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I have just seen the simply quite beautiful " Love and Monsters" from Dr Who ( which could easierly have been called every Geek is an Island). It reminded me on many levels of Jose Chung's from Outer Space arguabley the greatest ever X Files episode (although I would argue for Clyde Bruckmans finale repose). " Love and Monsters" deals with myth, obsession and lonliness. There is a danger that by spoofing obsessive fans you begin to talk only to obessive fans who will pick up on the reference fest that the script offered. However the kids would have been ...

It was one of the ironies of the end of the original run of Doctor Who in 1989 that the final serial should be called Survival. Watching the first couple of episodes this evening, I couldn’t help reading into it similarities with the new series that began 16 years on. Survival has that very down-to-earth feeling [...]

(hey, that's assymetric warfare, y'know), the one percent doctrine, getting cervical cancer is better than funding condoms and Bee Policy gives the Christian right a thorough beasting over their attitude to women's sexuality and sexual health, and includes a biology textbook diagram of the female reproductive organs to scare said right wingers away. We're all going to hell in an SUV bloghowls

Dave Hill has a good post on Comment is Free about the frenzy for tabloid justice. What he didn't mention was the extent to which this is bipartisan. At PMQs this week Cameron and Blair were competing to show who was better at listening to the redtops, rather than to voters. (Regular readers may remember that nothing in politics offends me more than this). Doing what the red tops want on judges and on sentencing is another of things Cameron and Blair have in common (like Iraq, the Education Bill etc). None of this means that I want Sweeney ...

When the Tories were in power they pursued a constant campaign against the BBC. The purpose was to intimidate the broadcaster into giving them more favourable coverage, to cause BBC management to question every critical piece on the Government and pull their punches and to try and get an easier ride for Ministers on current affairs programmes. Now we have a Labour MP accusing BBC Wales of bias in favour of Plaid Cymru just under 11 months from a Welsh General Election. His comments apparently reflect the views of many Labour AMs, who are said to believe that they ...

Labour are particularly sensitive about the fate of their losing candidate in the Blaenau Gwent constituency in last year's General Election. Having imposed Maggie Jones on the Blaenau Gwent Labour Party through an all-woman shortlist, they saw the constituency turn independent by 9,000 votes. Now with only days to go to a by-election that could well give them back the seat the last thing they need is Maggie Jones reappearing on the scene wearing ermine. As a result it has now been announced that she will not be introduced to the House of Lords until after next ...

Although one might think that they have more important things to be worrying about, it seems that the New Labour instincts are still functioning: if in doubt, start passing some new laws! The latest target for the legislative scattergun is the "lad's mag", which Labour MP Claire Curtis-Thomas (click the link and take a look at that voting record) has decided must be banished to the top shelf by force of law. Never mind that there is already a voluntary code regulating this matter, and that Trading Standards officers have the power to reprimand newsagents who disobey it; in ...

I've just been to Sainsbury's to buy some wine. I've been saving up my Nectar points for some years now, and after cashing some in at Warwick Castle, I decided to spend some on wine. I've selected 12 random bottles, varying in cost from £3.99 to £7.49 (reduced from £10.99) coming to a total of £61.15. I plan to drink them with Heather over the coming months (we're not real big drinkers) and hopeful they will all be nice.

This morning's Western Mail has more on Labour's gaffe on motorbike scrambling and tackling local yobs. It now transpires that the working relationship between police and council in Blaenau Gwent is in a "state of collapse" leading us all to the obvious question of 'if the leader of the Council and Labour Assembly candidate is so concerned then why has he not done something about it before?' The newspaper says that the police are accusing the council, led by Labour candidate John Hopkins, of ducking its legal duty to tackle crime and disorder: The revelation emerged in copies ...

Today's House Points from Liberal Democrat News. You can find a fuller extract from Roger Scruton's memoirs on my anthology blog Serendib. Bad News Child pornography. Binge drinking. Under-age drinking. Paedophiles. Rape. Knives. Sexual assault. That was the bill of fare on Monday. If you believed everything you heard in the Commons, you would be sure Britain is going to hell in a handcart – or to the dogs at very least. Fortunately, life is never as black as it’s painted at home office questions. It’s not just that the British Crime Survey shows the number of offences ...

Graffiti artist, Banksy, has been at it again - this time painting overnight an 'interrupted tryst' 10 metres up a council office wall in Bristol. Having seen the picture of it in today's thegrauniad, left, I think it looks abso-bloody-lutely fantastic. Just as good, the Council has promised the issue of whether this work of art stays or goes will be decided by a vote among local residents. In

Since I haven't posted in a while, here's this quickie, courtesy of Iain Dale, about our first political memories. Well, born in '67, I do remember alternately by season frozen and rancid milk in third pint (returnable) bottles. Does that count? It wasn't political at the time! I do remember our first winter in Aberdeen freezing in a rented farmhouse and having to use a mangle to wring out the washing when there was no electricity! We lived in Africa for a couple of spells. I remember when I was three, living in southern Tanzania, being ...

During the Dunfermline by-election, the Tories put out a leaflet quoting David Cameron saying: "Issues that once divided Conservatives from Liberal Democrats are now issues where we both agree. Our attitude to devolution and the localisation of power. Iraq." In other words, he was saying that the Tories now accepted it was right to oppose the Iraq war, which at the time they had supported. Now we learn that in an interview with Jonathan Ross, to be broadcast tonight, Cameron backs the war. The BBC reports:Cameron backs Blair on Iraq war Conservative leader David Cameron has ...

That’s the question spreading its way through teh internets this afternoon. Bob Neill, already employed in various jobs and seeking to become Tory MP for Bromley & Chislehurst, is a board member of the North East London Strategic Health Authority (and you’re right, Bromley isn’t in North East London - well spotted). According the Part III of [...]

Story as carried by recessmonkey.com Tory HQ are in disarray this weekend as it emerges that Bromley By-Election candidate Bob Neill is invalid to take a seat in Parliament and has made a false declaration on his nomination form. Bob Neill’s ban from parliament stems from his membership of the North East London Strategic Health Authority, a position that explicitly prevents him standing for Parliament under the House of Commons Disqualification Act of 1975. While Bob could bully his way though the ban by resigning after polling day if he is elected, this is a blatant ...

Tory candidates nomination may have been invalid According to Recess Monkey, the Conservative candidate in Bromley actually wasn't able to stand after all. I shall await further developments with interest, as the priest said to the choirboy. One thing's for sure though - it's another blow for Bob Neill. Surely as a lawyer he knows to read all the small print on the forms?

I’m one of those people who thought, the minute they heard about the Bromley by-election, that it was worth firing up a browser, logging into Betfair and punting a wodge of Dunfermline profits on the result. It was long odds at the time, what with the Lib Dems being in third place and the [...]

The Territorial Army has been in the news in the last couple of years. A number of part-time volunteers suddenly found themselves posted to Iraq where they carried out the same duties as their full-time counterparts. Apparently they are paid the same salary as they would be receiving at home, and their employers are covered for any additional costs in recruiting temporary replacements. Their...

The Recess Monkey blog has information that suggests that Bob Neill’s candidacy may not be valid, this is potentially very serious for the Conservative candidate in the by-election. It sounds on the face of it like he’s pretty much signed a false declaration.

Recess Monkey are reporting that the Conervative candidate for the Bromley By-Election, Bob Neill has been invalidated after making a false statement on his nomination paper. The site reads: Bob Neill’s ban from parliament stems from his membership of the...

Gordon Brown may be about the become part of a nucleur family when he wife delivers a second child, we all hope safely again this time. But his opther recent nucleur comments on a replacement for Trident are going to take a bit of explaining. Nick Robinson the BBC's political editor is on the ball today. He has found out that one Labour backbench rebel in 1984 described Britain's nucleur

In preparation for the forthcoming scenes to be shot at Redcar, WorkingTitle Films Special effects Department, are carrying out black smoke andash tests on the beach between the Cinema and Coatham Enclosure fromlunchtime onwardsTuesday 27th June.

The thing about being an aspiring politician is that one pays very close attention to the subtle detail hidden behind what politicians say or do. So, we come to Charles Kennedy's intriguing appearance on Question Time last night. Accidents are...

Just four months ago David Cameron said: "Issues that once divided Conservatives from Liberal Democrats are now issues where we both agree. Our attitude to devolution and the localisation of power. Iraq." Now on Jonathan Ross' couch he is reported thus in a BBC article headed Cameron backs Blair on Iraq war : "Conservative leader David Cameron has said he still believes going to war with Iraq

{David Cameron} Who could forget the groundbreaking move made by David Cameron, during the Dunfermline by-election, when he dramatically repositioned the 'liberal' Conservative party against the war in Iraq? He said, in a letter to constituents: ‘Issues that once divided Conservatives from Liberal Democrats are now issues where we both agree. Our attitude to devolution and localisation of power. Iraq. The environment. I'm a liberal Conservative.’ At the time, the Lib Dems were leaderless and Cameron was fishing for defectors. The Lib Dem poll ratings were plummeting and Cameron sensed an opportunity. Then ...

This is it - the biggest holiday of the year. Or it would be if we had kept up the old Midsummer celebrations instead of allowing the Puritans to suppress it during the reformation. In the Baltics it is still a big deal - bonfires at midnight on June 23/24, all-night parties, dancing and feasting. A much better time to have a bank holiday than dreary May Day and not tangled up with the local elections either. Estonia has the whole week off. Not suggesting anything so radical but I have half a mind to campaign in ...

another painful party upheaval: the Thorpe trial. Especially that parents of classmates took to hiding newspapers and censoring TV news to try to stop the asking of hard to answer questions.

Watch out for Friday Night with Jonathan Ross tonight. You will hear David William Donald Cameron say that Blair was right to go to war in Iraq and said that those who had supported military action should 'see it through'. Is this the same David Cameron who was quoted on an election leaflet earlier this year in Dunfermline saying?: "Issues that once divided Conservatives from Liberal Democrats

Well, you work it out.

A group of drama students at Kingston University have been touring round the local schools with a play aimed at 7 and 8 year olds. The theme is personal safety and is based on the Red Ridinghood story. Yesterday they were celebrating the fact that they had given 23 performances, reaching 2000 children. So they put it on once more, with an audience from St John's School, at the...

The ACLU has produced a flash animation illustrating the possibilities of a national ID Card and Identity Register system: http://aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf Whilst you might say this is an extreme example, think about it for a while, and wouldn't pressure groups of those who are convinced they know the best for us would love to do things like this. The government assures us that use of the

I have just become a shareholder in Fordhall Farm in Shropshire. Some of you may have seen a report on the West Midlands regional news the other day, the Farm owned by Charlotte and Ben Hollins is in danger of being closed so the land can be developed. The farm is one of the earliest Organic Farms in the country and was farmed by Charlotte and Ben's father Arthur until his death.

Two new emails appeared in my inbox yesterday, both variations on the 419 scams I last discussed here. The comments on my last entry on this revealed that, to my astonishment, people have fallen for these scams before, and they've even been litigated (as recently as 2005)! This is probably the most innovative of the two I received: FROM: ROBERT BASIL ROBERT -:DEAREST ONE I am Barrister Robert

Charles Kennedy made a return to television last night on Question Time and he was excellent. This isn't his first foray into politics since stepping down as Leader of the Liberal Democrats, he was involved in the successful by-election in Dunfermline and West Fife and has been at a number of other events recently too.

NHS Trust Finances Q:To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much each NHS trust, including foundation trusts, owed to other NHS bodies in the final period of the financial year 2005-06 broken down by NHS body; and how much was owed by each strategic health authority to each NHS trust.(John Hemming) A:The audited information for national health service trusts, primary care trusts and

One of the more interesting aspects of the current de rigeur meme splattering the interweb - what’s your first political memory? - is finding out how old various bloggers are. Such is the anonymous timelessness of the digital age. As a silver jubilee baby, born in ’77, the first news story to make an impression on me was the 1981 marriage of Charles and Diana - mainly because my parents bought a

According to the Scottish Tories website their candidate for Linlithgow next May is D Cameron. Fortunately for the electors of Witney it is not their MP and leader of the Tories in Westminster but Donald Cameron, however sharing two names with the party leader might be one way of acheiving recognition in the fight to come back from slipping to fourth in last May's General Election, though I doubt

So, the USA has failed to progress in the World Cup avoiding any possibility of a football-related foreign relations crisis.  This also means I have lost in the Sport Relief sweepstake at work which is a small price to play for world peace. Am now in a quandary for the next England match as Ecuador is [...]

Not the last one, the one before the one before the one before the one before the one before that (if we’re counting Howard’s unchallenged ascension). The meme du jour is earliest political memories. I’ve searched my brain through the haze that is the 1980s and while I may have been aware of the fall of [...]

{Thatcher Resigning} This meme is going around the blogs at the moment. My earliest political memory is at the age of 9 being informed that Margaret Thatcher had thrown in the towel and resigned as Prime Minister. I then proceeded to run around the school field in celebration.

In the closing scenes of the movie the Terminator, a cyborg, blown up in a petrol tanker fire, shot several hundred times and in receipt of some self-inflicted surgery that most British audiences believe is typical of the rough-end of the US healthcare system, walks through the flames and returns to pursue his target... It is that spirit that Charles Kennedy appears to be dropping hints about a return to the top job in the Liberal Democrats. Personally I don't buy it, Kennedy hated being leader of the party by all accounts, and although his anger at the ...

I thought Charlie-boy did very well on Question Time last night. The audience certainly responded to him very warmly. He was particularly effective on Iraq, especially when he was correcting Germaine Greer, a LibDem supporter, who was bizarrely under the impression that we did not oppose the Iraq invasion strongly. He replied: "I stood up and opposed the war in front of one million people in Hyde Park - isn't that strong enough?" That got a big round of applause. Excellent stuff. By the way, Alan Johnson did extremely well. He is very articulate, as well as having ...

Iain Dale (born 1962) says that his earliest political memory is the power cuts and 3-day week in 1974. I was born a bit later (1964) and certainly remember that: it seemed a great hoot - sitting in candlelight in the kitchen at home with my dad. But I have an earlier memory of being [...]

For some this picture may represent the hell of having to watch an Assembly Plenary session from the public gallery. For others however, it is a classic image from some of the more difficult operas, a part of Wagner's Ring Cycle. Conservative AM, David Melding is a very cultured sort of fellow and enjoys displaying his encyclopedic knowledge and large cultural hinterland in the chamber. In doing so he often enlivens the sessions. Thus on Wednesday he posed a very tricky question to the Culture Minister: Q5 David Melding: What measures are in place to support the development ...

I remember watching Play School but my mother making me switch it off because some thing called " History" was being made on the other side. I watched this odd woman in a blue dress walking through a black door. I was so frustrated that I burst into Tears. Which was quite precient as it turned out.

Iain Dale has started a meme which has the virtue of being a lot less annoying than most of the others that periodically do the rounds on the blogosphere. My earliest political memory (born: 1974) was Thatcher going to 10 Downing Street after the 1979 General Election. However, my brain has cross-referenced it with the [...]