Bloggers' responsibilities for comments and libel law
Matthew Cain did an interesting post about the responsibility of bloggers recently. He makes some good points and it is worth a read.
Matthew Cain did an interesting post about the responsibility of bloggers recently. He makes some good points and it is worth a read.
There was an interesting report in The Guardian recently which highlighted the results of a survey commissioned by age related charities regarding older women in TV. It found that 71% of the respondents were happy to see Arlene Phillips on their screens and 80% agreed that TV favoured younger presenters.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 10:03 4 comments
Labels: Ageism, Arlene Phillips, Bruce Forsyth, Sexism, Strictly Come Dancing
Posted by Mark Thompson at 11:59 2 comments
I knew this would happen.
Understood the importance of national democracy, who understood why you need to live in an independent country and what that meant, as well as being a free marketeer and a small government Conservative.
Yet again, we are seeing the two faces of the Conservative Party. The one they want to present to the public and the one which attacks the NHS and praises Enoch Powell.
He was one of the great figures of 20th-century British politics, gifted with a brilliant mind
Posted by Mark Thompson at 09:48 48 comments
Labels: Dan Hannan, Daniel Hannan, Enoch Powell, NHS, Rivers of Blood
Early in July I posted this about Leominster MP Bill Wiggin and his supposedly open meeting for constituents to question him about his expense claims. The meeting was clearly not open as many constituents who tried to gain access were barred.
Held in the local Conservative Club. An intimidatory tactic & it only holds 150 people, so ensuring many would be locked out, but Tory members would be there in the majority (they were told to come early).Supposed to have been a public meeting, yet the local press were not informed, but Tory members were, because one let slip they had all been told when he thanked the chairman for e-mailing him about it.At 4pm when many would still be at work.3 scruffy bouncers on the door as I walked in, another intimidatory tactic.Not recognised as a Tory party member so a Tory activist blocked my entrance at the door & asked for my name & address, despite my showing my driving licence ID as proof I lived in the constituency. He then wrote this down on a clipboard (pure dictatorship tactics).People still trying to get in after meeting had begun but Wiggin shouted to them because of H&S regulations they couldn't let anymore in. But the YouTube clip (see below) clearly shows Tory town councillor, Brig Peter Jones still letting in those who say they are Tory supporters. The guy with the black jacket & satchel is the guy who found the clip & posted it on YouTube.Result was approx 90% at the meeting were Tory supporters.Wiggin was asked through a window by people locked out why he hadn't booked the much bigger leisure centre (the venue they used to select him in 2001). He replied with a smirk to his many supporters inside, 'How was I to know so many would turn up, do I have a crystal ball?'When asked did he think he was morally justified claiming expenses of £1,300 mortgage payments & £400 for food per MONTH when many in the area don't even earn that amount he replied, 'Yes, I am'.When asked why he did not downsize from his £900,000 London home to ease the burden on the taxpayer he replied, 'Other people can live like that, I can't!'As a result of all this, along with other like-minded townsfolk we have started a Leominster Independents Group. Totally independent of Independents on the councils or any party our aim is to overturn Wiggin's 13,000 majority at the next election & work towards town council reforms.
It seems that "Information sharing orders" are back baby. They seem to be like a zombie at the end of a cheap B-movie. You think it's dead but then just as you relax your guard, it's up and shuffling towards you murmuring "uuh-uhh-uhh" or similar and then trying to eat your brains.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 11:59 0 comments
Labels: Information sharing orders, Integrated citizens record, zombies
In 2006, Tony Blair refused to immediately call for a ceasefire in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict against the feeling of many in his own cabinet. Some think that the unrest this inaction provoked within the Labour party was the catalyst for the so called "Curry Coup" that a few weeks later led to the resignation of a number of junior members of the government and forced Blair to bring forward his retirement announcement.
Hadleigh Roberts has done an interesting blog post with the alliterative title "Cutting down the Commons will cripple Cameron’s government". In it he argues that if David Cameron got his way and was able to cut the number of MPs by 10% he would cause himself some big problems and that he would end up with more Hannans and less pliable lobby fodder as well as more forced government appointments.
There are only 630 MPs and a party with just over 300 MPs forms a government and of these 300, 100 are too old and too silly to be ministers and 100 too young and too callow. Therefore there are about 100 MPs to fill 100 government posts.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 16:54 5 comments
Labels: David Cameron, Hadleigh Roberts, Single Transferable Vote, STV
One of my blog readers Judy Jansons has sent a letter to her local MP (former Tory minister Peter Lilley) regarding the injustice of Credit Unions being made to help fund the banking bail-out that I posted about last week.
Martin Bright has done a couple of posts recently where he has highlighted Phillip Hammond's use of an intern and also his justification of this by claiming it would be an abuse of taxpayer's money not to use the free labour available.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 10:12 7 comments
Labels: Interns, Internships, Martin Bright, Phillip Hammond
Posted by Mark Thompson at 11:28 0 comments
Cardiff Student Lib Dems (who have a very good blog) have posted today about the release of the Megrahi. It is a well thought through piece that urges Lib Dems not to attack the SNP and try to make political capital out of what was a very difficult decision.
Don't get me wrong. When it comes to sentencing, I think families of victims or victims themselves should be involved in the process. However, after the process, the decision must be made according to the law. It cannot (and should not) be held to ransom by the families of the victims
Notice: Submission of new petitions will be closed until 7th September while the Prime Minister is away from Number 10. You can still sign any petition during this time.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 08:21 5 comments
Labels: Gordon Brown petition, Gordon Brown please go, Kalvis Jansons, Number 10 petitions
According to the buzz on Twitter, News International is proposing to close thelondonpaper.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 13:19 1 comments
Labels: News Corporation, News International, Rupert Murdoch, the London Paper, thelondonpaper
Peter Black AM has a post on Freedom Central this morning entitled "The failure of joined up government" in which he explains a quirk of the financial regulation system that seems to have had unintended consequences. It seems that because Credit Unions (the bodies that exist in communities to help people get access to credit and provide other services to those on low incomes) are now regulated by the Financial Services Authority that they are now liable for part of the cost of bailing out the banks. This is due to the FSA levying a charge on every organisation it controls to help meet the debt. Apparently they are jointly liable for £8.5 million through this mechanism.
At daughter's swim lesson. Why do 7 year olds need to learn butterfly? The swim equivalent of algebra; complex, elegant and utterly useless.
I love algebra, I use it all the time. Why is being numerate useless and literate useful?!
The International context for Basic Skills within the United Kingdom can be demonstrated from findings of the International Numeracy Survey 1996 (Opinion Research Business). This found that comparing the percentage of respondents who managed to give the correct answer for all the tasks, Japan emerged top. 43% of respondents tested in Japan achieved a full set of correct answers. This was followed by France (40% getting them all correct) and the Netherlands (38%). Respondents in the UK performed least well. Only 1 in 5 people tested (20%) managed to accurately complete all twelve given tasks. Australia was second from bottom (at 33%) but Australians still performed significantly better than the UK.When the results were reviewed for the proportion of respondents getting most answers right (10 -12 correct across the twelve tasks) the UK respondents do not improve their performance vis a vis other countries. Barely half (47%) were able to give the correct answer for 10 or more of the tasks, which compares very unfavourably with the rest of Europe (76% in the Netherlands, 68% in Denmark and 65% in France and Sweden).At the other end of the scale almost a quarter of the UK respondents (22%) could only answer up to 5 questions out of the 12. This compares with a lower 14% in Australia, 10% in France, 7% in Sweden, 7% in Denmark, 5% in Japan and 4% in the Netherlands.The following table provides a summary of the survey results.Scores achieved across 12 numeracy tasks:
Matthew Parris' article in the Times from Saturday this week suggests that MPs should be allowed to have outside jobs, it's just that too many of them have the wrong sort of outside job (by his definition that is things like Company Director, Barrister - i.e. the sort of job that is likely to give them experience of a rarified world that most do not inhabit). On the other hand he claims that MPs doing outside jobs like being a Doctor or participating in charity work are fine.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 09:27 3 comments
Labels: Matthew Parris, MPs, Outside Interests, Second Jobs
A few months ago there was panic as dire predictions of the CPI falling into negative territory abounded and the spectre of a potential deflationary spiral stalked the land.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 17:45 8 comments
Labels: Bank of England, CPI, deflation, Inflation, Quantitative Easing, RPI
Their eventual reply was that the figure assumes (among other things) that:
- All 36,000 who retired between 1948 and 1997 would choose to settle if they were able to do so
- None of the dependants (including spouse, children under 18, unmarried dependant children 18-30, elderly parents living with the main applicant - and assuming half of children 18-30 are married) work
- All settling families are on Child Tax Credits maximum award.
And do not take account of any tax or national insurance contributions that former Gurkhas may have made in the past or that they may make in the future
The ridiculous figure quoted is just that, totally ridiculous. You are absolutely right, such convoluted assumption does, and should, not apply to any particular group, let alone us, the Gurkhas! It is this mean Government's yet another answer to deny us Gurkhas fair and equal treatment as agreed in the Tripartite agreement in 1947!
Posted by Mark Thompson at 09:32 4 comments
Labels: Freedom of Information, Gurkhas, Joanna Lumley, Matt Raven
I realise I am a bit late to the party but I have been on holiday so have only just had the chance to do a post in response to last weekend's Lib Dem Voice meme regarding the blog posts from our own site that we wish to self nominate for the imminent Lib Dem BOTY awards.
Well as usual when I go away for a few days there is a big story that I have come back to and have had to properly catch up with. This time it is the whole NHS debate kicked off by Obama's attempts to get healthcare reform proposals on the table in the US and brought into sharp focus in the UK by Daniel Hannan's disparaging comments about the NHS on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News (see below for embedded version) combined with the "#WeLoveTheNHS" Twitter campaign.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 11:04 11 comments
Labels: #WeLoveTheNHS, Daniel Hannan, Douglas Carswell, Fox News, NHS, Sean Hannity, The Plan
I have just returned from my nearly 2 weeks of camping in Ireland (beautiful country which I had only really seen when out there on business previously and would highly recommend it as a holiday destination).
This blog post was originally published in December last year but my readership figures were low at that time and I thought I would give it another outing:
Dominic Grieve was impressive in the Commons yesterday but he has failed to cut through in the media. He was outperformed on Newsnight the other night by Chris Huhne which is rather like being the second tallest mountain in Holland.
This blog post was originally published in January this year but my readership figures were low at that time and I thought I would give it another outing.
Posted by Mark Thompson at 10:23 2 comments
Labels: Dissolution, Fixed Term Parliaments, Gordon Brown