Name of the Week
Thanks to Free Radical I now know that the chair of the youth wing of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland is called Ian Parsley. Sunday 6th August 2006
11:19 pm
Thanks to Free Radical I now know that the chair of the youth wing of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland is called Ian Parsley. 10:52 pm
Extremists on the march
We went away this weekend to get away from politics, however ended up in the centre of Brussels during an anti-war march, watching around 7,500 protesters walk by. By recent anti-war standards this was a small march. It was also a reminder why the public stay away from these things. Some parts of the march seemed to be dominated by some pretty dubious elements from the extreme left amongst more genuine Lebanese ex-pats, peace campaigners and sympathisers. Groups for example chanting pro-Hezbollah slogans and carrying some fairly ignorant and digusting artifacts, some of which are below. Regular ... 10:27 pm
Hoodies - Belgian-style
A weekend in Belgium for us, Helen's birthday. The Belgians don't have hoodies, but they do have these rather unusual statues... perfect gifts for any aspiring A-list Tory to send to David Cameron... give the man something safe to hug. Certainly cheaper than the £40k it apparently costs the Tories to get selected for Parliament. Kim Humphries, take note. The punishments they do have for their wayward youths do seem however to be a little cruel and unusual. Expect to see this in Labour's next Criminal Justice bill. 10:23 pm
What We Reveal and To Whom
I was interested in this story in the Sunday Times that the secret services are trawling sites like Friends Reunited in their battle against terrorism. This follows a look at sites like MySpace, Friendster and Bebo that are now used by over 60% of teenagers. On the one hand, we have concerns about privacy, identity management [...] 10:19 pm
When Jack met Condi
Remember the Jack Straw/Condoleezza Rice love-in when she visited Blackburn? It may have done for the foreign secretary's career. According to the Mail on Sunday (so it must be true): A US source told The Mail on Sunday: "Mr Straw's views did not find favour in the White House and its concerns were passed on to the British Government." It was revealed last week by a senior aide to media mogul Rupert Murdoch that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was shocked to learn of the influence of Muslims in Mr Straw's constituency when she visited Blackburn with him ... 8:17 pm
Manufactured Outrage (Subtitles not available)
A further attempt by the SNP to distance themselves from the (admittedly obvious) charge of parochialism comes in the form of an attack on the BBC for using subtitles in a programme about North-East fishermen. Apparently Stewart Stevenson (MSP for Banff Buchan) feels his constituents have been insulted by the suggestion that some viewers might find the Doric a little hard to understand. "The 8:14 pm
Parking plans - and blog comments
No - I 'm not quite 'out of office' yet - but on my way. Before I go, just thought I would give you the latest update on the 'Stop & Shop' and CPZ proposals and consultations. My colleague, Cllr Martin Newton who is the LibDem spokesperson for Traffic and Transport on the Council has put together this latest info: Stop and Shop: The consultations for Muswell Hill and Crouch End finished on 27th 8:03 pm
A-thought
Far too busy to blog at the moment, but I’ve been meaning to write this: If you have already got a thing called an “A-list” and then you write another list, isn’t that list - by definition - a B-list? Or perhaps the original list has been upgraded to the “A*-list”? It just slightly bugs me, you [...] 6:52 pm
SSP update
Latest from the SSP civil war here, rather amusingly entitled 'What is to be Done?' Also worth checking out is the recent press release from the United Left faction. In my opinion, their version of events sounds pretty realistic, if you can manage to ignore the comedy 'class war' stuff. Kevin Williamson makes for interesting reading along similar lines. (Check out the comments at the bottom - I think the comrades are begining to feel the pressure. Warning - not for the linguistically faint-hearted). I think the following sums up an otherwise mysterious verdict bluntly enough: Folk are reading far ... 4:31 pm
Baghdad Calling
Yet another memorable post yesterday from Baghdad Burning. In particular : For me, June marked the first month I don’t dare leave the house without a hijab, or headscarf. I don’t wear a hijab usually, but it’s no longer possible to drive around Baghdad without one. It’s just not a good idea. (Take note that when I say ‘drive’ I actually mean ‘sit in the back seat of the car’- I haven’t driven for 4:31 pm
Sunday reading
I refer the hon. Gentleman to: Tim Worstall's BritBlog Roundup;The First Post's review of the Sunday papers. 4:23 pm
Woah, I'm going to Machynlleth
Peter Black reports exciting news: Lembit Öpik has set up his own airline. 4:19 pm
The Options
Today's Doonesbury does a good job of dissecting how the Bush White House likes to frame arguments: (click image for full size version) Disclaimer: Any similarities with Blair's style are entirely coincidental. For example, we shouldn't be looking at what he said in his news conference earlier this week as a basis for saying he uses this flawed technique, especially when he says: "One vision of 4:15 pm
A list: Cameron in ridiculous trouble.
The Pendennis column in the Observer has a great A-list story. You will remember the fuss when the first list came out full of friends of Dave and minor celebrities and missing out long-serving, hard-working Tories? Well apparently the jewel in the Cameron crown is now putting it about that this was just a publicity stunt. Here's the piece: I was told yesterday in no uncertain terms that the most controversial face on the menu of trendy Tories, Adam Rickitt, a former Coronation Street actor and gay pin-up, is not really a prospective runner at all. Having failed to be ... 3:41 pm
Police state
If this story is true and Gordon Brown is proposing to share data from a national identity register with businesses then we really are heading for a surveillance state. It is bad enough that the state is being given the power to track our every movement and demand proof of our existence, without offering the same rights to the highest bidder. This proposal may well help to pay for ID card technology but it will mitigate against wide acceptance of the scheme. Indeed, I suspect that even the dwindling band of people who still believe that ID cards have ... 
3:27 pm
Flying Air Lembit
I had the rather surreal experience last night of being asked by Lembit Öpik to refer to him on my blog. Normally, he hates it when he gets a mention here. Lembit has launched a new venture, an airline. Details can be found here. There is not a lot else I can add to this news. 3:21 pm
Banquo at the feast
So what exactly was this Labour balloon doing at the wedding party of Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Leader, Mike German? Apparently, it was a joke by the balloon supplier. When Mike and Veronica went to put their order in he told them that he had traditionally always supplied the balloons for Labour's Blaenau Gwent campaigns. However, this year Labour went to a different supplier, who was able to quote a lower price, and then they lost the by-elections. The balloon vendor obviously has a good appreciation of irony as well a strong sense of poetic justice. 2:30 pm
I bottled out!
I did have good intentions. Please believe me , I did, honestly! I tell you how my intentions were good, I even ironed the t shirt. But in the end I just bottled out and didn't go to the gym. 5:00 am
Killing and War
Tom Hamilton has a very incisive post on on the moral responsbility for killing in war [extract]: If Hezbollah wants Lebanese civilians to die - if it's easier for them to spread an anti-Israel message if they can show pictures of children's corpses - then placing military targets in built-up areas to draw Israeli fire is a sensible move. Again, though, it only works - you only get pictures and stories of dead civilians to use to demonstrate the evils of Israel - if you're right that your opponents will not be deterred by human shields. And again, that relies ... 4:58 am
From Beyong the Grave...
...Robin Cook speaks, via David Clark and in the Guardian. Worringly, this is how some religions start. Gordon Brown though will be pleased to find out that Cook is backing him to be leader. No doubt it will be water off a duck's back for Tony Blair to find out that even the dead want him to quit soon. On the other the other hand, I think that invoking the imprimatur of your deceased former boss to support your own agenda to be in pretty poor taste. 2:32 am
The only holiday Blair deserves...
...is at Her Majesty's Pleasure. Was this the sort of democracy you envisaged when you talked about regime change: Gays flee Iraq as Shia death squads find a new target. And apparently they're not having such an easy time being granted asylum because the Home Office doesn't want to give the impression that Iraq is not what you said it would be. Still, I suppose they could always try their luck in Zimbabwe, since that's now "safe". History will be your judge. Oh yes. History. If anyone's still alive and free enough to write ... 2:07 am
Jock's alternative ID cards
The Observer today reports that Gordon Brown is already taking advice on how to expand ID cards into the private sector, such as plans to let shops share ID card data. We predicted it wouldn't take long to extend ID cards into every area of our lives, but I want to confess that when we had our Civil Liberties policy working party, on which I served, if not very well, I did put forward a sort of alternative idea for ID cards. Only mine weren't fascist-state centered things keeping a track of our every movement. No, mine ... 1:47 am
Was this why Chai Patel was put up for a peerage?
It seems according to Sunday's Independent that his Priory clinics have been treating 800 British troops who served in Iraq and are suffering from psychiatric illnesses. Now, don't get me wrong, I think our treatment of British "vets" is scandalous compared with the value some other nations put on looking after those who have put their lives on the line for their country and I am sure that many more probably deserve Priory type standards of assistance. But if this was Haliburton and America we'd be screaming blue murder about contracts for favoured insiders. Of course the alternative, properly ... 1:33 am
The last of the well-intentioned amateurs
Taxi for Mr Valladares! Taxi for Mr Valladares! I have to admit that my sense, after yesterday's briefing session for Returning Officers on the impact of the new Selection Rules, is that we're all going to have to become a lot more professional in order to function successfully in our somewhat expanded role. Don't get me wrong, this is a thoroughly good thing. Unfortunately, as most of my best 
