Top News and Blog Stories – 20th February
Nationwide
Blears tells cabinet ‘get a grip’
Tests blamed for blighting children’s lives
The march of the atheist movement
Pupils told to think like a suicide bomber
Homeowners will get £500m in mortgage aid
International
U.S. Tries a Trillion-Dollar Key for Locked Lending
Obama’s drive-by diplomacy
Signs of US protectionism worrying
Saab seeks bankruptcy protection in battle for survival
Christopher Hitchens duffed up in Beirut
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Sarah Ismail
Angela Saini: On journalism’s stars of the future. Friday Fun 1.
Blood and Treasure: Domestic violence with a difference.
Indigo Jo: Reviews last Monday’s Panorama.
MediaWatchWatch: Jacqui Smith is at it again.
Natalie Bennett: Has been getting to grips with France.
New Statesman: Observations on e-books. Friday Fun 2.
Stumbling and Mumbling: Has gone mathematical.
Why do our politicians continue to mislead us about the recession?
I stopped and blinked when I saw this headline on The Guardian’s site:
Bank bail-out ‘could send national debt soaring by £1.5 trillion’ (link)
Okay, upon reading the article it’s clear that the “soaring” has much to do with the ONS (the Office for National Statistics) reclassifying banks, that have been “recapitalised” with public funds, as public institutions (i.e. taking on the bank’s liabilities*). Therefore, we learn, that debt may exceed 150% of national income.
This is frightening. continue reading… »
Zen and the Abolition of Court Fees
As a very small number of people know, I’ve been working on something (a story) that came in, last week, out of the blue and which is important enough to require putting pretty much everything else to one side until its completed. Much as I hate to be cryptic about such things, that’s as much as I can say openly at the moment. The people who know what I’ve been working on know why and everything else is on a ‘need to know’ basis, but it explain both why one or two things that should have happened haven’t materialise as yet (and a broken laptop which used to be my development system hasn’t helped matters either) and why, as much from sleep deprivation as anything else, I want to offer up this slightly zen-like observation.
There is a sense in which political blogging is like a garden. continue reading… »
Sorry, but Abu Qatada deserves the compo
‘PREACHER of hate’, ‘truly dangerous individual’, ‘Osama Bin Laden’s ambassador in Europe’; if rhetoric alone were sufficient to secure a criminal conviction, Abu Qatada would currently be in the early years of a very long stretch. Luckily for all of us that live in Britain, any amount of declamation or hearsay is not enough to put somebody behind bars.
Yes, of course this man’s openly expressed views are utterly odious and utterly repugnant. However, until the Thought Police do finally get to run the show in Airstrip One, to endlessly reiterate that undeniable point is to miss what is at stake, namely the quaint insistence that the same rules must apply to all.
Tech politics: libertarians and the Library
A year ago, I wrote a piece here about the great art of the Gothic and Renaissance periods, and how we owe its existence to the Dead Hand of the (Tuscan) State. But where should we look for actions of slightly more modern government working to enrich our lives? Certainly not in the unending flow of nutty, illiberal laws; nor in the insidious creep of compliance culture (subject of a memorable Stephen Fry podcast). So, here’s an idea: look to the British Library.
More specifically, their Turning the Pages project, 10 years in the developing, that put our national library in the very first rank of learning innovation worldwide. (See the video.) The project’s achievement has been to digitize 15 (so far) of the Library’s most valuable manuscripts, and deliver them inside an interactive online environment that re-creates the experience of handling them in the raw.
continue reading… »
Top News and Blog Stories – 19th February
Nationwide
UK rail commuters pay twice that of the EU
Mortgage lending recovery not yet in sight
Banks add £1.5trillion to public debt
Brown shadows Lib Dem policy with hints at tax cuts
Assisted suicide case fails
International
Migrants in Italy revolt
“Obama should apologise for Iraq” – Tutu
Netanyahu moves ahead as favourite for Israeli PM job
Facebook backs down on data rights
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Lee Griffin
CiF/Timothy Garton Ash echo’s my feelings of the infringements on our liberties feeling like a bad dream.
CiF/Seumas Milne writes of the terrifying yet unsurprising announcements of just who will be treated as “terrorists” if Jacqui “Himmler” Smith gets her way.
LDV/Stephen Tall agrees that Nick Clegg should be making bold statements about families using recession as an opportunity to change.
Meral wonders why there appears to be an ultra-conservative member of a liberal MEP group in Europe.
Himmelgarten Cafe is a tad ashamed of the Brit Awards.
Freethink on the dilemma of modern universities with an emerging global market for foreign (high paying) students.
Bleeding Heart Show showcases some tips for writing effectively.
Help stop family court fees increasing
Last year, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) started its plans to make the courts self-funding. The cost of application fees payable by local authorities in care and adoption proceedings increased by an impressive 3200%, from £150 to £4,825.
Hidden on the website of Her Majesty’s Court Service is a consultation paper on plans to increase fees payable in civil court proceedings including enforcement fees in the family courts. The closing date for consultations is 4th March 2009.
continue reading… »
Top Stories and Blog Review – 18th February
Nationwide
Poll shows Labour leadership row resurfacing
Coming here, church that demonises gays
Four years on and hunting still rears its head
Brown promises new curbs on bank bonuses
International
Oil slips below $35 as global markets tumble
Is this man the future of politics?
US to boost troops in Afghanistan
U.S. accuses Texas financial firm of $8billion fraud
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / back tomorrow
The whispering campaign against Harriet Harman
I suspect part of the reason why many don’t see Harriet Harman becoming the next Labour leader is because they know she has many enemies at the upper echelons of the party too. And besides, the media is all too willing to twist in the knife. Today, there’s been two piece in the “left-wing press” about the leadership election: in the Independent and the Guardian. Both feature whispering campaigns against Ms Harman, with nothing to go on other than that she spoke out against banker bonuses and therefore must be plotting.
To the irritation of colleagues, she signalled her support for proposed anti-discrimination legislation to “embed” considerations of social class, alongside sex and ethnicity, in the decisions of civil servants. Such moves are popular – particularly with the Labour left – but put her at odds with Mr Brown and official government policy.
God forbid that New Labour develop the guts to talk about class differences? It must be a plot! Hang her!! Maybe we should run a campaign to name and shame Labour ministers who are conducting this idiotic and vicious whispering campaign.
Why some ‘British workers’ have a right to be angry
The recent British Jobs for British Workers union strikes sparked a big debate on whether UK firms were right to employ people from Europe to undercut local workers. We may want to allow Europeans the opportunity to work in the UK, but how far should this go?
It is not unusual for British firms to now actively look for staff outside the country and undermine conditions bargained for here. In fact, these laws offer firms unprecedented bargaining power to companies. In such cases, why wouldn’t workers feel angry?
continue reading… »
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» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
» Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest?
» To win London, Ken Livingstone has to step outside his comfort zone
» This trade agreement with India will destroy thousands of lives
» UK debt hasn’t hit £1 trillion – mostly because of QE
» The benefits of being a “burden” on society
» Today’s economic figures will simply confirm UK’s “lost decade”
» Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away?
» Violence in the office
» Want a more responsible capitalism? Reform how pensions work
» The world is entering the third phase of the crisis, warns ILO
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