I was only a child during the Miner’s Strike of 1984-85, but I remember it. My parents were left-wing and politically active, so even though we weren’t directly affected by the strike, I was very aware of it, and what was going on. It’s also reasonably to say that we were indirectly affected, in terms [...]

Over at ConservativeHome, there is a post entitled should councillors twitter?, which mentions the Cllr Tweeps website which keeps a list of all of the twittering councillors. The post basically describes twittering as micro-blogging, the poster admits to being on twitter but using it mostly to follow what other people say, rather than taking much [...]

The home secretary has told MPs she was “surprised” and “disappointed” by a drugs adviser likening the dangers of ecstasy to the dangers of horse riding.BBC News: Drugs adviser criticised by Smith Later in the article the BBC suggest that more than 100 people die per year from horse-riding, and around 30 die from ecstasy. [...]

I have had occassion to visit to political websites this week, because there was something I was going to say to two different politicians, with differeng political beliefs and differing profiles. Unfortunately, I didn’t end up saying anything to either of them, because both were making the same basic mistake. First was Jim Knight MP, [...]

Now we’ve had a black president, various women premiers, and now the first openly gay head of state (Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir), I would appreciate it if the media would stop caring about the skin colour, gender, sexual preference, religion, and sexiness (or otherwise) of partners of politicians and concentrate instead on things that actually matter like [...]

It’s not often that I come across a book which I think everyone should read. Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear, by Dan Gardner, is one such book. Risk tells us about how we are constantly misled in every day life about how dangerous things are — drugs, cancer, paedophiles, knife crime, terrorism — [...]

Or at least, that’s what we’ve been led to believe. Barack Obama has been sworn in as US president (twice). The celebrity cargo-cult that has been worshipping him pretty much since shortly before the election would seem to suggest that he is the Messiah, and that Barack is going to lead all of us, whether [...]

Yes, it’s a controversial subject, talking about stuff like euthanasia/ assisted suicide, so it was obviously a toss-up for which flippant song title I would use as the title of the post. In the end I went with the song best known as the theme from M*A*S*H, although I did also consider Ozzy’s Suicide Solution [...]

The Scottish accent has come top in a poll of the most reassuring voices to hear in an emergency.BBC News: Scottish accent ‘most reassuring’ …still, I think if it’s just that he wanted to appear reassuring, something less than a complete meltdown of the global financial systems would have done…

(Spotted on El Reg) Apparently, Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country. Then again, knowing that she believed humans and dinosaurs co-existed*, and she believed in witches didn’t seem to stop her. Perhaps more worrying for someone who wanted to be vice-president was that she was offered preparatory notes and advice for an interview; she [...]