I was awake soon after 5:30 yesterday morning. As I got to my computer, the EU referendum results weren’t confirmed, but it was looking certain that the country had voted (narrowly, but decisively) to leave the European Union. My thoughts during the day are nicely summed up by my tweets and retweets. My initial reaction… Continue reading Brexit
Category: politics
Ten Years?
It’s been some considerable time since I wrote anything about Nadine Dorries. I still keep an eye on what she’s up to, but most of the time it’s just the same old nonsense and it’s not worth writing about. But I was interested to read her recent blog post explaining why she had given up… Continue reading Ten Years?
TwittElection
I was convinced that the general election in 2010 was going to be the “Twitter election”. I built a web site (now sadly lost somewhere in cyberspace) that monitored what PPCs were saying on Twitter in my local constituency. But, all in all, it wasn’t very impressive. I gave a talk about how disappointing it… Continue reading TwittElection
Jungle Money
There’s been a lot of talk recently about what Nadine Dorries was paid for her appearances on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here and why she hasn’t declared that fee yet. By following the trail laid down by Unity in this excellent blog post and listening carefully to what Dorries says in this… Continue reading Jungle Money
The Political Web
I made a thing. On Sunday I mentioned how OpenTech always makes me feel a bit embarrassed that I’m not doing more useful stuff – particularly in the kinds of areas that OpenTech speakers care about. Usually, real life takes over before I get a chance to do anything about it and I forget about… Continue reading The Political Web
Liverpudlian MPs
Back in the day, when I grew up on my Liverpool council estate every member of Liverpool City council was Conservative. The city had eight Conservative MPs. This is Nadine Dorries writing on Conservative Home a couple of days ago. She should really learn that if she doesn’t check her facts, then someone else will.… Continue reading Liverpudlian MPs
Equal Marriage
Over the last few days there has been a fair amount of heat and light coming out of the Tory party, generated by the discussion about equal marriage (or, as the tabloids like to describe it, “gay marriage”). We’ve know for ages that David Cameron is in favour of it and that a lot of… Continue reading Equal Marriage
Talking About Drugs
There are many things that make me angry in British politics, but I don’t think any of them make me angrier than the way that most British politicians refuse to have an intelligent conversation about drugs. Here’s a case in point. The Commons home affairs select committee are holding an inquiry into drugs policy. Yesterday,… Continue reading Talking About Drugs
We Cannot Afford To Indulge This Madness
By “this madness”, of course, I mean religious leaders talking about what society wants without bothering to ask them. The latest example is this piece in the Telegraph by Cardinal Keith O’Brien. Let’s take a close look at what he says. The Government is this month launching a consultation on same-sex marriage, asking the public… Continue reading We Cannot Afford To Indulge This Madness
Nadine Dorries: Just Say No
Today was the day that parliament had a rather long list of private members bills to debate. Originally there were sixty-four on the list. As this informative post from Kerry McCarthy tells us, they’d normally expect to get through about three of them. The MPs sponsoring the rest of the bills were pretty much wasting… Continue reading Nadine Dorries: Just Say No