Tony Blair received some positive publicity this week by volunteering to be a patron of a sports club in London if 100 other public figures volunteered to do the same. He used a website called PledgeBank to set this thing up. I had never heard of the site before and...
The initial wave of sickening ‘we love David’ euphoria from the Tories has now died down a bit, and even the main, so far unresolved European issue of his short leadership – whether the Tory MEPs should leave the EPP in the European Parliament – is quiet at the moment....
John Reid used to have a reputation as Tony Blair’s firefighter. The person to send into a government department to sort it out. Then after the 2005 election, the macho Scot was given the macho job in government – Minister of Defence. The change in the UK’s geopolitical standpoint over...
David Miliband MP, Minister of Communities and Local Government, has recently launched this blog on the website of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The first impression is a bit off-putting: the colour scheme is a very pastel shade of purple. The second impression – when you start to...
Polly Toynbee is on about Sweden again in her column in The Guardian today – read it here. The column is not her best argued effort, but this did make me smile: No, Brown will not turn Swedish in one spasm. It took the Social Democrats nearly 70 unbroken years...
I’m sadly going to be away from London on 25th but I encourage any people reading this who will be in the London area to go along to the March for Free Expression. One of the organisers is the excellent National Secular Society. If you are concerned about the current...
The USA is supposed to be a beacon to the world in terms of the openness of its economy, a dynamic country ready and prepared for globalisation. Oh, maybe not. Take one look at the reaction to the idea that Dubai Ports World may have taken control of 6 US...
I’m quite angry today as I am in that odd situation of knowing a lot more about a news story than is presented in the media coverage. The matter concerns beef. Yes, I am a vegetarian, but I have had the fun of discussing the beef ban with the French...
I happened to see the last 15 minutes of a scary programme The New Fundamentalists on Channel 4 yesterday evening. An article from Channel 4’s website about the programme is here. The programme specifically focussed on 3 schools in the North East of England that have been created under the...
I came across this excellent little quote via the National Secular Society: I would rather people went to their allotment on a Sunday than to church – it would do them and everybody else a lot more good. The quote relates to an interesting little story where the Church of...
It’s been a big thing in the UK today: in some parts of South Eastern England the installation of water meters might become compulsuory. About time too! I can’t understand what all the fuss is about. It’s inherently sensible: the UK’s water supply situation is untenable, this winter has been...
You’ve heard or seen it before. Those adverts for cars or other expensive products offering you finance plans to spread the payment over affordable monthly installments. But the advert I was confronted with when boarding a Northern Line tube train this evening was an entriely different matter: a monthly installments...