Ministry of Truth

I must admit that it’s with considerable personal interest that I note that Tom Watson has been given responsibility in his new Cabinet Office job for ‘some of the Government policy towards websites’ – meaning its own web presence and not everyone elses. Did I tell you that […]

Based on this e-mail… From: rsreply@dwpub.com [mailto:rsreply@dwpub.com] Sent: 13 February 2008 15:57 Subject: Response Source – Diana Appleyard , Daily Mail PUBLICATION: Daily Mail (Request for personal case study) JOURNALIST: Diana Appleyard (staff) DEADLINE: 14-February-2008 16:00 QUERY: I am urgently looking for anonymous horror stories of people who […]

MPs ‘should get free Blackberrys’ A Labour MP has called for handheld Blackberry computers to be made available – for free – to herself and everyone else with a Commons seat. Sharon Hodgson, like all other MPs, can borrow a personal digital assistant (PDA) from Parliament’s IT department. […]

What’s in a name, do you think? Take, for example, the name ‘Hugo’ – what kind of image does that convey? I suppose if you’re of a literary bent you might think of the great French author, Victor Hugo, while Sci-Fi fans will think of the Hugo Awards […]

Well, it seems very much that the ‘hot’ story for the start of this week is the suggestion that a private conversation between a Labour MP and a constituent, Babar Ahmad, who happens to be inside awaiting (possible) extradition to the US on terrorism charges relating to his […]

It would appear that Tim Ireland is having another spat with Guido over this post in which he alleges that Guido has been making free with other people’s copyrighted work – and using storage space/bandwidth at Messagespace to do some it, not to mention leeching off their bandwidth, […]

If ever there was a bad time for any MP, let alone a Tory, to get hauled over the coals by the Parliamentary Standards Committee then surely this is it… Tory MP Conway faces suspension A complaint that Tory MP Derek Conway wrongly paid his son MP allowances […]

Peter Hain’s resignation to ‘clear his name’ is, in some respects, one of the least surprising news stories of the week, there having been an air of inevitability surrounding the likely denouement of this story since it was revealed that sums of money involved (£103,000) were several orders […]

With the Christmas festivities safely concluded, I’ve decided to take a little time out from some truly excellent Christmas reading – Christopher Hitchens’ “Portable Atheist” is well worth the investment in book tokens – to tackle one of the most risible pieces of hypocritical political sophistry I’ve seen […]

Every so often an article appears in the media that I cannot possibly pass up the opportunity of commenting on, and one such article, a spectacularly self-serving commentary on the GMC’s decision to strike off child protection ‘expert’ Professor David Southall for serious professional misconduct, appeared in the […]