it planned to float a solar array on a reservoir in the south of France in a trial with the French utility EDF.

MDU Resources Group, a $4.3 billion mining and energy infrastructure conglomerate based in Bismarck, N.D., has been in talks with SPG Solar about installing floating photovoltaic arrays on settling ponds at one of its California gravel mines, according to Bill Connors, MDU’s vice president of renewable resources.

Businesses want to put unproductive land into more productive use in countries where their land is precious. As many people are predicting an energy crisis in the future, this innovation with solar panels is another solution to constrained energy needs.

Photo: California Energy Commission via Reuters

The Guardian reported today that David Cameron has appointed so many peers to the House of Lords this year that it is threatening the chambers ability to do its job. The University College of London released a report yesterday by its Independent Constitution Unit which cited the increased appointments as a hinderence and a real negative in terms of the chamber actually governing. The report also calls the Prime Minister’s record number of appointments too unregulated.

Cameron has appointed more peers than any of his predecessors since WW II. These appointments, done in under one year, are already a third of Blair’s appointments during his 11 years as Prime Minister.

Written with the support of 18 senior parliamentarians and independent experts, the report said the arrival of so many new peers in such a short space of time has had a “negative impact” on the culture of the upper chamber which, in the past, has seen new members added more gradually and “socialised” in the chamber’s practices and conventions.

It warned that the Lords is now overcrowded, with members competing for seats in the chamber and office space outside, creating a “fractious” atmosphere because many peers feel frustrated at their inability to take part in debates.

The other concern is that since most of the appointees are former Member of Parliament themselves, the non-partisan ethos of the House of Lords could be lost. The report said appointments should stop, and that they should not begin again until the number in the House of Lords is at 750.

Photo via Sky News

The New York Times reported today on the terrible plight that many victims of the Gulf oil spill find themselves in without a well paying job or a good claims process to count on. Mr. Nguyen, a worker in a Mississippi shipyard worker, was realizing he had to file a claim in order to pay his bills. He then went to a Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) to file his claim. He only then found out some law firm had filed one in his name already. Mr. Nguyen can now do nothing but wait, as he hopes the law firm and BP’s fund managers will work out his claim.

This is a similar experience to what many other people are finding during the year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The victims are finding trouble getting out of the limbo between the law firms and the claims service.

For people in Mr. Nguyen’s situation, and it is impossible to know how many others there are, the disorientation has been particularly deep, as they found themselves caught up in a legal process they did not even seek.

Like Mr. Nguyen, some maintain that they never signed up with lawyers, but found that claims had been filed on their behalf (about 50 people have made formal complaints to the claims facility along these lines).

Others along the coast said they had handed over financial records to people who promised them quick and free financial assistance, only to discover later that they had actually hired a lawyer.

The plight of these foreign immigrants is especially dire, as people are taking advantage of their limited speaking of English to trick them into signing documents that give lawyers increased authority over their assets and claims. Kenneth Feinberg, who was appointed to head the GCCF as administrator agrees that the may claims filed by law firms that are constantly disputed by those who the claims are filed to represent makes efficiency a hard standard.

Photo: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky via AL.com

The Guardian reported today that despite the large push by the Liberal Democrats and a coalition of politicians from Labour and the Conservative Party, voting reform is far behind in the polls. The AV, or alternative vote system, attempts to reform the voting structure in Britain and has been a key talking point for Liberal Democrats as they try to achieve more power in the electorate. Yet the current ‘Yes’ campaign is behind in the polls by 16 points to the so-called ‘No’ campaign.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister and leader of the Conservatives, has vehemently been against AV reform since he granted the Liberal Democrats a referendum on voting reform in exchange for their part in the coalition. The problem remains the unlikelihood of this referendum being successful.

The Guardian/ICM poll came on the day David Cameron cast aside political allegiances to join the former Labour home secretary Lord Reid to claim a change from first past the post would be a backward step for Britain. The prime minister said it would damage the chain of political accountability by making coalitions more likely. He dismissed the system as “obscure, unfair and expensive”.

At the same time the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, shared a platform with the Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable, to argue the referendum is coming down to a choice of hope over fear. Miliband is not going to share a platform with Nick Clegg throughout the campaign.

The Guardian poll suggests opinion is hardening against the alternative vote.

Although the Liberal Democrats thought that they could achieve their AV system while in government, it appears that it takes much more than a place in the coalition to produce electoral change. Nick Clegg has appeared weak recently during the cuts, and without AV reform the Lib Dems will suffer in the next parliamentary election.

Photo via The Daily Telegraph

The New York Times reported today that as scientists continue to study the Gulf of Mexico and the possible damage that the recent BP oil spill could have the on the area, the one thing they keep finding is that the Gulf is more complex an ecosystem than we could ever have imagined. It has been nearly a year since the Deepwater Horizon rig caught fire and 4.9 million barrells of oil started spilling into the Gulf. Yet the ecosystem of the Gulf was ready to handle much of this spill, while some areas are still attempting to recover from noticeable oil pollution.

Biologists are continually monitoring the Gulf as they make sure the spill isn’t hampering wildlife as they feared it would. It appears that mostly marshland is still the part of the Gulf harmed the most after the spill ended.

Biologists are nervously monitoring as yet unexplained dolphin strandings this year, trying to come up with a realistic count of birds and mammals killed during the spill and working to understand what happens when the gulf floor is covered with the remains of oil-eating bacteria. “It is really kind of hard to get a grasp of the big picture, and it is not for a lack of trying,” said Christopher Reddy, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who studies long-term consequences of oil spills. “Hundreds of scientists are working day and night trying to carve out a piece of that giant puzzle, but it is an entire region and it is complicated.”

How the regional ecosystem has responded, its strengths and weaknesses, will keep scientists busy analyzing data for years and help them in understanding the effects of environmental disasters.

Despite the negatives seen in terms of wildlife patterns, there was some good news in terms of the way the oil and water mized after the spill. Luckily, since the spill occurred so deep in the ocean, the oil droplets were small enough that they dispersed and failed to stay together, hampering their ability to make a large slick underwater. Yet news continues to come in from various studies that is still inconclusive as to whether or not the Gulf will be back to normal.

Photo: AP via The Daily Mail

The New York Times Green blog reported today that many energy projects financed by the federal government are at risk of being cut, especially a federal loan program for green technologies. The program was enacted in 2005 by Congressional Republicans along with the support of then President George W. Bush. The program has given out $18 billion in federal loans for projects such as these and is expected to finance even more programs that are near completion and expected to receive funding.

This Department of Energy program was slated to be cut by House Republicans in a short term spending bill this February, but it has so far avoided the ax amid calls by Democrats to save this loan program.

Last week a group of 12 senators, led by Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, called on leaders of both parties to save the program.

“The House proposal will cost us tens of thousands of clean energy jobs today and threaten our energy future,” Senator Cantwell said in a statement. “We need to tackle our budget deficit, but killing American clean energy jobs and worldwide market opportunities will only set our recovery back.”

The program has provided guarantees and commitments to a wide spectrum of energy projects, from clean coal to biodiesel refining and large-scale solar power. The loan guarantees have leveraged private-sector dollars into a total investment of more than $40 billion, Senator Cantwell said.

Sen Cantwell also noted that many of the programs that are up for the loan have spent millions of dollars already in order to build up their projects. If the program is cut these millions of dollars will have been spent for nothing. This would erode investor confidence in the US domestically as well as internationally in the days of the new energy economy.

Photo: AP via NY Times

The Guardian reports that although most politicians in Brtiain hesitate to give credence to the general idea that the war in Afghanistan might not be going well, the reality is that there continues to be a clear lack of order within the country and no forseeable way out. The US and UK have been hinting at pulling out of the country for some time, but it is far from the more stabilized position in Iraq where an end seems very near for combat.

The problem seems to be a lack of leadership in the political arena to really get down to the nitty gritty of the problem, and even admit that current military plans are inadequate to fix the security concerns that face forces everyday.

They have had the time and the plans didn’t work. Almost everybody in politics thinks privately that military involvement in Afghanistan has been a disaster. The pity is few dare say so.

Afghanistan is already yesterday’s war, though it is still to be tomorrow’s defeat. Mentally we have adjusted for the end, though there are still 9,500 British troops in action. Many soldiers and marines are on their fourth tour of duty – two years of a young adult life. Some face redundancy on return. We’ve been in Afghanistan for 10 years, and in Helmand for five – world wars were fought and won in less. It’s becoming one of those conflicts which seem to have no beginning and no end and probably no point, slipping from our enthusiasm and into history. Libya is eating up our energies instead.

Various reports have come out that directly criticize the military surge in Afghanistan. This tactic has worked in Iraq, but the circumstances in the Afghan war are far different. The unfortunate truth is that violence is less concentrated, but more widespread across the country. Both the US and UK are beginning to look like the Soviets in 1989.

Photo via Scrape TV

The Guardian reported today that the leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband, is planning to attend a National Security Council meeting today and break Constitutional convention with this act. Usually Prime Ministers brief the leader of the opposition on items of national security in private meetings after the government discusses these items at the National Security Council.

David Cameron must think this old approach is too out of date for today’s executive procedures, and thus is having Miliband join the meetings.

David Cameron thinks the old approach is out of date. So in opposition he pledged to establish a National Security Council (NSC) – effectively the cabinet’s foreign affairs sub-committee – and said that the leader of the opposition would be invited on an occasional basis. Cameron said that there are some issues, such as Afghanistan, that are above party politics.

This means that this afternoon Miliband will be given a seat in COBR (cabinet office briefing room) for a full meeting of the National Security Council. By meeting in COBR, rather than the cabinet room in No 10, ministers can examine maps and hold video conferences with British diplomats abroad.

This meeting is expected to discuss the hot topics at hand such as Africa and the Middle East, as Cameron attempts to give more foreign policy power to the NSC with the addition of Miliband to the meetings.

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