Harriet Harman on Mobile Phones and Driving with Due Care and Attention
on Nov 20, 2009 in All WW Comment Politicker Exerpted from Hansard, in 2004, when Harriet Harman was Solicitor General: Mr David Kidney (Stafford, Labour) To ask the Solicitor-General how many road vehicles are operated by the Department and its agencies; how many personal injury accidents inv...

Dennis Skinner MP’s Queen’s Speech Interventions
on Nov 20, 2009 in All WW Humour Politicker My local MP is Dennis Skinner, who has a personal tradition of poking fun at Royalty on the occasion of a Queen's Speech. Wikipedia has collected some of his quotes together. Here are a few examples.My local MP is Dennis Skinner, who has a personal t...

Elizabeth Truss’ seems confident that she will win her Election…
on Nov 20, 2009 in Uncategorized The Think Tank Reform have advertised the position of Deputy Director, which used to be occupied by Elizabeth Truss: Deputy Director The independent think tank Reform is recruiting a Deputy Director to carry forward its research on the reform of gov...

Young people drying up like puddles on a sunny day: useful tools
on Nov 18, 2009 in All WW Media Politicker There is a tool available to show graphically changes in population over time between 1992 and 2031. The website provides an interactive map that graphically illustrates the extent to which age profile of the UK will change over the next few years. T...

Baroness Buscombe, the Press Complaints Commission and the Internet: Hard Questions
on Nov 18, 2009 in Uncategorized Baroness Buscombe, the Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, gave a speech this week to the Society of Editors, followed by some comments to Ian Burrell of the Independent about a desire to "regulate the blogosphere". The Baroness has taken s...

Baroness Buscombe, PCC Chairman, Speech to the Society of Editors
on Nov 17, 2009 in Uncategorized This is the full text of Baroness Buscombe's speech given to the annual conference of the Society of Editors. Last year Paul Dacre told you what he described was a "grotesquely hubristic confession" that from the moment he was born he had wanted to b...

Numerology: Money Spent on Additional Cost Allowance 2005-2008 vs Repayments following Legg Report
on Nov 16, 2009 in All WW Comment Politicker There has been a lot of trumpetting goung on about how the repayments due from MPs after the Legg Report Audit are now going to top one million pounds: I thought it would be useful to put this in context. It amounts to slightly over 2% of the Additio...

Weekend voting: will this be the next trend in trying to raise turnout at elections?
on Nov 16, 2009 in All WW Comment Politicker Over the last few years a wide range of attempts have been made to raise turnout at elections in the UK. The broad conclusion is very simple: all-postal ballots raise turnout significantly (albeit at the cost of various drawbacks) and nothing else th...

99 Red Balloons: Liberal Vision on New Labour
on Nov 15, 2009 in All WW Media Politicker I missed this when it was made in June. Here's Liberal Vision's take on the rise and fall of New Labour - set to 99 Red Balloons by Nena. Contains graphic violence. I missed this when it was made in June. Here’s Liberal Vision’s take on...

Numerology: How to make MP pay rises look very small
on Nov 13, 2009 in All WW Comment Politicker In March 2008, before the MP Expenses scandal had been broken into the wider knowledge of the public, even though some of us were writing about it (Hem-Hem!), a research paper (08/31) was published by the House of Commons to give background context t...