Over on Liberal Conspiracy there has been an at times hostile debate surrounding feminism due to the claims of Sarah Palin, Republican VP Nominee, that she is one. Why is this controversial, and why has it started any such debate? Firstly she is someone that believes abortion is a sin, and would appear to wish to ban abortions from taking place in the US if she had her way. This provoked Laurie Penny to claim rather audaciously yet innocently that you cannot be a feminist if you oppose choice (with regards to abortion rights). Needless to say I disagreed, and a lot of cussing and hostile feminist verbatim later the debate hasn't moved on. Why not? Well it's because, as I have perhaps only more recently realised, that the debate is fairly irrelevant to feminism and wholly relevant to liberalism.

During my viewing of the 42 day debate I was most surprised by Keith Vaz and his sudden change of heart over the poposals. The leader of the Home Affairs Select committee, he and the committee announced in December that there was be "no evidence" for the legislation to take place. This is an important distinction as the evidence for and against the legislation did not change at all between December and the vote in June.

Now the telegraph is claiming evidence of at best ministers being blase about the feelings of the public on "paying off" people for support in votes, and at worst that Keith Vaz, who had prominent time in the debate with a speech of his own, has been promised reward for his allegiance to the party.

So the bloody David Davis hand-wringing continues. "Boo hoo, why won't the Lib Dem's stand", "Oh woe is us, DD doesn't fit out 100 point check list of a libertarian so we can't support him", or "Oh dear me, I can't possibly believe an MP can resign on a single principle without a direct hidden agenda!" is all I seem to hear from all but a select few. Quite frankly it's pathetic and getting more so as time goes on. Add to this some usual petty politics and over reactions on the blogs and this issue of 42 days is fast getting absorbed into the ether like a fidget in quicksand.

All it would take is 4 or 5 Labour MPs to change their vote from aye to no to turn the 42 day majority around. So who are the blighters that decided to vote against 90 days but for 42?

The MPs that we need to be asking questions of are... Michael Clapham, Ann Cryer, David Hamilton, Doug Henderson, Siân James, Sadiq Khan, Mark Lazarowicz, Tony Lloyd, Andrew Love, Chris McCafferty, George Mudie, Dennis Skinner, Peter Soulsby and Jon Trickett. These MPs, including at least one who has worked for Liberty, and many that have been all too happy to rebel on issues such as Trident, are the priority as far as I'm concerned. If you live in their constituency or know someone that is get a letter written to them and let's see what their reasoning is.

News is coming out that one potential route to "overcome" the issue of MP expenses and the outcry over what they spend their money on is to...well...properly hide their actions from us so we can't outcry any more!

However this isn't the worst of it, as they are saying they'd like to do this by giving every MP £23k "for their second home", in a move that would both mean that receipts and accounts would seemingly not have to be kept for what they are spending our taxes on, but also meaning some MPs will receive more money every year than they usually spend on their housing needs, effectively wasting even more of our money on what looks amazingly like a pay rise.

Here again I find myself in a situation with a few subjects I want to touch on but not really wanting to devote entire posts to each of them at this time. So this time the three subjects are BBC2's White season, your DNA and how little you need to do to give the police reason to put it on a database, and a rather sickening situation of trying to send an Iranian kid back to Iran where he is almost certain to be executed.

So the minimum wage is going up, and it is doing so by 3.8% after last being rose in October 2007. This is a rise not far off the fluctuating RPI rate since October and it is something I support in principle. Is it the fairest thing to do though?

The latest Politalks is here, remember that episode 7 and 8 will also be posted on a Tuesday due to other commitments. This week we've seen childish politics reach new highs and more than just a little bit of borrowing from others to try and get ahead in the polls. Also, more weighty content with a scathing analysis of the ever ongoing Israeli-Palestine conflict.Not work safe with transcript below.

The National Farmers' Union conference has been held this week, and all parties have taken the opportunity to try and win favours with the crowd. Unfortunately for Labour it would appear that Hillary Ben didn't go down so well, while Cameron appeared to talk the good talk, and Nick Clegg will address with a similar message today. Supermarkets must be wondering what they've done to incur all this ire at one moment in time, first suggestions that they will need to sell off land they own to allow competition to thrive now at least two of the big party leaders slamming them for unethical practice and eroding British farming.

Steven Spielberg pulling out of his previous role with China for the upcoming Olympics this year has sparked a massive rise in the debate over whether we should be acknowledging the 2008 Olympics at all. China have of course defended their seemingly abhorrent record on humanitarian issues by deflecting the issue of their involvement in funding a tyrannical government in the Sudan by stating that it really isn't their fault it's happening.

But really, China's record from our ethical perspective is certainly not great, and their funding of various nations with arms and giving them some level of financial security is not in line with what we in the West would say is the correct thing to do, but is this enough to pull a boycott on the event?

Another day another party deciding there is something else that needs banning or enforcing through extreme prohibition. I thought Labour could get no more idiotic after last week's series of woeful announcements on housing, dental health and internal investigations...yet here we are again, this time with kicking "illegal file sharers" off of the net.

Initially this throws up several questions; How does the government and ISPs intend to tell conclusively that someone is file sharing illegally or legally? What assurances can the consumer have that ISPs won't just "play it safe" when it comes to high bandwidth and kick off anyone with high usage no matter how legitimate? How is this truly enforceable with so many unsecured networks around the UK, and indeed internet Cafes, without truly spying on what every person is accessing on the net? Do we really need to resort to French policy to solve our own issues?