The War You Don’t See

If people really knew the truth the war would be stopped tomorrow. This quotation from David Lloyd George, talking about the First World War, opens John Pilger‘s new documentary, “The War You Don’t See”, and it immediately sets the historical context for Pilger’s main argument. War has, of course, always been terrible and governments have… Continue reading The War You Don’t See

Bread and Circuses

The country is broke, students are rioting and it’s about to start snowing. But that’s OK as a scion of our great and glorious ruling family has announced that he is getting married next year. And, to demonstrate their benevolence, our rulers have granted the lower orders an extra day off from our toil so… Continue reading Bread and Circuses

Conversations with CateyMaxx

Summarising @Nadine_MP‘s “informed consent” ideas: A woman can’t have an abortion until a christian nutter has tried to scare her out of it? That’s the content of a tweet that I sent just before 6pm last night. I thought it nicely summed up the reasons behind Nadine Dorries’ recent speech in Parliament. I didn’t, of… Continue reading Conversations with CateyMaxx

Dorries Round-Up

Update (28th October): I’ve just been shown The Nardinia Chronicles, a new blog with a lot of detail about Dorries’ idiocy. A round-up of all of the blog posts that have been made about Nadine Dorries since she was cleared by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards last Thursday. If anything is missing then please let… Continue reading Dorries Round-Up

She Writes Fiction

Given what we now know about the content of Nadine Dorries’ blog, the title of this post (which I’ve reused here) seems somewhat appropriate. Dorries must have known that John Lyon’s report on her was about to be published so it might be seen as slightly disingenuous to write about other people publishing fiction as… Continue reading She Writes Fiction

38 Degrees

When I was on my self-imposed blogging hiatus in August there was one story that I read about and planned to write about on my return to London. But, course, by the time I got back there were more pressing concerns and it soon slipped my mind. Yesterday I read something that reminded me of… Continue reading 38 Degrees

Complicated Voting System

The Daily Mail never misses an opportunity to push its agenda, does it. Writing about the Labour Leadership election today, Nicola Boden says: Once regarded as the dark horse in the competition, the energy spokesman, 40, took the crown thanks to the party’s complicated voting system. “Complicated”? How can you possibly describe the single transferable… Continue reading Complicated Voting System

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

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

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