Austin, John, Caton, Mr. Martin, Challen, Colin, Connarty, Michael, Cunningham, Mr. Jim, Dismore, Mr. Andrew, Dobbin, Jim, Drew, Mr. David, Etherington, Bill, Flynn, Paul, Godsiff, Mr. Roger, Havard, Mr. Dai, Hopkins, Kelvin, Hoyle, Mr. Lindsay, Iddon, Dr. Brian, Jenkins, Mr. Brian, Jones, Lynne, Marshall-Andrews, Mr. Robert, McCartney, rh Mr. Ian, Morgan, Julie, Mullin, Mr. Chris, Murphy, Mr. Denis, Naysmith, Dr. Doug, Olner, Mr. Bill, Prentice, Mr. Gordon, Prosser, Gwyn, Riordan, Mrs. Linda, Robertson, John, Simpson, Alan, Taylor, David, Truswell, Mr. Paul, Turner, Dr. Desmond, Vis, Dr. Rudi, Walley, Joan & Williams, Mrs. BettyThese are the 35 MPs who seem very confused as to how the independent newsagent business model works. They have all signed last years Early Day Motion 1432...

by ANNA RACCOON on FEBRUARY 28, 2010 There has been a fair amount of comment in the blogosphere regarding the six month jail sentence given to Nick Hogan for flouting the ‘no-smoking ban’. Outrage has been duly expressed, here, there, and everywhere. Perhaps we can do better than just express outrage? Nick was actually jailed for non-payment of...

Southern Pacific Mortgage Limited is a subsidiary of the devious, rather nasty bunch of bankers who were called Lehmans until they went bust recently owing vast sums of money and wrecking the World economy in the process. Southern Pacific Mortgage Limited, SPML, to all those unfortunate enough to be its victims, is one of those rip-off...

The recent uproar concerning the estimated 400, and possibly as high as 1200, patients who may have died needlessly as a result of ‘routine neglect’ by nursing staff after the management became preoccupied with cost-cutting and meeting government targets is by no means the first, nor the most serious, episode of ‘death by NHS’. Leaving aside,...

Like other VAT registered businesses in the UK we are being forced to make our quarterly returns on the internet from April 1st. So yesterday I bit the bullett and logged on to http://www.gateway.gov.uk/ and went though the process to enrol for the VAT return service.It is relatively straight forward and by following the instructions on the latest letter from HM Revenue & Customs I collected our VAT registration number, Post Code, the final month of our last VAT return submitted and the amount that was due. I did have a problem with the date when we became VAT registered, but a call to our book keepers told me that HMR&C had kindly included this detail in their letter. The other things needed are the Government Gateway user ID and password.Armed with all the facts I logged in to...

We're all, of course, very happy about the results of the House of Commons Science and Technology committee's evidence check on homeopathy. But it's important to realise exactly what has happened. This is a House of Commons committee which has produced a list of recommendations. The government is under no obligation at all to take any notice of those recommendations. Unfortunately, Richard Wiseman's tweet, "yipppeeee it's official, NHS will no longer give people smarties", is likely to be somewhat premature. So that's why I've set up a petition on the number 10 web site. The petition says: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Implement the recommendations of the House Commons Science and Technology committee evidence check on Homeopathy. The House Commons Science and...

Another Government LeafletSome of the weekend newspapers had this loose advert inserted into them. As with  most independent newsagents,  I believe that we lose money on any third party inserts. This is because the costs involved in distributing the extra weight is passed on to us by the news wholesalers in increased carriage charges.I regularly collect the data for a trade magazine and have in the past published it here. I take great exception to the UK Government or its agencies using this 'slave labour' method to distribute their propaganda. Having previously written to PM Blair on the issue in 1999 I know their answer is that they have paid the newspaper publishers for this job and our complain should be forwarded to them.After a decade and more of asking for a...

Big Brother Watch Newsletter – 19th February 2010 please consider adding info@bigbrotherwatch.org.uk to your safe senders list The past seven days have seen a slew of stories involving baffling regulations and ludicrous decisions from health and safety officers in councils around the country. The absurdity began last weekend, when a 67 year-old man was prevented from...

With the campaign for the General Election already heating up it is no surprise to see Britain and Britishness come to the fore as the main and fringe parties prepare for what looks like a May election, which would also coincide with some council and Mayoral elections. Foremost among the glib slogans from the right is ‘broken Britain’, a catch all put down of the UK and its inhabitants first used by Shock Jocks and newspaper columnists. As was the way with the former, the facts trotted out by those on the right of politics are often misread, misrepresented or just plain wrong. What those on the right usually fail to grasp is that the generational malaise they represent is often a result of the Conservative policies of the 1980s. One only has to glance back at the likes of Nick...

The Telegraph is reporting the latest government scheme for cutting the nation's drinking. There will be health warnings on all bottles of wine and beer, including "the recommended safe daily alcohol consumption limits for men and women" and how many the product contains, and the logo of anti-booze "charity" Drink Aware. The government are also thinking about introducing a minimum price per unit, we learn. It's a thoroughly bad idea, both in practice and principle, but the way things are going it's beginning to look inevitable. Like an increasing proportion of public policy, alcohol has come to be viewed by officialdom almost exclusively as a health issue, in which arguments based on medical costs - genuine or spurious - trump everything.Like most such reports, this one reads like an...

From The UK Column: by Robert Green In the October 2009 print edition of the UK Column, we reported in our article, “BBC Hides Truth of Girl’s Sexual Abuse Ordeal” the shocking ordeal of Downs Syndrome girl, Hollie Greig, who was horribly abused by an Aberdeen paedophile ring, over a period of...

Scroteless super hero to tackle phone crime? Like the headline says, the government wants action against mobile phone crime. So what are they doing about it? Making a special team of mobile phone super heroes to save our sorry arses from being robbed? No. They’re asking the mobile phone industry to do more to protect handset owners. So does this mean we’ll see super heroes sponsored by phone firms? Phones4Uman coming to save us after flying through air shouting his gob off about which tariff would be best suited for you? Alan Campbell, Minister for Crime Prevention, said firms “have a social and a corporate responsibility to tackle crime”. “First this is a great opportunity – this is new technology which can be promoted around the world,” said Mr...

I am so truly incredulous that the body set up to stop MP’s stealing money via expenses is going to cost six times more than the money the MPs were stealing in the first place, that I can’t even put pen to paper. I’ve had to transfer my mind elsewhere – into the world of music – to stop me thinking of it. £6.5 million per year, every single year, to stop MP’s wetting their beaks. See I can’t do it … TechTags Plugin [ Music | rap music | swearing | sexism | racism | MP | MPs | government | expenses | Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority ] Related articles by Zemanta Policing expenses a snip at £10,000 per MP (libdemvoice.org) Expenses authority to cost £6.5m (news.bbc.co.uk)...

Original Home Page All Contents of Site – Index All Links to ‘The Trial of Tony Blair’ posts Sign the Ban Blair-Baiting petition here.  “He’s not a war criminal. He’s not evil. He didn’t lie. He didn’t sell out Britain or commit treason. He wasn’t Bush’s poodle. He hasn’t got blood on his hands. The anti-war nutters must not be allowed to damage Blair’s reputation further. He was a great PM, a great statesman and a great leader.” See this recent signature comment Comment at end Ban Blair-Baiting 11th February, 2010 View This Pollpolling...

The Government suffered what can only be described as a humiliating defeat today after the High Court reinforced a previous judgment that seven previously redacted paragraphs contained within in CIA evidentiary documentation relating  to the arrest and detention of Binyam Mohamed  on suspicion of complicity in acts of terrorism should be made public.  The paragraphs lend weight to the suggestion that Mohamed suffered severe physical and psychological torture whilst in U.S. custody. Many believe that this was with  full  knowledge of MI5.  More details after the jump. Controversy has surrounded the case of Binyam Mohamed, 31, who since his return to the UK earlier this year has accused his captors of carrying out acts of torture including beatings, threats, the ever...

Politics over the next few years is going to be about money. Not MPs' expenses, or even bankers' bonuses, but public money: where it goes, and more importantly where it doesn't go. It's going to be about cuts and squeezes, and the news reports are going to be full of pain. Hospitals closing. People dying because a vital drug wasn't available in their area. Students facing unemployment after failing to secure that increasingly elusive university place. More military equipment shortages. The anti-politician hatefest of the past year is going to seem like an indulgence.That isn't to minimise the impact of the expenses scandal, or the longer-building disaffection with politics over the past decade or two. Anti-politician sentiment isn't going to go away, but it won't be the news....

So, the first and most important rule of any super-secret science team working to create Godawful aberrations of nature for who-knows-what purpose is pretty self-evident: shut the fuck up and say nothing. So it’s both amusing and disheartening to hear that the fount of all super-secret military industrial complex conspiracy theories – DARPA – announced right in it’s annual budget – it’s annual fucking budget, I shit you not – that it is working on synthetic organisms that will live for ever and, should they turn out to be harmful, contain a genetic kill-switch. WTF? More info after the jump. Wired magazine’s DARPAwatch section revealed this scary fact. Seems that the Pentagon is fed up with the “ randomness of natural evolutionary...

The sun - literally spunking money at us In the week when doomsayers predicted that the cost of gas and electricity would shortly rise to a price the same as having liquid platinum piped into your house, the government have launched a solar power initiative that could save the lives of millions of penguins and make you some hard cash. From 1st April, the government will pay new users of solar power for the electricity they generate, even if they use all of it themselves. Obviously, you’ll need an initial outlay for the photovolatiac (PV) solar panels (between £10k-£12k) and a south-facing, obstruction-free roof. But after that, you’ll be paid 41.3p per kilowatt hour generated, which the government reckon will earn you as much as £900 in payouts, not to mention a saving on your...

I think I would be right in assuming no political party has ever before used broadband speeds in the run up to a general election in a bid to boost votes. Not in the UK anyway. Well now they have. The Conservatives have vowed to lay out 100Mbps fibre optic cables providing wickedly fast connection speeds. This news comes only a short time after the current government laid out plans to offer 2Mbps speeds to homes in need of internet. Connection to the web has been deemed a basic human right which is arguably a right load of old….. None the less, we as a nation are set to benefit. The promise, if fulfilled will mean that within 7 years we will be provided with 100Mbps connections, however this is only through choice. As it is currently, you get what you pay for so no doubt there...

…you know there’s no case to answer. Now as Sports Minister, Gerry Sutcliffe is a non-entity of a human being, never mind politician, just another clown in a long list of clowns to hold that job – except of course Kate Hoey even with her Woolwich scum associations – I mean he’s a subordinate in a department headed by Ben Bradshaw that contains Siôn Simon for christ’s sake. So I don’t know anything about Mr. Sutcliffe’s record on moralising before he started off about John Terry, of which more allegations have arisen with another slapper. For example I don’t know if he came out and took a stand against the then Foreign Secretary, the political face of our nation abroad, Robin Cook shagging a member of his staff behind his wife’s...

The Government have launched yet another website, this time to allow you to report terrorist activity that you might find online and hate crimes. Mildly amusing to me at least is the fact that if you tick "Yes" to the first question it tells you to call 999 immediately.Did someone really think that if someone saw a crime happening or someone's life was in danger they would be browsing to a website to report...

Labour Will Have a Khrushchev Moment of Truth in the End, says political blogger Guido Fawkes By guest writer Guido Fawkes January 31, 2010 ” Gordon Brown is a malevolent, deeply damaged and unpleasant human being. He is at the centre of a culture of political bullying that has been unhealthy for the Labour...

In the early years of the two thousands I needed to sit a Driving Test. At the time the Dept of Transport had a monopoly on driving tests. The waiting list was about 6 months long. The Dept hada monopoly, and they knew it. It was illegal to drive without a licence, and of course insurance (which followed), so they could have the list as long as they wanted and no one could do anything. They weren’t quite the only show in town, there were stories on the grapevine of people travelling to the UK (Northern Ireland) to sit driving tests there. They could then convert their UK licences to Irish ones in a simple quick process - although there were other stories that people actually kept their UK licences as that was a way of avoiding Irish penalty points. I love peoples ingenuity! Well...

The London Conference on Afghanistan was held yesterday. It was  hosted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and President Karzai, with over 70 countries and international organisations present. Foreign Minister Verhagen and Development Minister Koenders represented the Netherlands. Among other conclusions, the Conference resulted in an agreement between the Afghan government and the international community to: develop a plan for phased transition to Afghan government control of security, province by province;significantly increase the Afghan Army and Police Force, supported by the international community;take measures to tackle corruption;better coordinate development assistance;support the Afghan Government's Peace and Reintegration Programme,...

I'm at the Hyatt Hotel to present the prize for Business Person of the Year at the Kyiv Post "Best of Kyiv" awards.  The room is crowded with several hundred business types to see who's won a range of awards from "Best Bank Services" and "Best Express Couriers" to "Best Wine Boutique" and "Best Local and International School", with the winners chosen by a mixture of on-line voting and a panel of experts.  It's good to meet Mohammad Zahoor, the British publisher of the Kyiv Post, and the chief editor, Brian Bonner, along with many other old and new faces.When I go up to present the prize I point out that actually anyone doing business in Ukraine, whether foreign or Ukrainian, is a bit of a hero, given that much remains to be done...

Below is an exchange of emails between me and my eleven year old son’s history teacher which have suddenly made me realise how truly ghastly State education is in secondary schools, and how I must do something to get my son away from this appalling and useless State education system which is obviously already wrecking...

Remember Ladybird books? Little educational tomes that were oh-so-delightfully stuck in the Heartbeat era and told small children about interesting yet mundane things whilst teaching second-level reading skills? I remember them fondly, and our man in the Americas emailed this to dogsounds Towers. Learn some interesting things about policemen that probably still hold true today. Although I think Brian Plectrum is now head of the Met. Or the replacement for the Post Office Tower, one of the two.  Read on after the jump! . Posted in art, cool stuff, silly fun stuff Tagged: education, government, Ladybird Books, police...

The War of Surveys continue to warp parliamentary process and decision-making, as evidenced in the House of Commons debate on Home Information Packs...

House of Lords debate EPCs; Commercial Energy Assessors' forum hit by spammers; the committee on climate change recommend EPCs on all non-domestic buildings by...

The sky is clear this morning and the cranes at the Port of Beirut were lined up in a row as though in salute to the calm sea.   Yesterday was different and we all woke up to the tragic news of the Ethiopian airlines crash.   Something too fundamental about falling out of the sky.   Somehow even in this country of many tragedies used to dealing with death of all sorts, this has touched everyone.  As one friend put it, this is when you realise that Lebanon is a small country and everyone will know someone who was in the plane.  Yes, we all do.  And yes the pain of their loved ones is unbearable.  The Lebanese Government have done a good job.   Getting the rescue operation going quickly, calling in help where needed (including a...

Bedlam - humour . John Evans has sent in another contribution What are politics about? A little boy goes to his dad and asks, 'Dad, what are Politics?' Dad says, 'Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I am the head of the family , so call me The President. Your mother is the administrator... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]...

Some offline data, yesterday. Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a miracle man. Not content with inventing the world wide web, he’s now behind the launch of a new UK site, data.gov.uk that makes several metric fucktons of data available for ordinary John Q Citizens like you or him over there to peruse and use. The aim is to make information acquired by the government easier for people to find and analyse and developers have already used it to build a site that displays the location of schools according to the rating assigned to them by Ofsted. Other spin-off sites include one that allows you to search through planning applications and another where you can report pot holes in the road to your local hole czar. In theory, it’s all rather groovy and reeks of transparency and openness – as for how...

Today sees the launch of data.gov.uk. Over the last few months I’ve had some privileged peaks behind the scenes, and I’m very excited to see it all now live. The front paragraphs on the site put it well: Advised by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt and others, government are opening up data for reuse. This site seeks to give a way into the wealth of government data and is under constant development. We want to work with you to make it better. We’re very aware that there are more people like you outside of government who have the skills and abilities to make wonderful things out of public data. These are our first steps in building a collaborative relationship with you. A Short Long Journey It feels like a long journey since October (“Set our Data Free...

The Fabian Society kindly gave me a media registration for their new year conference and I spent last Saturday at Imperial College mingling with the Labour Party faithful. I sadly missed Gordon Brown’s morning address but sat in on two discussions: “What not to spend” – a discussion on what public spending cuts the government should make; and “Tribes or causes: Can we campaign across party boundaries?” Both featured Lib Dem speakers, and I attended the former to keep an eye on Vince Cable and the latter to support Evan Harris (or should that be the other way around?). What not to spend was, of the two sessions, the most frustrating. This was partially because there was no Labour Minister there to give us their perspective, partially because the Nigel...

Did you know that you can register for email alert updates from Passaic County, New Jersey through the UK Parliament website?You can sign up here - you know you want too.Also available, are email alert updates from the San Diego Cooperative Charter School (handy!); Burnsville, Minnesota (wonder if they have arson problems?); Cass County, North Dakota; Clark County Wisconsin, and the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, MN. All available to you by clicking on to http://subscriptions.parliament.uk/service.If you're wondering why these are on the Parliamentary website they're not really. It seems the Government likes to use an American company called GovDelivery to help it "engage", but they don't seem to know how to set up proper virtual hosting so that pages for random clients are not...

In the wake of extreme winter weather conditions in the UK the Federation of Small Businesses has urged the government to hold a conference in order to review its contingency plan for vulnerable companies. Prolonged extreme conditions have led to cutbacks in road gritting and lockdowns in many of the nation’s major transport routes. The body conservatively...

Possibly one of the funniest things I've read all day, the Peter Mandelson's department have produced a report on the sort of jobs people will be doing in the future, one of which, says the BBC, is "vertical farmers".As Mark Wallace at the Taxpayers Alliance points out, the idea of "vertical farming" is straight out of Chris Morris's Brasseye where foolish celebrities and politicians are conned into endorsing absurd...

Over the last few days the government have released plans for two new plans which they hope will spread knowledge and computer aptitude to those who are disadvantaged in an economic way, or want to learn how to use computers. Although this has nothing to do with CES 2010, I imagine the timing isn’t 100% coincidental as for a change technology – mostly the Nexus phone – is up there with snow at the top of news headlines which is nice for people like me, but not for those who don’t understand anything or who can’t afford any of the fancy gadgets being shown off. That’s where the Government comes in, and we’ll start with the ‘Online Basics Scheme’ which essentially offers free short courses which cover five ‘modules’ and was unveiled today by Business Secretary Peter...

As an Ambassador you occasionally get to do things that make you proud of your country.  On Friday I participated in a citizenship ceremony.  We don't do too many of these in Beirut so we like to make a bit of a fuss; flowers, flags, photos for the family.  How many British passport holders really give much thought about what it means to be British?  What do you think you have to do when you get a British passport? Swear allegiance to the monarch? Yes, of course.  But what else?  Did you know that you pledge to uphold democratic values?  I like that bit.  Ok we don't define what that means, but let's keep the definition broad and let's remember that it is every citizen's duty to uphold those democratic values. If we remembered this now and again...

‘Elf’N’Safety gnomes have it under control with help from police I’ve been accused of being a bit intense right now. Yeah, your dead right I’m intense alright; Tense as well; very! I had a day of botheration yesterday that was pretty spectacular. And it did leave me feeling pretty intense after doing my head in completely ! In...