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The Lib Dems did actually manage to get a large amount of their manifesto into policy, along with derailing a fair chunk of bad Conservative stuff, such as the IP bill. The problem is they screwed themselves with that daft pledge on tuition fees (which people on my Twitter timeline still bang on about whenever the Lib Dems are mentioned), forever ruining their credibility as something different. That the reality of coalition means you have no choice but to compromise is irrelevant – although the party should have stood fast against any rise in fees, because that made them all look ridiculous.

For my money, they made three bigger mess-ups: Clegg should have had as a red-line one major position of state (ideally him as Foreign Sec.); the referendum on voting reform should have been AV+, as per the recommendation (although I suspect it would still have lost); and the Health Bill should have been killed in the Lords (rather than Lib Dems helping it through). 2015 would still have seen the party get a serious kicking (not least due to the Lib Dems being inept from a press standpoint and the Conservatives taking all the credit for everything the Lib Dems did, not least, brazenly, gay marriage), but not quite to the extent we saw.

I think the coalition exposed two much broader problems for the Lib Dems. Firstly there's no avoiding the fact that the party is divided between Tory and Labour leaning voters, with only a hardcore that genuinely has no preference for which major party leads a Government. Throughout their history as a third party, the result of a hung parliament or coalition arrangement has always been to hurt them (1924, 1931, 1974, 1979) because the act of choosing offends a significant part of their support base. In 1924, Tory-leaning Liberals were outraged they let Labour into power, in 2010, Labour-leaning Liberals were outraged they let the Tories into power.

However they made this natural dynamic much worse by mismanaging the coalition. Rather than spread themselves across the entire Government, they should have concentrated their ministers in key departments. They should then have used these ministries to protect their supporters from the worst of Tory Rule. This is why going along with the rise in tuition fees, Gove education reforms and NHS reorganisation was so toxic - if the LibDems had a base of support it was the type of middle class centrist that predominates the public sector. Being the protectors of Health and Education would have also given them a much greater sense of positive identity.

Tories taking the credit for the gay marriage bill* and avoiding any blame for Iraq** is the reason we can't have nice things.

*134 against vs 126 for, vs Labour's 217/22 and Lib's 44/4. So really I'd say it's taking credit for what Labour did.
**146 for and 3 against, though in this case it's simply that Labour couldn't have done it without them tho.

I liked the Lib Dems enough to vote for them in 2010. Compromise would have been one thing but the Dems rolled and surrendered where they didn't actively assist.

But that's not how politics works - oppositions can't push laws through, only Governments can. Gay Marriage would never have become law if the Tory Government hadn't support it. So whilst you note/criticise the Tory party for having a large proportion of homophobes...Cameron's Government clearly deserves credit for supporting the measure (i.e. drafting bill, championing the cause, allotting parliamentary time and allocating resources to implementation).

Likewise on Iraq. You can attack IDS as a blithering idiot who failed to hold Blair to account (unlike Milliband over Syria), but no matter how much the Tories supported the war, it would never have been considered if Blair hadn't have wanted British involvement. 

I don't think anyone - even Owen Smith himself - seriously expected him to win.  I think he was essentially a stalking horse, standing and taking  a bullet for the party (as he would see it) in order to see how much support there was out there for a Not Corbyn candidate.  And now he and the people behind him have their answer - 38%.

As I've said elsewhere, I suspect cold, hard eyes are looking at the numbers and figuring how much of the anti-Corbyn section of the party - most of the MPs and more than a third of the membership - might follow them the pastures new.

Peace is not about to break out in the Labour Party, now that the leadership contest is over.

I think they hoped to force Corbyn to quit. When that failed they hoped to keep him off the ballot paper. When that failed they were stuck with challenging him. While stalking Horse isn't the right metaphor* I imagine Smith knew he couldn't win once Corbyn was on the ballot. He probably hoped to do well enough that he'd become the leader of the moderates and would have the credibility to stand again in eighteen months time. That obviously didn't happen (not just the result but also the fact that he ran a gaffe-prone, uninspiring campaign).

*A stalking horse is a diversionary tactic to cover an advance. In elections it made sense to describe an ideological challenger under the old Tory election rules because the winner needed to get more than 50% to prevent a second round and there was no bar on additional candidates joining in later rounds. Therefore a hopeless candidate could stand in the first round to bloody the leader in the hope of inspiring more credible candidates to enter the next round (this was Redwood's strategy). Doesn't really work with the Labour rules because the effort involved in getting onto the ballot means its not practical to run hopeless challengers.

. The architects of the project wanted this from day one. 

Any chance of a citation for this claim? A fairly solid and credible one if possible?

Try googling European Political Community and European Defence Community. Both were advanced by Jean Monnet as the logical development of the European Steel and Coal Community but were scrapped after De Gaulle led a nationalist backlash. The European Economic Community was a retreat back to economics after this setback.

As to why pro-European mocking of Eurosceptic 'scare stories' are not taken seriously it's worth looking at is the Roy Jenkins vs. Tony Benn debate in the 1975 Referendum. Jenkins mocked Benn's talk of the Commission wanting a Single Currency, saying it would never happen in his lifetime. The first attempt of currency harmonisation was made within five years (the 'snake' protype for ERM) and within sixteen years agreement had been made to proceed with full EMU.

[(* Apart from the fact that Rico Dredd's badge had his first name instead of his surname, which made no sense. I still can't quite get over that.]

I enjoyed Origins, but a lot of it consisted of trying to make published Dredd stories fit in with a non-canonical timeline a fan sent to Tharg in about 1984 which somehow got published in an annual under the heading "An Unofficial Judge Dredd Timeline." Which was unnecessary. But it was still alright so I let it go.*


(* Apart from the fact that Rico Dredd's badge had his first name instead of his surname, which made no sense. I still can't quite get over that.)

See I always thought that made perfect sense - an expression of Rico's individualism and refusal to conform.

Yeah I've spoke to Steve MacManus - just waiting for it to go up on the website.

Hope everybody enjoyed the episode - I had a great time talking to Eamonn and the book is a very enjoyable read.

Crisis is included in the deal.

Time-travel? Man / machine symbiosis? Is that not sci-fi? You're correct to say that much of the prog wasn't particularly Star Wars-y – I'd suggest that was something to be thankful for.

I think early 2000ad was a bit Star Wars-y, in that both used stock sci-fi ideas as a springboard to tell a familiar story, the appeal of which was primarily character and action*.

The episodes of Flesh I've read weren't really about time travel - they were about cowboys being eaten by dinosaurs. The stories were certainly made possible by a traditional sci-fi concept, but that was just the initial impetus.

Maybe they came back to time travel ideas later, and Claw Carver discovered he was his own great-grandfather or something, but I haven't read those episodes.


* I suppose the sci-fi/not sci-fi debate can be summed up by the question of whether Predator is a sci-fi film or an action movie into which a single sci-fi element has been introduced. If lobbing an alien into a recognisable genre movie turns it into sci-fi, then Superman and Alf are sci-fi

Flesh is a sci-fi story. Unless you can find another genre for time-travelling cowboys sending meat back to the 23rd century from the Cretaceous. The story doesn't have to be about time-travel per se, it can be the element that brackets the story but that still qualifies it.

MACH 1 features an artificially modified superhuman with an artificial intelligence implanted into his body.

Interesting you don't mention Judge Dredd amongst the first twelve issues. Is that not sci-fi also?

Superman would also qualify. Predator too, although it straddles the line between sci-fi and action flick. Still qualifies. Alf is a sitcom with a sci-fi element. Because aliens.

Ignoring Dredd is even crazier when you consider that Pat was the one who pushed the strip further into future and ran with the Carlos' outlandish designs. He commissioned a poster of Mega-City One because he loved how Carlos drew the futuristic buildings for Christ's Sake!

Nice article, although you've got Brass Sun instead of Brass Eye...

You have no idea how annoyed I was when I looked over my copy last week and saw that. Of all the stupid typos!

Glad people are picking up the magazine and liking the column

Good point Colin about how dominant Pat's views have become in the debates surrounding 2000AD's history. For me it was a no-brainer to approach him considering that he was the comics creator, writer of many of its best stories and is unbelievably generous with his time. But yeah I understand the thirst for alternative perspectives

I'd be remiss if I didn't say there's no need to delay - pick it up on online

Btw any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

The weary old Dredd thing worked for a while, but unless you're actually going to kill of the character it starts becoming ridiculous and a bit of a dead end.

This is a very good point. I'm very bored of the 'weary Dredd' style of non-Wagner strip too, and had rather hoped Titan/Enceladus brought that trope as far as it could go (without killing him). On my ongoing Meg catch-up odyssey, it often seems like we get a geriatric Dredd subplot every second month...

This is the one issue we've got with Wagner taking a back seat. Like in the 1990s we've got loads of different writers doing their "Mega-City One is in Danger" stories. Since Day of Chaos we've had Trifecta, Titan and Carroll's stealth epic that have all left Mega-City on the brink of destruction. Wagner was better at varying up the content of his mega-epics.

Thankfully the four (Dark Judges) are dead ... yes?

Since 1981, at the latest. I loved Maybe's similarly pedantic qualification to his declaration that Dredd would regret the day he was born. I note that [spoiler]Corrigan[/spoiler] looks similar to Maybe in his non-female guise ...

Does everyone else find lady Maybe attractive? Good, glad it's not just me.

Last week's red and green Martian art was some of the most wonderful ever to grace the comic. D'Israeli keeps it functional this week, emphasising the strength of his storytelling on an action episode that reads like the bit in Helium where Hodge borrowed an enemy ship to escape from captivity.

According to page 5, Dredd's spa day at Carousel appears to have left a transparent hole in his arse, through which the background may be glimpsed. Hope he kept the receipt.

Carlos Ezquerra has always been very, very good at drawing women. Surprised no one has ever got him to do a Shanna/Vampira style sex comic in the states. I remember they refer to this in Judge Dredd - The Mega History; that Carlos would never get editors in trouble for violence but they were constantly having to cover up his women.

And btw it has to be said - this is stonking good artwork. Its the first time I've read Carlos stuff digitally...and the colours are just popping out. But more than there seems something about the design that has more verve that some of his recent stuff. Brilliant, brilliant stuff.

Woop - cheers guys!

Obviously retro-content is of most interest to the BBC but does anyone know if Crisis and Revolver counts as part of the 'Fleetway' archive? Because if 2000AD now owns them - that would be great...*starts drooling at Third World War digital collection*

Howdy Everyone,

Geeky Monkey - a pop culture newsstand magazine - has a major retrospective on 2000AD in Issue 12.

The article looks at the history of 2000AD - the influences behind the comic, how quickly it established an international and hardcore readership, the negative implications of the British Invasion of America, and how the comic returned to health in the noughties. It also previews Prog 2000 with spotlights on the return of Gibbons, Bolland and McMahon and featured legendary characters Rogue Trooper, Nemesis the Warlock and Judge Dredd. It features interviews with Matt Smith, Molch-R and Ben Smith from Rebellion, Pat Mills and Gordon Rennie. I'd also be remiss not to mention that it features so much lovely 2000AD art reproduced - including the variant covers of Prog 2000.

Geeky Monkey is available in most WH Smiths and other good newssagents. You can also buy it digitally at https://pocketmags.com/viewmagazine.aspx?catid=1039&category=Tech+%26+Gaming&subcatid=241&subcategory=Gaming&title=Geeky+Monkey&titleid=2874&issueid=135306. I think people here will find it a very interesting read, and the better this issue does the more I can argue for greater coverage of 2000AD in its pages.


I should also mention that there's one and a half typos towards the end - the worst one my fault, the other my editor's