Yesterday the new Finance bill went through with a comfortable vote on all counts, the government and Labour party clearly rallied together enough not to enable the Tories to claim a victory here. The main crux of the debates yesterday surrounded car taxation and partly fuel duty for those in "remote rural" areas.

Without sugar coating it, the debate was awful. It was engaging in a way that usually only a minor car accident can be, and definitely showed the worst of our elected representatives.

It's that time of the week and my weekly review has Gone up on Liberal Conspiracy once more. You can either go to that link or check out my list by hitting the "Continue article" link.

I didn't really deliver this week on the articles I said I would (don't worry, they're coming) as other things took a bit of precedence. I'm certainly in the next week going to be looking in to the issue of debate in parliament and what the point of it is, as well as revisiting the electoral reform argument.

Now, here are the "best of the rest" for Thursday!

The sound of gunfire - Scottish Lib Dem leader quits, this is probably the better of the fallout analysis available.
Stumbling and Mumbling - Chris gives his views on why, if it is truly the case, violence is in decline.
Seumas Milne/CiF - New Zealand is great, New Zealand is wonderful, and it always seems to be one step ahead of the rest of the world politically. Roll on legalised prostitution and re-nationalisation of the trains then.
Live from the Socialist Fortress - Luke reports on recent studies about domestic abuse amongst students. Perhaps new generations aren't learning after all.
The Real Blog - David gives a personal view on how wrong the "postcode lottery" is and how far it reaches.

Jennie has posted a few times now on Liberal Conspiracy about thinking along the same lines as me, and has linked to me a couple of times, so here is a return of favour under similar circumstances. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says we need at least £13,400 each to simply live and be above poverty. Jennie, on the other hand, contests this amount as ludicrously high when taking in to account the wider picture of global poverty.

In all honesty, on this subject I am torn. I agree completely with what Jennie is saying, she is spot on and the fanaticism that has gone on with poverty and these kinds of figures with the media and politicians is disconcerting. However isn't there also a place for these kinds of poverty figures in developing society?