So Joe Lieberman lost the Connecticut Democrat senatorial primary by a few percentage points – despite the best efforts of Fox News. There is a question over which of Lieberman and victor Ned Lamont is the more liberal as we would define the term over here – this was perhaps more akin to a Blairite being deselected in favour of an Old Labour type, although it’s not as simple as that. What is interesting – and, yes, pleasing – is the sight of voters turning out en masse to make their voices heard and giving the White House’s favourite Democrat a slapping.

Regardless of the finer points of social security reform, Lieberman’s support for Bush – and his comments along the line that criticising the President at a time of war is bad for the country – makes his loss gratifying. It shows what can happen to politicians who continually disregard the peope who worked to get them elected, and who put their own political careers first. If there was any doubt on the latter point, it was disspelled when Lieberman announced that for the “good of the country” he would run as an independent. He is asking what Connecticut can do for him rather than what he can do for Connecticut.

Alex has written a typically thoughtful piece that’s worth a read, and there’s continuing coverage at Daily Kos.

Meanwhile, someone apparently taking a leaf out of Liberman’s book on being “strong on security” is Dr John Reid, who, in true New Labour Newspeak, tells us that:

“We may have to modify some of our freedoms in the short-term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy our freedoms and values in the long-term”.

“Modify” our freedoms? What sort of euphemism is that? And how many freedoms that the government have recently curtailed in the “short-term” have we since had restored by them? Any? And does “short-term” mean “for the duration of the open-ended War on Terror”? Do they not get that making the UK less of a free state is giving into terrorism?

I don’t know where to start when it comes to critiquing the Government’s response to the London bombings, a mixture of excessive authoritarianism and shutting the stable door once the milk has been spilt. Can I really be agreeing with Peter Hitchens?

Fortunately, there was a good piece from Mary Riddell in yesterday’s Observer that expressed many of my thoughts:

Fight Fear With Freedom

Crimes of ‘glorifying and condoning terrorism’ hark back to the 18th-century offence of seditious libel, under which pamphleteers disagreeing with the state were clapped in jail. Outlawing non-violent groups, however dislikeable, may make them a magnet for the dangerous. Worst of all is talk of suspending Article Three of the Human Rights Act, which forbids sending suspects back to torture. Such a move is alarming both in its intent and in its symbolism. A first bone has been slung to those who bayed for an assault on human rights.

The Observer also featured Jason Burke’s manifesto for combatting terrorism.

In the Observer Review section was the second of the paper’s Sudoku puzzles. Both have been shockingly straightforward and took less than four minutes each. I assume they’re easing their readership in.