The BBC are reporting that Walter Kasper, one of the pope’s senior advisers has pulled out of the papal visit to the UK after saying in a magazine interview that the UK is a “third world country” marked by a “new and aggressive atheism”. Of course, atheists are used to being called aggressive because we… Continue reading Third World Country
Email From The PM
We’re all, no doubt, used to getting 419 scams in email. I get several a day, but they’re not often as brazen as this. PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE TREASURY AND MINISTER FOR THE CIVIL SERVICE, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM. Our ref: ATM/13470/IDR Your ref:…Date: 14/09/2010 IMMEDIATE PAYMENT NOTIFICATION I am The Rt Hon David Cameron MP,Prime Minister,… Continue reading Email From The PM
Opentech 2010
On Saturday I was at the Opentech conference. Some brief notes about the sessions I saw. The day was sponsored by data.gov.uk, so it seemed polite to see one of their sessions first. I watched Richard Stirling and friends talk about some of the work they’re doing on releasing lots and lots of linked data.… Continue reading Opentech 2010
Been Away
It’s over a month since I’ve posted anything here. Sorry about that. For the first half of August I was in Italy. The first week, I was speaking at a conference in Pisa and after that we spent a few days in Rome and Venice. I took more than a few photos and they’re slowly… Continue reading Been Away
Greens and Science
At the time of the European election last year, there was some debate in the blogosphere about the Green Party’s attitude to science. Holfordwatch picked up on a report which said that the Greens supported the continued use of “alternative medicine” in the NHS. Rational people, of course, gave up all idea of voting for… Continue reading Greens and Science
Government Ignores Science
Section 47 of the Government Response to the Science and Technology Committee’s Evidence Check on homeopathy: We note the Committee’s view that allowing for the provision of homeopathy may risk seeming to endorse it, and we will keep the position under review. However, we do not believe that this risk amounts to a risk to… Continue reading Government Ignores Science
Petition Closed Prematurely
Earlier this year, I created a petition on the (then) government’s petition web site. The petition called for the government to fully implement the recommendations of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s Evidence Check on Homeopathy – basically calling on the government to stop wasting money on homeopathy. The petition was due to be… Continue reading Petition Closed Prematurely
Polite Discourse
So today was the day that I was called a “sack of shit” by one of the UK’s most popular political bloggers. It was all pretty silly really. I didn’t even really disagree with what he had written. I just pointed out that his blog entry had two completely unattributed quotations. It’s Iain’s blog, of… Continue reading Polite Discourse
Blog Nation 2010
Yesterday, I was at Liberal Conspiracy’s Blog Nation 2010 conference. This was a chance for left liberal bloggers to get together and discuss strategies we can adopt now that we find ourselves in opposition (or a minority partner in the coalition government). Sunny has already blogged his thoughts on how the conference went. He asked… Continue reading Blog Nation 2010
On the Intelligence of MPs
It’s easy to make cheap cracks about how stupid MPs are. The problem is that many of them seem determined to do nothing at all to counter this impression. Indeed, they often seem keen to reinforce it. David Tredinnick (Con, Bosworth) is a particularly good example. He is a proponent of “complementary and alternative” medicine.… Continue reading On the Intelligence of MPs