A dubious ally?

Vince Cable sets his stall out on why he's going to be boycotting the visit of the Saudi king. This article's headline ("Vince Cable: a dubious ally who devalues our government") promised much, but it turns out the piece is by Vince rather than about him so was ultimately quite disappointing.
The debate about freedom and liberty continues apace in the blogosphere. Tom Hamilton highlights the astonishingly blinkered middle-class approach to an ill-defined concept of what it means to be free, as expressed by Nick Rosen. Meanwhile, Dave Hill has an excellent post on some of the issues concerned and gives The Vacuous Mr (Henry) Porter an extremely satisfying kicking.
Barack Obama prepares to start smacking Hillary around. So to speak.
The Government unveils plans for a new child poverty unit.
The Environmental Audit Committee calls for a new climate body.
There are calls to establish an inter-departmental select committee on what Mrs Jones thinks about the state of the leylandii at Number 46. Jes' kiddin'...or are we?
As the polls wibble, the Boy Dave falls back on track 3 from Greatest Hits from the Tories' Wilderness Years - "We Don't Like Strangers 'Round These Parts."

David Cameron is, however, against increasing 28-day detention.
Johann Hari's concerns about the environment from six years ago have come to pass.
The world's oldest clam (arf!) has been named "Ming" by the scientists who discovered it. The Devil's Kitchen ain't buying that as an explanation and frankly, neither are we.
Remember those BBC cuts a few weeks ago during which we, the license-fee payer, were assured that the Stalin-style purges would lead to a better quality of output overall? Well, we now have the results of what the powers-that-be chose to invest in. You could have chosen number one, which was more political programmes in the style of Today in Parliament rather than anything that contains Andrew Neil. You could have chosen number two: more excellent, well crafted drama. But you chose number three: Blind Date II - This Time It's Got Culturally Relevant. Great stuff, well worth the job-losses.