contribs editor's blog

The-Latest Forum section provides a great opportunity for Latest.Comers to initiate a discussion on almost any topic with fellow members. It’s your space to write about what has irked or moved you, left you inspired or simply gobsmacked. The current debate: ‘Has the increasing Islamification of Britain created no-go areas for non-Muslims?’ provoked a searing response from contributor Maliha Hayat- see her article ‘Muslims aren’t the cause of ‘no-go’ areas in UK’, which appears on the front page of the site. Comment on her story and the original forum question.

If anyone was in any doubt about the duplicitous nature of the Liberal Democrat Party they would do well to take a closer look at what it does with power, entrusted to them by a misguided and beguiled public, at local council level. In fact, events earlier this year which struck at the heart of the Liberal Democrat leadership, unmasked the backstabbing, disloyal trait of a political machine desperate to achieve tangible influence at Westminster and in the country, at any cost. Charles Kennedy, intoxicated with alcohol not overriding ambition, was forced to resign his post on 7 January 2006 as leader of the Liberal Democrat pack, after 25 of his MPs, including close cabinet colleagues, conspired against him. Present Party chief, Sir Menzies Campbell, was widely identified as the key architect of Kennedy’s downfall. Campbell, who had previously worn the cloak of ‘dignified elder statesman’, was in actuality ‘Ming The Impaler’. One can surmise that in his darkest hour Charles Kennedy would have thought deeply about issues of trust, honesty and betrayal.

The concept of citizen journalism and its part in the media ‘ecosystem’ is still misconstrued by those who believe that sites like the UK 's pioneering The-Latest.Com and the successful South Korean based OhmyNews  have been constructed as an alternative to mainstream news outlets. At The-Latest our brave challenge has been to give representation to a wider set of views, opinions and comments that the mainstream media would rather not address because of timidity and in the case of some newspapers, the narrow political agenda set by their powerful proprietors. Critics of this new frontier in journalism question the commitment of citizen journalism to the principles of accuracy, fairness and transparency. These ideals are all important in citizen journalisms  pursuit of the peoples truth behind the issues that matter.