Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Monday, February 23, 2009

Party disaffiliation

Senator Joe Lieberman's transition from Democratic Vice Presidential candidate to campaigner for Republican John McCain was a political embarrassment for Democrats in the US (and for Sen. Lieberman after McCain's loss).

Here's an embarrassment (and more) for Labour and PM Brown.

How would your students compare the Lieberman and Freud cases? How do the processes and results of the defections compare? What political and constitutional differences do the comparisons illustrate?

Labour's welfare reform chief defects to the Conservatives

"The architect of the government's controversial welfare reforms, David Freud, has defected to the Tories in an embarrassing blow for Gordon Brown.

"Conservative sources said David Cameron intended to put Freud forward for a peerage, then give him a frontbench post as a shadow welfare minister. The move is a coup for the Tories, harnessing not only Freud's expertise on the welfare system, but also his knowledge of the City - as a former investment banker - to beef up policy-making on the recession...

"First hired by Tony Blair, he is known to have fallen out with Gordon Brown and may provide the Tories with embarrassing ammunition against the prime minister..."

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