Ministry of Truth

There is quite an astonishing article published on Comment Is Free at the moment, bemoaning the widespread publication of ‘flawed’ scientific research and the misreporting of scientific evidence by journals and the popular press: People who use science to inform their decisions and policies, on anything from cancer […]

As the analysis of the votes on the Treaty of Lisbon continues to filter in, it looks very much like all the leaders of the main political parties have had their problems in the House. Pride of place, of course, goes to Nick Clegg of the Lib Dems, […]

For reasons I can quite fathom it seems to be my week for picking fights with feminists for putting up bad arguments on important issues – first there was this little head to head over at Liberal Conspiracy and now there’s this article by Joan Smith in today’s […]

Both Justin and Alix do a fine job of heaping some well-deserved derision on different aspects of Margaret Hodge’s inane speech on Britishness, Culture and the Arts, which rather leaves me to add to growing pile by picking out this absolute gem of a comment: My family came […]

As regular readers might well recall one of my recurring ‘things’ here is newspaper health correspondents (many of them are crap) and in particular health correspondents at the Independent (who are even more crap than most of the rest). Now I have my ‘thing'(s) and the Indy has […]

Oh well, I thought I’d finished with the invective for today but then this turned up on the Beeb’s RSS feed… Brothel users ‘should give DNA’ Men using brothels and massage parlours should be made to give DNA samples in an effort to reduce the number of prostitute […]

If, like me, you’re a bit of an aficionado of improvised comedy shows like the classic ‘Who’s Line is it Anyway’ or ‘Mock The Week’ then you’ll know that one of the staples of such shows is the ‘World’s Worst’ round in which comedians are given a hypothetical […]

For as long as I can remember it has been an axiom of British political culture that the Conservative Party considers itself to be the natural party of business and, in particular, the one true political friend of the small businessman, a view that I strongly suspect has […]

First things first, let me commend Rhetorically Speaking for delivering this first-class commentary on the moral hypocrisy of the ‘pro-life’ lobbies efforts to advance a case for restrictions on access to abortion: Edward Leigh decides to kick around Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, presumably because it’s easier to […]

Been playing catch-up on the whole Max Gogarty thing, you know the Groan’s gap-year dilettante who caught a good old fashioned monstering last week – check the comments under his post and you’ll see what I mean. First things first, by far the best thing to come out […]