Twitter is full of liberals apparently

There is an interesting piece of research out in Prospect magazine this month which shows that Twitter users are likely to be very high up the liberal scale. In fact they claim that only Lib Dems and Londoners as groups are actually more liberal.

This chart sums up where Twitter users are positioned compared to other groups:

They claim that this is why so many "liberal" campaigns have managed to gain traction on Twitter and list the following recent examples:

• Breaking the Guardian’s court injunction banning them from naming mining company Trafigura.
• Attacking Daily Mail writer Jan Moir for “homophobic” remarks on the death of gay pop star Stephen Gately.
• Criticising Sunday Times critic AA Gill for shooting a baboon while on safari.
• Vilifying Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan and his criticism of the NHS in the US, in the #welovethenhs campaign.

I find it very interesting that they should find Twitter users positioned like this. When I saw the above chart I instantly thought that part of the reason will be that there are quite a lot of Lib Dems, Londoners and 18-34 year olds on Twitter. Indeed towards the end of the Prospect article it says:

Reacting to the poll, Prospect managing editor James Crabtree said: “New technologies are often adopted by the political extremes of left and right. It is clear that the urban, metropolitan, Guardian-reading ‘chattering classes’ have flocked online to become the ‘twittering classes’ —and they are now a real force in British politics.”

The survey confirms Twitter’s image in Britain as a tool for a youthful metropolitan elite. 46 per cent of users are younger than 35, compared to 29 per cent of the population, while Twitter users more likely to live in London.

I'm not sure about this final comment though:

But where Twitter users and the rest of the country most disagree, perhaps unsurprisingly, is over the service itself. Twitter users might think the service is worthwhile, but 76 per cent of the British population give the idea a thumbs-down, saying they have never used it and do not intend to in future—meaning the “twittering classes” could have a Twitter monopoly for some time to come.

I think it is like with any new technology, it takes a while for people to grasp it and its benefits. In the case of Twitter I don't think it is helped by some of the ways I have heard it described. People still think it is just used to tell people what you are doing in any one precise moment, e.g. "taking the turkey out of the oven", "going to the shops" etc. The truth is that although it might have started like that, it is now a means of debate and dissemination of information to lots of people who have chosen to follow you. In my case I follow lots of people who are interested in politics.

In fact we debated this very issue as one of the topics on last week's House of Comments podcast with Jennie Rigg and Matt Wardman which you can listen to via this link.

I think we will find the uptake of Twitter continuing to increase rapidly as more people "get it" over the next year or two. That might mean the position on the above scale is quite different in a couple of years time which some liberals might lament but I think will be better for engagement generally.

Could bloggers take over the Press Complaints Commission?

James Graham suggests that given the new chair of the Press Complaints Commission Baroness Buscombe's recent comments about the PCC potentially regulating blogs that it throws up a very interesting question.

If blogs are to be regulated by the PCC, surely we should have representation on the PCC board?Also, as James points out, as the total number of readers of blogs in aggregate exceeds the number of people who read newspapers, we should have a majority on the board. I won't hold my breath for this to be implemented.

There are a myriad other practical problems with her suggestion which makes me wonder if the good Baroness has properly thought this through....

Alan Johnson exhibits a monumental level of hypocrisy

A couple of years ago, the MP for Hull West and Hessle was very concerned about the possibility that an asylum seeker who had found refuge in his constituency might be sent back to his country which has a dangerous human rights record and where in the MP's own words it:

would be devastating for him, his family, indeed it could prove fatal... There are few cases where we need our system to work more than this one.

However last month, the Home Secretary returned the 35-year-old asylum seeker to that country. The one with the dangerous human rights record.

Oh did I mention that the Home Secretary is (and was last month) the MP for Hull West and Hessle, Alan Johnson?

That's right. In a move that exhibits a monumental level of hypocrisy, the very same asylum seeker who two years ago Mr Johnson was pleading to not be sent back was actually sent back by Mr Johnson himself.

Apparently at least one Labour activist in his constituency has resigned in disgust at his actions. I am not surprised.

I'm not sure how much mainstream media coverage this case has had but it needs more. Mr Johnson needs to be held accountable for this change of heart once he was actually in a position to do something about it.

(Hattip to Byrne Tofferings and Private Eye magazine)

Liz Truss reselected in Norfolk South West

So at the selection meeting tonight, Norfolk South West Tories overwhelmingly chose to retain Liz Truss as their candidate by 132 - 37.

It's good to see a bit of sense prevailing. There was never a case for deselecting her as I have blogged about previously.

Now, in the nicest possible way, I hope she loses at the General Election (to the Lib Dem candidate)!

RIP Edward Woodward

It has just been reported that the veteran actor Edward Woodward has died at the age of 79.

He starred in many films and TV programmes over the years. The Wicker Man is undoubtedly his most famous film and the TV programme people of my generation will probably most associate him with is the 1980's US show The Equalizer.

It is worth also mentioning the 1977 dystopian BBC drama 1990 that he starred in where he played a journalist who decides to fight a totalitarian government. This was only brought to my attention a few years ago but is very good and well worth watching. Perhaps it will now be repeated. It's good to see that Jennie Rigg also remembers this.

However my favourite part that Edward Woodward played is Callan (1967 - 1972 with a film in 1974 and a one off reunion episode in 1981). In this he played a professional killer who worked for the British intelligence services. It was the part that launched his career and he played it perfectly. Woodward managed to portray the role in such a way as to show how he was trapped and a victim of the system he was in himself, eliciting some sympathy for a character whom on paper did not really deserve any. That is not an easy thing to do. I hope one of the TV channels shows some episodes of this as a fitting tribute to his acting talents.

Here is a clip where Callan is having an "employment dispute" with his bosses:

RIP Edward Woodward.

Sir Jeremy Bagge: "Women, Know Your Limits!"

OK, he didn't quite say that but the recent comments from Sir Jeremy Bagge frontman for the Tory traditionalists in Norfolk South West (who are trying to get Liz Truss deselected later today) about women reported by Benedict Brogan here are pretty close to the classic Harry Enfield "Women, Know Your Limits" sketch.

Here's what he said in an attempt to show he is pro-women:

Sorry, no, I have never said I’m anti-women. I have got absolutely nothing against women. Who cooks my lunch? Who cooks my dinner? How did my wonderful three children appear? Women, you can’t do without them. My god, take my wife.

He was then asked what she does for a living:

What does she do? She looks after me. Looks after the children. Runs the house.

Good luck today Liz...

The Sun smears Professor David Nutt's family

When Professor David Nutt was sacked by Alan Johnson as head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs a couple of weeks ago, The Sun newspaper made it clear that it thought Johnson had been correct to do so.

Although I disagree with The Sun and I feel that they often distort the debate about drugs I do understand that there are people who have real fears about what liberalisation of drug laws could mean (although I think they are misguided). The Sun is entitled to their opinion about this. They make their case and it is up to those of us who believe that a legalised and regulated framework would reduce harm, crime and have all sorts of other benefits as I have blogged about many times to make our case and try to talk people round to our view. I fully accept The Sun's right to argue their side of the case too, and indeed they regularly do. In fact David Nutt is not in favour of legalisation of drugs but it is fair to say that his comments could eventually lead to this argument being taken more seriously and that seems to be how The Sun have treated them.

Yesterday however The Sun decided not to engage with the debate on this issue. Instead they decided to attack and smear Professor Nutt's children. I am not going to link the The Sun's "story" on this (you can find it via Graham Linehan's tweet that alerted me to it here if you wish). I am however just going to highlight a few of the tactics they have employed in this disgusting gutter "journalism" they have decided to indulge in.

The piece is entitled "Off his Nutt" and focuses primarily on Professor Nutt's 24 year old son Steve. It is peppered with pictures of Steve taken from his Facebook page which shows him looking a bit worse for wear and in a few cases holding what could be a lit cannabis joint. They also draw attention to one of his Facebook status updates:

Steve Nutt thinks his dad is probably more famous than he'll ever be, BARRING A TERRORIST ATROCITY THAT IS...

They also say "Terrorism is a theme that regularly crops up in his messages." and reference his Facebook profile picture:

Shockingly, instead of sticking a portrait of himself in his "profile" photo slot like most Facebook users, his image is of an orange labelled "product of Israel" - one half of which is a GRENADE.

Many young people tell jokes that are in bad taste. It's part of growing up. In a few years time Steve will probably look back with a bit of embarrassment about some of things he has published on Facebook. I suspect many in my generation are grateful that these social networking sites did not exist when we were younger for this very reason. To have this stuff plastered across a national newspaper simply because the newspaper disagrees with some comments made by the young man's father is absolutely reprehensible. Steve has not done anything that many, many of his contemporaries will not also have done. He is a normal man in his early-mid twenties not some sort of aberration as The Sun are trying to make out. Indeed the fact that it was so easy for The Sun to find apparent evidence of one of David Nutt's children smoking cannabis (and I am sure they could do this with hundreds of thousands of his contemporaries) is evidence of how massively widespread its use is under the prohibition regime that The Sun so vociferously supports.

They did not stop there though. They then move on to Professor Nutt's daughter Lydia's Facebook page:

Photos show her and girl pals cavorting with a bottle of spirits in hand - and were uploaded two years before she turned 18.

YOU'RE F**KING JOKING!!? 16 YEAR OLD GIRLS DRINKING ALCOHOL!!? BUT THEY ARE UNDER AGE. SOMEONE SUMMON THE VILLAGE ELDERS.

This is pathetic. A large proportion of 16 year old children drink alcohol. There is nothing unusual about this despite The Sun trying to make the most of the fact that she was TWO YEARS UNDERAGE. It's notable as well that they have no evidence that she has taken illegal drugs so instead focus on this. I would be fascinated to know how they think this can be in the public interest.

Oh, and there's more.

Meanwhile older lad Johnny, 26, has posted photos of himself prancing NAKED in the snow in Sweden.

NAKED!!? SNOW!!? SWEDEN!!? BURN HIM!

WTF? What has that got to do with anything at all? Even by their own tenuous standards this has no link with Professor Nutt's comments. In his comments about drugs classification he said nothing about naturism or snow. It just seems to be part and parcel of their nasty attempt to smear his entire family.

Towards the end of the article there are more comments about bad taste jokes that Steve has made online. I'm not going to go into the details here, you can read them if you are interested for yourself but they all fall into the same category as above, i.e. ill-advised jokes he will probably regret in a few years but that he never expected to be plastered all over a national newspaper for millions of people to read.

This is one of the most disgusting pieces of "journalism" I have ever seen. The Sun should be utterly ashamed of itself that it should sink so low as to smear a group of young adults like this for doing nothing more than what many of their contemporaries do. This seems to me to be a politically motivated attack in order to try and discredit the scientific evidence that their father has brought into the public domain.

It actually reminds me very much of the disgraceful "story" published by The Sunday Express back in March (which Graham Linehan also blogged about here) where they had gone onto the Facebook pages of the Dunblane massacre survivors and "exposed" their completely normal for 18 year olds behaviour. After a campaign led by Graham they were forced to apologise for this travesty.

I can only hope that there will be similar revulsion to this.

Indeed a few of the comments posted underneath the piece give me hope:

so what? what a load of rubbish! he's just doing what all guys his age do. just because his father is a scientific researcher doesn't mean his son will be at home reading science journals. the important thing is the findings of Nutts recent research on drugs. he is very clever and spent a lot of time on his research only to get sacked and slandered because the findings weren't to the governments liking. the whole thing was a farce.

what's the big deal? at the end of the day, he just like any other british kid.

and away, his dad must know what he's talking about about.

leave the kid alone!

And those who disagree with the findings? Are you saying that the government disagreeing with something should be the end of it? Even though Prof. Nutt has conducted thorough research on an issue which affects us all? It shouldn't be challenged further?? Because it's not likely that vested interests are behind every decision the government makes. What with the general election coming up.

You only need look at the stats!....hundreds of thousands of people die of smoking and drinking related illnesess every year yet its perfectly legal. You will be lucky if just one person die of an 'e' or a 'joint' this year....things will never change because of the 'tax' issue but people should not be punished for speaking the truth.............and i dont know this guy so why is it news?

"claimed cannabis, ecstasy and LSD are safer than booze and ****."

This irritates me, 'claimed' as though it is purely his unbacked theory. Throughout the world the science shows this.

Go look at what has happened in Portugal since 2001 when they decriminalised drugs, their situation has become far better! The UK is full of hypocrites who don't know what they are on about when it comes to drugs!

Perhaps The Sun has misjudged its readership again.

Five years for handing in a gun to the police?

Constantly Furious has a blogpost today which has drawn my attention to the case of Paul Clarke, an ex-soldier from Surrey who is likely to face five years in prison for taking a sawn-off shotgun with ammunition he had found in his garden to a police station. The police arrested him after he brought it in and he was found guilty by a court recently. The full story is here.

It would seem that posession of a firearm is a "strict liability" offence which means the defendant is guilty regardless of intent.

CF is very angry about this case as are many other people such as some commenters on his blog and many on Twitter. It would seem to fly in the face of natural justice. There are others who are claiming that there must be more to this case.

I am not sure, perhaps it will become more clear with further reports and the sentencing. However if it is as it seems then this is surely a travesty of justice.

As if to underline this, reading the comments on this blog post from Jack of Kent (which talks in more detail about the law behind the case) there is a comment from Alex Hamilton which directed me to this story from a few weeks ago. It describes how in a different situation also involving a gun with ammunition found by a member of the public that the police actually told him to bring it to the station.

Nothing like consistency eh?

I'm on this week's "Pod Delusion" podcast

For the last few weeks I have been listening to an excellent podcast called "The Pod Delusion" which describes itself as being about "interesting things":

From scepticism to lefty liberal things, it's commentary from a secular, rationalist, 'Guardianista', sort of perspective. A bit like From Our Own Correspondent but with more jokes.

It's well worth a listen and subscribing to. Not least because if you listen to this week's episode you can hear me ranting about TV companies and their woeful attitude to electronic distribution of their programmes.

Emergency on Planet Dog

I had just settled down to watch BBC Question Time last night (Dazmando was hosting the chat on my blog here as I was a bit late) when my wife drew my attention to a problem with our Cocker Spaniel Chess. My wife had been eating a piece of carrot and gave him the end (he eats virtually anything and loves carrot). My wife however was quite surprised to see that despite the fact the piece of carrot was quite large, Chess made no attempt to actually chew it and instead just tried to swallow it whole.

He then very quickly became distressed as it had obviously got stuck part way down and we then spent about half an hour trying to get him to throw the piece of carrot up. He kept trying but it just would not budge and he got more and distressed. In the end he was just lying on the ground and whimpering.

The only thing we could do was take him to the emergency vets which I discovered after calling the out of hours service is based in Farnham about 15 miles away. We jumped in the car and drove there as quick as we could. Once there, the vet confirmed that the carrot piece was stuck in his esophagus and she outlined the options which were:

1) Put him under short term general anaesthetic and then try and either pull the piece out with forceps (not likely to work as it was too far down) or more likely push it down towards his stomach. However the sphincter muscle that allows food into the stomach is quite delicate and can be damaged so this was not without risk. Even if it's too tight to push through it may go through naturally at that point once he is woken up. They would have to see.

2) Put him under a stronger anaesthetic and then either perform surgery on his esophagus to have the carrot removed, or if option 1) had already been tried but the sphincter muscle to the stomach was too tight and it would not pass through naturally, then major surgery to remove it from a very inaccessible place would then possibly have to take place.

None of these options were ideal and of course anything involving anaesthetic is not without risk. The vet (who herself has a Cocker Spaniel) said if it was her dog she would go for the first option as she would want to avoid surgery if at all possible as that is the bigger risk. However we had to give them permission to perform the surgery if it became necessary.

In the end we agreed with her approach, I signed the consent forms, we left Chess with them and went home.

Obviously we were both very worried but it was 12:30 in the morning by this stage and we both have work today so we went to get ready for bed. Just at that point I got a phone call from the vet who explained that she had had to leave Chess for a few minutes to attend to another animal who had been fitting and when she came back to get him to apply the anaesthetic she noticed a little pile of dog vomit next to him with a huge chunk of carrot in it. He had finally thrown it up himself! She said he was very happy and she had given him hugs and kisses. We were both so relieved.

I went straight back and picked him up. When we got him home he was very, very thirsty (unsurprisingly given how much fluid he has expelled) and still a bit out of sorts following the rather traumatic evening he had had but I managed to calm him down and he went to sleep quite quickly.

So apologies to all on the BBC Question Time Live Chat but hopefully this explains my sudden silence on the chat.

Oh and they gave us the piece of carrot to take home with us as a souvenir:

BBC Question Time Live Chat - 12th November 2009 - #bbcqt

It's #bbcqt day again and as usual the Live Chat on this blog will start tonight at 10:30pm.

The panel will include Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Shaun Woodward, the Conservative shadow security minister Pauline Neville-Jones, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on communities and local government Julia Goldsworthy, the cultural commentator and writer Will Self and the rowing champion, double Olympic gold medallist, television presenter and writer James Cracknell.

Liberal Democrat Voice also sometimes have an open thread for BBC Question Time which is posted just before the start of the programme.

Join us from 10:30pm below.

"Blueprint for Regulation" of drugs is launched by Transform Drug Policy Foundation

As an advocate of liberalisation of drugs policy, one of the questions I often get asked is exactly what sort of system would I want to see for how drugs could be distributed if they were legalised.

I respond along the lines of requiring a proper regulatory framework and I have my own ideas about how this could work but the exact nature of how this could be implemented is subject to debate even amongst those of us who advocate liberalisation.

As I type, Steve Rolles of Transform Drug Policy Foundation is at the Houses of Parliament to discuss a new document they are launching today entitled: "After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation" which attempts to set out the issues and options relating to this.

I am only about a quarter of the way through it at the moment but so far it is making a lot of sense to me and seems to be a very detailed account of the options available for regulation under a legalised scheme. It is also realistic about what it will take to get there with reference to the UN conventions and international treaties that make it nigh on impossible for most countries to legalise at the moment.

There is also a recognition that in order to get there, we need to bring people from all sides of the debate with us. It accepts that most advocates of "The War on Drugs" are well intentioned and worried about the harm that drugs cause in our society. The point the document makes over and over again is that the war has failed and is actually causing harm. I think the idea of trying to persuade the most trenchent critics of liberalisation is the right one.

It also repeatedly makes the point that we need to separate out the harm caused by the drugs themselves and the harm caused by the fact that they are illegal in order to demonstrate precisely how legalisation would reduce it. Confusion around this is something that I come across regularly. Many people think (or perhaps assume) that things like HIV transmission, burglary to fund a habit, overdoses, poisoned supplies etc. etc. are just an inevitable result of people taking drugs. The truth is that all of these and more are consequences largely of its illegality and they could be hugely reduced (perhaps even in some cases eliminated) under a properly legalised and regulated framework.

It is certainly a thought provoking document, whichever side of the debate you are currently on and I will try and post a more detailed review once I have finished reading it.

You can download it yourself via this link. Please note that the link is to a PDF document.

Did Gordon Brown just mislead the House of Commons?

I just saw something on ITV news that made my ears prick up.

They had a clip of Gordon Brown from the House of Commons today stating categorically in response to a question from Andrew MacKay (coincidentally my MP) that nobody who currently receives tax relief on childcare costs will have this benefit taken away. Seems quite clear to me. In fact for the avoidance of doubt, here is the exchange from the Hansard website today:

Q4. [299025] Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell) (Con): Is the Prime Minister comfortable with the fact that nine of his ex-ministerial colleagues have written to him to say that his proposals to scrap tax relief on child care are wrong and immensely damaging to working women?

The Prime Minister: We have said—I repeated this yesterday to a meeting and again this morning—that nobody who is receiving tax relief for child care vouchers will lose it. That assurance, which I make here and which was made yesterday as well, is one that people will welcome. At the same time, we want to expand nursery care for two-year-olds and create a situation in which nursery education runs into primary and secondary education from two to 18. However, no Government have done more to advance and support child care in our country, and we shall continue to do so in the next few months.

Straight after this clip, the reporter explained that that is not really true because after 5 years the new rules (which appear to be means tested) will apply to those currently claiming them too.

So as far as I can see, Gordon Brown misled the House of Commons. Anyone listening to him would be under the impression that all people receiving this benefit right now would carry on receiving it, presumably until they naturally become ineligible as their children become too old. That however is not true.

Will Gordon Brown now return to the Commons, apologise and set the record straight?

House of Comments podcast - Episode 4

The latest "House of Comments" podcast with myself and Stuart Sharpe of the Sharpe's Opinion political blog is now live. The website for the podcasts is here and the fourth episode which we recorded on Monday is available to download via this page here (raw mp3 file here if you prefer). You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here.

The format as usual is to invite one or two other political bloggers each week and discuss a few of the stories that are making waves in the blogosphere.

This week, we were joined by Jennie Rigg of the Lib Dem Miss S B blog, and Matt Wardman, editor of the cross-party Wardman Wire. We discussed Labour funding, Twitter/social networking, Watford Council child safety concerns and asked should we be paying MPs more. I have some quite firm views on this last one!

Public agree cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco

There was a poll released by Politics Home yesterday in the wake of the "Nutt Sack" debacle which as well as showing that a majority think it was wrong for Professor Nutt to have been sacked also asked them how harmful they think various drugs are.

The specific question asked was:

In terms of the overall harm that you perceive the following drugs as causing to individuals and society, please say how harmful you perceive the following drugs to be:

And the results were:

Now this sort of finding is fascinating. As can clearly be seen, the public understand that cannabis is less harmful than both alcohol and tobacco, both of which of course are legal. The science tells us this is the case and the public understand this and it is reflected in opinion polls.

One of the arguments that I often hear about why cannabis could not be made legal is that "the public will never wear it". This poll would appear to give the lie to this claim. The public are more sophisticated than the politicians give them credit for. They understand the risks.

In this context, moving cannabis from Class C back to Class B goes against not just the science but public opinion. That position is unsustainable in the long term.

Mark Valladares takes the "Open Up" campaign to task

There is an excellent post by Mark Valladares on Liberal Bureaucracy today where he rips into the "Open Up" campaign which is trying to force all parties at have open primaries. Mark nails the campaign for the distraction from real reform it is:

I'm afraid that this looks like a plot to remove smaller political parties, neuter the Liberal Democrats, and return British politics to the two-party red/blue politics of the 1950's. No, if they are serious about opening up the political process, why not campaign for multi-member open list constituencies elected using STV? That way, anyone can run, political parties are forced to offer up a range of candidates in order to appeal to a diverse community, and you abolish the safe seat.

Instead, this is not so much a missed opportunity as an attempt to hitch a ride on the bandwagon of public revulsion at politics, politicians and all of their works.

Spot on Mark.

The Sun have gone too far publishing the call between the PM and Jacqui Janes

I didn't want to do it but I have listened to the phone call between Gordon Brown and Jacqui Janes, bereaved mother of British soldier Jamie Janes who died in Afghanistan. I listened to it because I was planning to blog about it and thought it was only fair to listen first.

Before I listened I thought it was wrong for The Sun to have released this phone call which was supposed to have been private between the PM and a grieving mother. After listening to it it has only strengthened my view.

Jacqui is wholly understandably very distraught both about the letter that Gordon Brown sent that she considers an insult to his memory (due to misspellings and perceived shoddiness) but also what she considers a lack of equipment provided for the troops, especially helicopters. She makes these points forcefully on several occasions during the call, her voice cracking with emotion. At one point she does seem to be crying as she relates in detail the injuries that her son sustained before he died. Gordon Brown throughout tries to express his condolences and sympathy. He does at one point try to maintain that he did not make spelling mistakes which seems wrong to me as having seen the letter I think it is pretty clear he did in a few places.

I think what The Sun have now done is an unwarranted intrusion into a mother's grief. I know Jacqui must have recorded the call herself and/or given permission for it to have been released but she is a bereaved, intensely angry mother who has just lost her son. The newspaper should have been more responsible than to have released the recording. I felt very wrong listening to it myself and as I said would not have done so except for the fact that I was going to blog about it.

There is another thing about the way the recording is presented by The Sun on its website. They are using a Flash player which also allows video footage. Whilst the call is being played images of Remembrance Sunday, a soldier being brought home in a coffin and also a still of the letter Mr Brown sent scroll past. The image of Remembrance Sunday has Mr Brown standing in the centre of the picture. the only other person visible over his right shoulder is John Major. I cannot believe this is a coincidence although The Sun will doubtless claim it is. The signal is clear to me. They are trying to communicate that Brown is finished and in the same position as Major was at the end of his premiership. To be using this phone call to communicate subliminal political messages like this is just plain wrong.

I of course have immense sympathy for Jacqui and cannot imagine what she has gone through. I also feel very sorry for Gordon Brown regarding this episode. He did make a mistake with the letter but he has apologised and tried to make up for it. He is clearly very embarrassed about what has happened and he does not deserve the treatment that he is now getting from The Sun.

They should remove this recording from their site.

PS: I have deliberately not linked to The Sun's page featuring the recording.

I've been interviewed by Tory Rascal

Tory Rascal got in touch with me recently and asked if he could interview me for his "Blogger profile" series on his blog. I was happy to oblige.

I think he asked some interesting questions about blogging and politics. You can read the results here and judge whether my answers are as interesting!

Did Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock save us from 5 more years of Gordon Brown in 2007?

There is a fascinating story on the FT blogs by Alex Barker today. In it he explains how Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock sometimes accidentally gets e-mails which are actually meant for Matt Hancock, Shadow Chancellor George Obsorne's chief of staff.

The story is that in the autumn of 2007, he received information about the Tory plan to raise the inheritance tax rates just days before the Tory conference. Of course had this information leaked out then Labour would have been in a position to pre-empt the announcement and spoil Osborne's announcement.

Mike sent the e-mail onto its rightful recipient and did not breathe a word to anyone allowing Osborne to make the announcement and get his poll bounce for the Tories off the back of it. This was widely credited with scaring Gordon Brown off from having an early election and the rest is history. Alex spoke to Mike about this and he confirmed that he did know the political value of the e-mail but insisted that it was private and mistakes can be made. "I did only what I expect others to do to me." he stated.

I think it is plausible that had Mike leaked this information, we could already be 2 years into a Gordon Brown led elected administration. Cameron could easily have been ousted as yet another failed Tory leader and the map of British politics could now look very, very different.

Nigel Farage should have a Commons pass

On Friday, Iain Dale blogged about the fact that Nigel Farage, the outgoing leader of UKIP and MEP has been complaining that his Palace of Westminster pass has been removed. The Westminster authorities have decided to remove the privilege from all MEPs. They claim it is to "save resources" but there is a very strong suspicion that the move is to ensure that the two elected BNP MEPs cannot have passes.

Iain says:

I have to say I have never quite understood why MEPs had passes to the building in the first place, so I can't get as excited as Nigel Farage about this.

I disagree with Iain here and fully back Nigel Farage. I think Iain should be getting excited about this. The authorities have taken away a privilege from all MEPs apparently in order to ensure lack of access for two of them. Whether you like the EU or not it is surely right that we make it easy for our elected European legislators to liaise with our elected MPs? This measure will make that more difficult.

As I have said about the BNP before, when the debate was raging about whether Nick Griffin should be allowed on BBC Question Time, they have elected MEPs. From this, certain things flow in a democracy. The Westminster authorities may think they are doing the right thing but they are making a mistake.

How many more rules are they going to change to affect two specific MEPs but also cause problems for the remaining 70 who are not fascists?

PS: I have also noticed that quite a few of the comments on Iain's post seem to agree with me.

Evan Harris accuses Alan Johnson of a "litany of errors" over Professor Nutt dismissal comments

Dr Evan Harris, the Lib Dem MP and science spokesperson has written a letter to Alan Johnson the Home Secretary drawing his attention to a number of factual inaccuracies in the statements Mr Johnson made to the House of Commons last Monday in the debate about his dismissal of Professor Nutt.

Dr Harris charges Mr Johnson with a "litany of errors" and states it is essential that he returns to the chamber to correct them.

I think it is very important that he does. Mr Johnson was able to deflect a number of the criticisms against him with his statement and responses last week but with all the errors that Dr Harris has highlighted it throws a very different light on it and suggests a beleaguered minister grasping at anything to try and defend his decision. Indeed as Dr Harris points out, some of the Home Secretary's comments would even be actionable had they not been said under parliamentary privilege as they are a slur on Professor Nutt's reputation.

Mr Johnson must return to the House in order to address these errors. Parliamentary privilege comes at a high price, that the statements and responses given must be as accurate as possible. It would seem the Home Secretary has not met this standard.

(Thanks to Paul on Liberal Burblings and Politics Home for drawing my attention to this story)

Dr Harris' letter is reproduced below:

Rt Hon Alan Johnson

Home Secretary

Home Office

I am writing to raise with you several issues where you misled the House of Commons during the Urgent Question on the Advisory Council of the Misuse of Drugs on Monday 2nd November. The points you made are of such seriousness to the professional and public standing of Professor David Nutt that you should now correct yourself in the chamber and apologise for misleading the House, and I would be grateful if you would confirm to me as soon as possible that you intend to do so at the earliest opportunity. I am copying this letter to Mr Speaker and to Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat shadow Home Secretary.

1. You stated in the chamber: “In February, while awaiting publication of the Government’s position on the classification of ecstasy, of which he was already aware, Professor Nutt published an article and addressed the media on the appropriateness or otherwise of the Government’s policy framework, expressing a view that horse riding was more dangerous than ecstasy.”

This is incorrect. A peer-reviewed journal – the Journal of Psychopharmacology –published the article (not Professor Nutt). It was in January 2009, not February as you stated. Professor Nutt wrote and submitted the article the previous year. It was reviewed prior to publication by two expert reviewers. Neither at the time of writing, nor at the date of publication of the article, was Professor Nutt aware of the Government’s position on the classification of ecstasy since the ACMD had not even published its report let alone received the Government’s response. Furthermore the content of the article was discussed with the ACMD secretariat (though he was not required by the Code of Practice to do so) and was discussed and approved in a conversation with Professor Nutt by Paul Wiles the Departmental Chief Science Advisor.

2. You stated in the chamber: “On Thursday 29th October Professor Nutt chose, without prior notification to my Department, to initiate a debate on drugs policy in the national media, returning to the February decisions and accusing my predecessor of distorting and devaluing scientific research”.

This is incorrect, as Richard Garside, Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London has made clear. Professor Nutt delivered his lecture at King’s on 14th July 2009 to an audience of 150 people with no media. This was published by the CCJS on 29th October. As you know, there is no requirement on an independent scientific adviser to give prior notification of academic work to the ACMD secretariat in the Home Office in either the general or the ACMD code of practice. Nevertheless, Professor Nutt had indeed informed the secretariat of the paper and received feedback. Prof Nutt even discussed it with Paul Wiles, the Home Office Departmental Chief Scientific Adviser. In fact the Home Office publicised it in advance on their website here:

http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/events/show_event.htm?event_id=170&view_type=list&current_page=1&monthID=0&yearID=0

The official flyer for the event described Prof Nutt as Professor David Nutt, Edmond J Safra Chair in Neuropsychopharmacology and Head of the Department of Neuropsychopharmacology and Molecular Imaging at Imperial College London. It was only the Home Office advert that also described him as Chair of the ACMD.

Prof Nutt would not, of course, be banned from accusing Jacqui Smith of “distorting and devaluing scientific research” under the ACMD code of practice , but he did not. There are no references to Ms Smith in his lecture and only 3 to the “former Home Secretary” which are factual. The reference to “distorting” and “devaluing” in the lecture clearly refers to the use of the precautionary principle.

3. You stated that the former Home Secretary – Jacqui Smith- had protested to Professor Nutt concerning the comparison in the Journal of Psychopharmacology article of the risks of ecstasy with the risks of horse-riding. You then went on: “In relation to the latest event, that behaviour has happened again. Professor Nutt is a man whom I respect, and he is very learned in his field, but, much to my regret, he published a paper without any notification to my Department, contrary to the code of practice under which he was appointed”.

This is incorrect. There was no evidence at the time or now that any of those events involved a breach of the Code of Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees or the ACMD by Prof Nutt, and this is reinforced by the fact that neither Home Secretary in either of their letters to him has made this allegation, and nor did you raise it in your recent and only meeting with Prof Nutt. Yet if this allegation were made outside the House, it would be actionable given the slur on Professor Nutt’s reputation.

4. You stated: “Our principal advisers—whether Sir David King, John Beddington, Sir Liam Donaldson or Professor Nutt—have to be clear that when they are appointed to such a crucial and privileged job—When such esteemed professionals take on such a job, they have the Government’s ear. They have a very important role in influencing the Government, and they must exercise it with care and caution. It would be quite wrong for advisers to undermine the Government as well as advise them.”

Professor Nutt is not a full-time Government or Departmental Chief Science Adviser within the civil service, but an unpaid part-time adviser paid as an academic. You confuse the two roles. Nor has Prof Nutt campaigned against Government policy. One academic paper and one lecture in one’s area of expertise do not constitute a campaign, especially as both the paper and the lecture were notified to the ACMD secretariat and beyond in the Home Office and the content discussed and approved.

5. You stated: “My final point is about what Professor Nutt did last week at King’s college; incidentally, he was opposed by Professor Robin Murray, the head of psychiatric research, who takes a completely different view.”

This is incorrect. As we saw above, the King’s College event was four months ago not last week. Professor Robin Murray was not there.

You will see from the litany of errors in your remarks that it is now essential that you return to the chamber to correct them. I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Evan Harris

Member of Parliament for Oxford West and Abingdon

Remembrance Sunday in Sandhurst

My wife and I attended a Remembrance Sunday service this morning here in Sandhurst in the Memorial Park. It was very well attended and included officers from the nearby military academy as well as soldiers including members of the Gurkhas and many others.

The part of the service that always gets me is "When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today." and this morning was no exception.

We do owe our today to them.

Idiotic article from Labour MP on CiF - brilliant comments below

I was simultaneously depressed and then immensely heartened by an article I read on Comment Is Free earlier. The Labour MP John Robertson has written an article full of prejudice and nonsensical arguments regarding drugs policy. He also unbelievably even tries to smear Professor Nutt as a bad parent.

However I then started reading through the comments below. I have gone through over 50 of them and apart from one person, the rest are all completely against Mr Richardson's argument. His article is basically ripped apart and exposed for the nonsense it is. I wonder if the government really realised how much more scrutiny their position would be put under when they decided to make it clear they reject an evidence based approach by firing Professor Nutt.

Here are a couple of examples of the comments:

You should be fighting to protect the children from the risk that horse riding presents to them. You need to send out a strong message that horse riding is dangerous. Really, it should be illegal, because that will really discourage people from doing it. Ever since the new, stronger breeds of horse have become popular then the percentage of people who state that horse riding is a primary source of recreation has increased from 3.4% to 6.2%. If these so-called scientists say that this so-called horse riding is safer than using an angle grinder that doesn't detract from the need to be presenting a strong message.

And another references a quote in the BMJ from the always excellent Professor David Colquhon:

Politicians are apt to invoke the precautionary principle when discussing illegal drug use, but it isn't quite as simple as that. The precautionary principle can result in harm to people. Perhaps the reason for including ecstasy with heroin in class A was to make people think that ecstasy was as dangerous as heroin (not true, but precautionary). But it is just as likely that people will conclude that heroin is as safe as ecstasy. That's the danger of lying, however good the motives.

It's well worth reading through the comments. Taken together they provide a comprehensive fisk of the article. Wonderful stuff.

Remarkably prescient blog post about Gordon Brown from 2004

Max Atkinson on Twitter has drawn my attention to this piece that he wrote about Gordon Brown and what a disaster he is as PM. He absolutely nails the major flaws that have led to his downfall and how the Labour Party were crazy to just allow Brown to become PM by default.

Oh, and he wrote the piece in 2004, 3 years before the handover even happened! No newspaper would publish it at the time though apparently.

Here's a snippet:

For at least two decades, viewers and listeners have had put up with the sight and sound of politicians treating interviewers’ questions as prompts to say anything they like, regardless of what they were asked, or as yet another opportunity to dodge an issue. As an exponent of how to carry this depressing art to its limits, Gordon Brown has no serious competitors among contemporary British politicians. When he was still shadow chancellor, one commentator noted that if you asked him what he had for breakfast, his most likely response would be ‘what the country needs is a prudent budget’ – and that would merely be the preamble to a lecture about his latest thoughts on the matter. I recently asked one of the BBC’s most experienced and best-known presenters what it was like to interview him. His answer was rather more outspoken than I’d expected:

‘Brown answers his own questions, never the interviewer's, and is utterly shameless. He will say what he wants to say and that's it. And he'll say it fifty times in one interview without any embarrassment at all. I've never met anyone quite like him in that respect. I once spent 40 minutes on one narrow point and still failed to get him to make the smallest concession. He's extraordinary and is never anything but evasive and verbose.’

It is one of the most prescient pieces I have ever seen (in retrospect) and it is well worth reading the whole thing.

Quote of the day

From Professor David Nutt:

If your policy is informed by an underlying moral imperative, be open about what that is, and don't try to disguise it with a veneer of pseudo-science.

BBC Question Time Live Chat - 5th November 2009 - #bbcqt

Remember, remember that it's #bbcqt day again and as usual the Live Chat on this blog will start tonight at 10:30pm.

It's in Reading tonight about 15 miles from where I live but they didn't invite me on. Still at least that means I can host the chat!

The panel will include the Welsh Secretary Peter Hain MP, the shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert MP, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair, the former MEP and broadcaster Robert Kilroy-Silk and the comedian Natalie Haynes. You might notice that there are no Lib Dems on the panel. Hmmm.

Liberal Democrat Voice also usually have an open thread for BBC Question Time which is posted just before the start of the programme.

Join us from 10:30pm below.

Poppy fascism?

Mike Ion has written a piece on LabourList today where he takes Jon Snow to task for his comments about "poppy fascism". Snow said:

I am begged to wear an Aids ribbon, a breast cancer ribbon, a Marie Curie flower...You name it, from the Red Cross to the RNIB, they send me stuff to wear to raise awareness, and I don't. And in those terms, and those terms alone, I do not and will not wear a poppy. Additionally there is a rather unpleasant breed of poppy fascism out there - 'he damned well must wear a poppy!' Well I do, in my private life, but I am not going to wear it or any other symbol on air.

Mike says he is a big fan of Jon's but thinks he is wrong on this:

What is wrong with wearing a "symbol" on air? Why not make an exception? Jon's logic appears to be: "I can't publicly promote all of the causes that I am asked to support so I will not support any of them." This is a bit like arguing that because I can't give to all of the charities that ask for my help I won't give to any charity.

The poppy is the symbol of remembrance. We do not diminish anyone by wearing it, least of all the veterans. Diminishing the debt we owe our predecessors would be accomplished by resigning ourselves to the notion that we cannot comprehend what happened. We undermine the notion of Remembrance Day by lack of reflection, not flippantly wearing, or not wearing, a poppy.

I am afraid that I do not agree with the final line of the above paragraph. We do not undermine the notion of Remembrance Day by not wearing a poppy. The wearing or not wearing of one is individual choice and there may be many reasons why people choose not to. It doesn't mean they are not respectful of the sacrifice our soldiers have made. As it happens, me and my wife always buy poppies around this time of year and wear them. We will also be attending a Remembrance Day service on Sunday. However I fully respect other people's right to decide for themselves what they want to wear and I do not judge them if they choose not to.

The problem is that what ends up happening is that people are then criticised for not wearing a poppy and pressure is put on them to do so. I saw a little snapshot of this happen during PMQs last week. I was live tweeting it and started to notice a few tweets saying things like "Harriet Harman is not wearing a poppy" and "Where is Jack Straw's poppy?". This annoyed me and I did a couple of tweets questioning this sort of "poppy tyranny" as I described it. Harman and Straw may well have had reasons for not wearing one. It was still a couple of weeks before Remembrance Day for example. Perhaps they had just forgotten. Perhaps it was on their other jacket. I don't know and frankly it is none of my business.

Everybody should be left to make their own decisions about this.

MPs would be mad to try and get a £15,000 pay rise

This morning's Telegraph reports that senior MPs are lobbying for a £15,000 pay rise for MPs. They seem to think that in the wake of the Kelly report on expenses, they should be compensated for the loss/reduction of some of their perks with a salary increase.

They clearly do not get it. The public are disgusted with the behaviour of some MPs regarding expenses and the mood is such that any attempt to try and push through a substantial salary increase like this will go down like the proverbial cup of cold sick.

There also seems to be a suggestion (from Sir Stuart Bell MP, a member of the Estimates Committee) that expenses should be merged with salary:

...so that in the longer term we can marry pay structures with allowances in such a way that the dreadful allowance system is abolished for all time.

I do think we should look at pay in relation to allowances and put ourselves in a situation where MPs will live on their pay and not have to claim any allowances at all, other than travel.

I don't really understand how this can work. Different MPs live different distances from London resulting in varying degrees of travel necessitated and also have wildly different family sizes and hence accommodation needs. How could one set salary level for all MPs work in this context?

It seems that MPs have undergone a collective nervous breakdown when it comes to this subject. They seem to be so traumatised by the expenses scandal that they are no longer looking at the subject rationally. I can how Bell's suggestion might superficially seem to get around the problem but it is very flawed and smacks of a knee-jerk reaction to try and make the nasty situation go away.

There would have been no problem if the expenses and allowances had been reasonable in the first place. Kelly' recommendations from yesterday try to address this. MPs should accept his recommendations in full (not cherry pick the bits they like) and also accept the fact that substantial pay rises are off the table.

Gordon Brown "resign" petition - A response!

In a rather unexpected move (unexpected by anyway), Gordon Brown has actually responded to the petition that called on him to resign on the No 10 petitions site and that 72,234 of us signed. His response reads:

The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all.

I think this response encapsulates everything that is wrong with our Prime Minister. It doesn't even address the issue, i.e. him resigning. I never expected him to actually resign but the least he could do is acknowledge what the petition said in the first place. It just looks like the sort of meaningless robotic nonsense he spews out at every PMQs and every time I ever see him interviewed.

The man seems to be entirely divorced from reality. As I mentioned months ago, more people have petitioned him to resign than the 24,278 who voted for him in his constituency in 2005 (the only mandate he actually has). In fact the total is nearly 3 times that number.

Still, we now only have a few months to go before we all get the chance to show him what we think. He will have no option but to respond to that petition.

My view on the Lisbon Treaty, David Cameron and the EU

So the Czech President has signed the Lisbon Treaty which means it will likely to come into force in a few weeks time. The big political question now is what David Cameron will do. Apparently he will make an announcement tomorrow or later this week depending on who you believe.

I had an interesting discussion with my fellow "House of Comments" podcaster Stuart Sharpe from off of Sharpe's Opinion on Twitter earlier on. I tweeted a couple of things asking what Cameron would do next given his previous "cast iron" commitment to a referendum. Stuart tweeted: "I don't really think it's fair to stab someone in the back and then dance on their grave, you see." and then linked to this post he did last month where he suggested that neither Labour or the Lib Dems have stuck to their pledges on a Lisbon referendum. He therefore thinks it is unfair for members of those parties to now use the Lisbon Treaty as a stick with which to beat the Tories.

I can see his point and if I was a Tory and/or Eurosceptic I would be pretty annoyed about this too. In fact I am annoyed about what Labour and my own party have done over this issue but my thinking on it is a bit too involved for the 140 characters that Twitter allows. I did try and outline it in a series of tweets but I will have a proper go here.

Firstly, I am in favour of us having strong ties with Europe. I think it is good for us and makes us stronger as a nation. I am not hugely wedded to the EU as it is constituted at the moment not least because of the lack of accountability of the European Commission. I don't like the way the commissioners are all appointed and it is often seen as a reward or sop for domestic politicians of the various member states. I think it would be much better if it was more democratically accountable. I also think that the fact the accounts have not been signed off is very bad and gives the impression of corruption even if this isn't warranted. I really don't understand why this has not been addressed more fully. However I also think that the arguments above can be and are overplayed by opponents of the EU. The Council of Ministers which consists of ministers from each country is democratic in so far as the ministers are elected in their respective countries. MEPs are also elected and although I don't like the specific proportional system used for this in the UK, it is better than First Past the Post and they are representative.

As for the Lisbon Treaty and how things have played out with that in the last year or two I have a few points:

I think that the EU hugely over complicates these treaties and makes it difficult for non-technocrats to understand them. I certainly haven't the time or inclination to wade through it. I don't really understand why they can't keep it simple. Something like the US constitution is clear, concise and simple enough to be understood by schoolchildren - indeed it is taught to them in schools. Does anyone seriously think that say the Maastricht Treaty or Lisbon could be taught in a similar way?

Unfortunately, that is not how these things are done in Europe (perhaps more learned people than me could explain why in the comments) so because it is so complicated, it was not a good idea to pledge a referendum. How many people would read and fully understand it before voting? That is where parliament should earn its money by debating the treaty and voting on it.

However the Lib Dems and Labour did pledge a referendum and because I think parties should honour their pledges, we should not have gone back on this. I know both parties had their arguments: "It's no longer a constitution" in the case of Labour, "The real question is in or out" in the case of the Lib Dems but to most people it seems like a reneging on pre-election promises. I find it very hard to argue against that.

Now that we have done though, I actually think our current policy is more sensible than our original one. The ongoing saga of Europe needs to be settled. The last referendum was 35 years ago and on a completely different question.

I genuinely think that a referendum on in/out would be close and may go "out". I would not want to see this outcome but I am a democrat and we need to allow the public to make up their minds on this in order to settle this issue at least for the next political generation.

As for David Cameron, well nobody forced him to make a "cast-iron" pledge in The Sun about a referendum on Lisbon with no caveats. That was his decision and so if he now goes back on that he is going to have to expect some flak, not least from many of his own party members for whom this is a vital issue and who may well feel betrayed.

Sara Bedford takes A. N. Wilson apart

Following Melanie Phillips' ode to anti-scientific nonsense (that I blogged about here) in The Daily Mail yesterday there are two more pieces from that same publication that I have come across today. One by A. N. Wilson who seems to be making a fetish out of misrepresenting the scientific process (and also invoking Godwin's Law along the way for good measure) and another by Peter Hitchens in a similar vein. The Professor Nutt sacking seems to be bringing them out in droves.

I started to wonder if I was going to feel compelled to spend more time today rebutting this stuff but Sara Bedford has saved me having to do anything at all about the Wilson piece. She's done a fantastic and detailed point by point rebuttal of his piece here. It's well worth reading and I am happy to report she has done a better job than I could have!

Now I just need to find one for Hitchens' piece and I will be happy again....

PS: I am trying to minimise my links to The Daily Mail hence the lack of them but I am sure you can find the pieces yourself if you wish.

House of Comments podcast - Episode 3

The latest "House of Comments" podcast with myself and Stuart Sharpe of the Sharpe's Opinion political blog is now live. The website for the podcasts is here and the third episode which we recorded on Sunday is available to download via this page here (raw mp3 file here if you prefer). You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here.

The format as usual is to invite one or two other political bloggers each week and discuss a few of the stories that are making waves in the blogosphere.

This week, we were joined by Mathew Hulbert of NetNewsDaily, and Thomas Byrne of Byrne Tofferings. We discussed (inevitably!) Professor Nutt's sacking, Conservative bloggers on Climate Change, three strikes for file sharers and the EU council President.

Yesterday I was proud to be a Lib Dem

Sometimes I disagree with things that MPs and other representatives of my party say. Yesterday's debate in parliament about the dismissal of Professor Nutt from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was not one of those occasions.

Instead as each Lib Dem MP popped up to make their contribution I found myself feeling more and more proud. Alan Johnson the Home Secretary, Chris Grayling his shadow and most of the back-bench Labour and Conservative MPs who contributed were in agreement that Professor Nutt had to go and that the Home Secretary had done the right thing.

Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman led the way by pointing out that the government was as risk of recruiting an "army of nodding yes-men" as the logical conclusion of the latest debacle and suggesting ministers were being ludicrously thin-skinned. Evan Harris asked a very important question about the independence of the advice. For his trouble, Alan Johnson suggested that "A calmer, more rational view, ... may be impossible" from Mr Harris but instead of getting angry about that, Evan simply looked at the Home Secretary expressionless, treating the comment with the contempt it deserves. I have seen few MPs as rational as Evan Harris. Even Phil Willis with whom I have not always found myself in agreement questioned whether Mr Johnson has consulted with the government's chief scientific adviser to which the answer was no. As Mr Willis pointed out later on any notion of joined up government is now out of the window with each department retreating into its silo.

Even when Chris Huhne was rebuked by the Speaker for being a bit too enthusiastic ("uncharacteristically so" Mr Bercow suggested) I thought that was positive. Mr Johnson was talking absolute rubbish at some points and I am glad to see someone was getting annoyed about it!

The Conservative's response to this debacle has been woeful. They are clearly going to be even worse than Labour on the issue of drugs if they get into power next year. It is clear that we are the only major party seriously willing to look at and listen to the scientific evidence without going off on populist rants which utterly refuse to engage with the debate.

You only have to look at this post yesterday from Tory Bear to see how frustrated some in other parties are about this unwillingness. The only person he found himself in agreement with was Chris Huhne.

Yesterday was a good day to be a Lib Dem.

I give Melanie Phillips a good fisking

On Left Foot Forward.

It's in response to her article today in The Daily Mail entitled "Fatuous, dangerous, utterly irresponsible - the Nutty professor who's distorting the truth about drugs". I'm not linking to it again, the LFF post has a link to it.

After all the nonsense she's written about MMR over the years, you think she'd be a bit more circumspect about blundering into scientific areas like this....

Does Chris Huhne read this blog?

I watched the debate in the Commons earlier today where Alan Johnson attempted to defend his decision to sack Professor David Nutt from his position as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs last week.

One thing that particularly caught my attention was Chris Huhne's description of Chris Grayling, the shadow Home Secretary as Alan Johnson's "mini-me", the exact description I used in a post about him on Saturday.

It made me wonder if Chris Huhne reads this blog....

Downing Street petition site rejects "Sack Alan Johnson" petition

Kalvis Jansons, the man who brought you the Gordon Brown "resign" petition has contacted me to inform he that he has tried to submit another petition calling on the PM to "sack the Home Secretary" in the wake of his deeply unpopular decision to himself sack Professor David Nutt from the ACMD.

The Downing Street petition site has rejected it. Its reasoning for this is that it is "similar to or overlaps with an existing petition" and cites this as the one it overlaps with. However all that one calls on the PM to do is to reinstate Professor Nutt. That is a completely different thing.

What's the point in even having a Downing Street petition site if legitimate petitions like this are going to be rejected for spurious reasons?

Alan Johnson's leadership chances are now finished

He always claimed that he didn't want it and wasn't up to it. Maybe we should have listened to him more keenly as the debacle of the last few days has shown Alan Johnson in a very poor light.

He sacked the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Professor David Nutt on Friday which then garnered a lot of negative coverage. Professor Nutt did not go quietly and has appeared on the media numerous times and is also using the opportunity to get his message across with articles like this in The Times today about drugs harm. On top of that, more ACMD members have resigned over the weekend and more look set to this week. They have an annual meeting next week and there is speculation that any remaining at that point might resign en masse. There are also rumours that other government scientific advisers outside of the ACMD are very unhappy. The story is still top on the BBC News site after 3 days.

In addition to all of this, Alan Johnson appeared on Sky News yesterday morning and under fairly mild questioning from Adam Boulton he became visibly angry. His face was red and he was shouting and using very confrontation language. If you missed it you can judge for yourself on the embedded clip at the bottom of this post.

I also think it is quite telling that the audience on Radio 4's Any Question on Friday (still available here until Saturday on iPlayer) when asked by Jonathan Dimbleby whether they agreed with Johnson's decision did not have a single person raise their hand. I know it's possibly not a representative sample but it is indicative I think of a strong feeling across the country against what he has done. Quite a feat for someone who was supposed to have the common touch.

I think any ambitions Mr Johnson might have privately harboured about leading his party and the country at some point have now been sunk. The saddest thing is that this is a mess entirely his own making.

Mike Smithson on Political Betting also thinks this is the end of the road for AJ4PM.

Dr Les King resigns from ACMD in support of Professor Nutt

It has just been reported that Dr Les King has resigned from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in support of Professor David Nutt who was sacked by Alan Johnson on Friday.

Dr King, who is well respected in this field and was previously head of the Drugs Intelligence Unit in the Forensic Science Service said:

There is a very strong feeling among the council's members.

I'm not going to say just how many I think might resign but there is an extremely angry feeling among most council members.

Amongst the scientists, I think a number will resign. It doesn't need the whole council to resign for the thing to stop working.

It will be interesting to see how many more members of the ACMD do the same in the coming days. The government has made it clear that they are not interested in their evidence so it would seem the logical thing to do.

Are MPs paid enough?

MPs are currently paid £64,766.

The current median average salary in the UK is £25,123.

So MPs earn more than 2.5 times the average salary. I know that they are expected to live in and commute between two separate places but they are given an allowance to cover the cost of the second home (if they live far enough away from Westminster) and also given expenses to cover the cost of travel between the two places. I also know that there are likely to be some changes to the regime around this but I am sure that MPs will still have an allowance for travel and accommodation that will be adequate.

There seem to be a number of people who think that MPs are actually underpaid and should earn more. Perhaps £100,000 or more from what I have read.

I am afraid I completely disagree. I know that some MPs (and prospective MPs) could earn more in their former professions but frankly, becoming an MP is about far more than the money. For someone from an average background the salary would be a huge increase. For those from more wealthy backgrounds it may be a salary cut. That's just the way it is.

There are all sorts of perks associated with become an MP which those seeking to enter parliament are well aware of and are outside of any financial incentive. Here are a few I thought of earlier (I am sure there are lots more):

• Name in "Who's Who" for life (Matthew Parris cites this as one of the best things about becoming an MP!)
• Getting on TV and radio frequently
• Ability to affect legislation
• Being a VIP in your constituency
• Having the ear of the most powerful people in the country
• Parliamentary privilege
• Great springboard to further opportunities post parliament

MPs are paid more than enough in my view. If someone is deterred from entering parliament because 2.5x the median average salary is not enough for them then they are probably not right to become an MP in the first place.

Mark Reckons - October 2009 STATPORN

In October I had 9,650 Pageviews from 7,675 Visits and a total of 4,891 Absolute Unique Visitors.

My top 5 blog posts were:

1) BBC Question Time Live Chat - 22nd October 2009 - #bbcqt (The infamous Nick Griffin one had nearly 3 times as many attendees to the chat as I normally get and lots of people watching it on replay)

2) Has Bracknell sent a message about local candidates in primaries?

3) Nadine Dorries did not get to parliament on the same basis as everyone else

4) Is Paxman/Boris the new Frost/Nixon?

5) Jan Moir and The Daily Mail vs Twitter and the Blogosphere

Top 5 referring sites were:

1) Lib Dem Blogs

2) Twitter.com

3) Lib Dem Voice

4) Bracknell Blog

5) Charlotte Gore Blog

2,397 visits came from search engines and the top 5 search terms were:

1) mark reckons (206)

2) david nutt (77)

3) paxman boris (64)

4) elizabeth truss (60)

5) jan moir daily mail (49)