politics of the united kingdom

Cheering, Not Jeering.

January 25, 2011

One of the sops offered to Sinn Féin as part of the ‘peace process’ by which they agreed to stop bombing innocent citizens as they went about their business was to agree that Gerry Adams could claim expenses for ‘representing the people of West Belfast’ whilst not actually taking up his seat in Parliament. Adams [...]

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The Woolas Affair: Should MPs Be Above The Law?

November 16, 2010

On 5th November a specially convened electoral court handed down a judgment in which it declared that Phil Woolas had knowingly made untruthful statements in the course of his campaign to be re-elected as MP for Oldham and Saddleworth East. As a result the election has been declared void and Mr Woolas’ status as MP [...]

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Lobby Jobbies…

August 4, 2010

The Fourth Estate, with its continuum line from radical Grub Street through investigatory Fleet Street to compliant Canary Wharf, has no formal constitutional role, but is popularly supposed to hold Parliament and the government to account. Journalists would tell you that they ‘speak truth unto power’. The Lobby pack, the 170 journalists who hold parliamentary [...]

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A word of thanks to our sponsors

May 17, 2010

And so the unravelling continues. In a paean of praise to the voting public that kept the Labour Party in money and pensions for the last 13 years, this senior Labour politician said: We lost the election in England, not elsewhere, amongst so-called decent hard-working families who felt, especially working-class people, disconnected from the Labour [...]

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++ Exclusive ++ One last lie…!

May 13, 2010

He just couldn’t resist it, the habit of the last 13 years clung on to the end. The lies, the false statements, the backroom briefing, the attempts to influence the media and the electorate, had too powerful a hold on him. Gordon had to utter one more big lie before he walked out of Downing [...]

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Fairy Tales and Spin-Meisters.

April 3, 2010

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time, we relied on the story teller for both news and education; we called him a troubadour. He travelled from market place to market place, alternately educating, advising, and passing on gossip. Around the beginning of the 19th C, the role of story teller changed [...]

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Little Miss Moffat Sacked From Her Trough-ette…..

March 29, 2010

Anne Moffat, the ultimate ‘East Lothian’ question, revealed in the Sunday Times yesterday, that she had been contacted by lawyers (plural!) claiming that she had a ‘strong case’ for suing her local party for unfair dismissal. What a delicious prospect! Not just the possibility of seeing the judicial eye cast over the local constituency officers [...]

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