One of the most striking things about the whole Webcameron project has been that, for a blog, the apparent owner has done very little actual blogging. While there has always been a Guest Blog and an Open Blog, and the more recent Ask David section, I've always felt that the use of video only for David Cameron's interactions was a bit of a hindrance; it's easier to read something than wait for a video to load up and to have to follow that all the way through, after all.

So I think this new idea to write things to his section, only started today, is going to be good.

Welcome to my new written blog. As well as the (fairly) regular webcameron video blogs, I am going to tap out a (hopefully more) regular written regular blog with some thoughts on what I am up to... The aim is to be brief and never boring. But if it becomes both long and dull it will only ever be my fault!

And thank heavens he's going to write it like a normal person would, with a bit of personality and light-hearted humour between the obligatory policy plugs. It remains to be seen how often he will contribute, of course, though I'm quietly hopeful he'll be willing to drop off a note or two every few days.

Anyway, thumbs up to this new segment from me, so far. I think it'll be far easier to follow the site this way, at least for me. I much prefer written media to videos.

I went swimming today in Hull Baths and managed to swim into a lady who, as fate would have it, used to lend a hand in John Prescott's office. It was a long time ago, before Labour got into power, but she said he had seemed like an alright fellow at the time.

Since I'll probably go to the same session next week, I'll have to see if I can get any interesting stories out of her. Funny who you swim into sometimes though, isn't it?

As reported upon, here.

Dear Colleague As we all know the coming months are critical for Labour's future. After ten years in office we will need to demonstrate that we have the vision and the policies to successfully meet the future challenges faced by our country and the wider world. Like many others in the PLP and the wider Party we believe that requires an open participatory debate. There are some welcome signs that the debate is beginning to happen within Government, in various think-tanks and in contributions made by a range of colleagues. From our discussions with fellow MPs and Party members, however, we believe there is an enormous appetite for the debate to be taken forward and given more focus. There will, of course, be many different points of view about the future direction we should take as a Party but we believe the critical thing is to develop an open process for ideas and views to be aired. Many colleagues have suggested that such a process would provide the opportunity not just of addressing the Party - important though that is - but of engaging with the wider public. To that end we have decided to launch a new initiative to promote debate in what we hope and intend will be an open and participative way. We are inviting all Labour MPs to the launch event which will take place at 10.30am on Wednesday 28th February... all Labour colleagues from both the Commons and the Lords are most welcome to attend. Yours, Charles Clarke MP and Alan Milburn MP

Dear Colleague As we all know Labour’s future has reached critical point. After ten years in office we will need to demonstrate that we have actually done something for our country and the wider world. Like many others in the PLP and the wider Party we believe that there is a lack of open participatory debate. There are some welcome signs that our desperate attempts to be heard are beginning to be noticed within Government, in various think-tanks and in pleas made by a range of colleagues. From our discussions with fellow MPs and Party members, however, we believe we’re more than likely stuffed. There will, of course, be Blarite and Brownite views about the future direction we should take as a Party but we believe the critical thing is to develop an open process for our pleas to be heard to be aired. Many colleagues have suggested that such a process would provide the opportunity not just of addressing the Party - but of making it look like we’re doing something for the wider public. To that end we have decided to launch a new level of plotting to promote tactics in what we hope and intend will be an open and participative way. We are inviting all Labour MPs to the launch event which will take place at 10.30am on Wednesday 28th February... you’d better all bloody come to this! Really really worried over here, Charles Clarke MP and Alan Milburn MP

I'll eat my hat if Gordon Brown's newest headline grab drive for Britishness actually were to happen. However I think it's an interesting idea, deserving of consideration. Even if that consideration leads it towards the scrapheap.

"Immigrants will not be granted permanent British citizenship unless they undertake community work and prove they are in tune with British values, Gordon Brown warned today..."

For once I can kind of see where he is coming from in some small way. However I think there are some serious problems with the idea which pretty much render it useless.

1. What constitutes "community service"?

I regard community service as something one either does for love, or does as punishment for criminal acts. For example, I spend most of my weekends helping out with Conservative Future. My mother volunteers in Oxfam. We do it because we enjoy it and because hopefully it will make a difference somewhere down the line.

But for an immigrant who is only doing it in order to be able to live in our country, wouldn't it be more like the punishment form of community service? It would be exactly like having a sentence handed down with threat of deportation if terms are not met.

Then there is the question of what kind of community service they will need to perform. Are we going to see Bulgarians picking up litter on estates? Will Romanians have to serve the coffee at Women's Institute meetings? Will it just be charity shop work? What does he mean?

2. Whose community?

Surely, in order to have a community to service, these immigrants will need to be settled somewhere first. So they will need to have found a place to live and have stayed long enough to be part of said community. Brown seems to think that this idea will go towards tackling ghettoism, but how exactly?

If they are under pressure to display these civic credentials, wouldn't they gravitate towards a community they feel comfortable intergrating into quickly? The whole plan assumes that the communities receiving service are what we might call "British" in themselves. I fear the day has gone when we can assume that that is the case. A Polish immigrant, for example, could find an area with a large Polish community, integrate and do their service there, and remain without ever having deviated much from their own culture. There is no way this will tackle ghettoism.

The only definition of Britishness that sticks, in my opinion, is one of a constantly changing melting pot of ideas and values. It always has been this way. I suspect it always will be, albeit at a faster pace than ever before. The only way Gordon Brown could possibly tackle the erosion of this is to break down the ghettoism caused by so much free movement of people over such a short period of time and let us figure out this intangible ideal gradually.

People integrate when they feel allegience to a country's values and culture. This doesn't come from standing behind an Oxfam counter for one hour a week in order to get a piece of paper rubber stamped. It comes from years of living in that country and being able to add to its values and culture over time. That's why, in my opinion, this idea is doomed to failure.

Hat tip to Yellow Swordfish for "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Britishness" graphic.

"I'm not a theologist. I'm not an archaeologist. I'm a documentary filmmaker," he said.

And that's just the problem. I am of course talking about James Cameron, director of Titanic, and the coffin he is claiming to be the last resting place of Jesus Christ and his family.

There are several flaws in his theory. First of all, it's stupid. Second of all, the name Jesus is a variant of the name Joshua and a fairly common one. so there's no reason whatsoever it should be the one we've all heard about. Thirdly, everyone knows Jesus married Mary Magdelene... oh, sorry, wrong story.

I just wonder if Cameron really thinks he's found Jesus' tomb or if he's more just doing this to sift a few coppers. He's bound to make a bit off the back of this, from all those believers eagerly watching in order to debunk it.

False alarm. As you were, folks.

Here's a nice one from the Scots.

The Scotsman has learned that Aberdeen-based Bmi Regional is removing the divider curtain from its 20-strong fleet of 40-seat and 50-seat jets.

That means business travellers will pay £10 instead of £20 each time they fly, costing the Chancellor tens of thousands in lost revenue.

You would have thought that this is the sort of thing the Treasury could have predicted. I mean, surely they didn't rush these new green taxes through, did they...? Talk about a loophole.

From today's Independent (in their section arguing that the internet is a negative force for democracy):

"Online petitions and blogs provide a lazy form of political activism, much loved by cranks."

Hey! I resemble that remark!

EDIT: Dizzy has it on very good authority that this one is a fake after all. Very craftily done. Oh well!

---

While Johnson is using his to gather student support for his deputy leadership campaign, David Cameron appears to have joined in order to monitor and support the Conservative Future movement. He's been posting messages to the various groups:

I would very much like to endorse the work of Conservative Future.

This is an exciting time in British politics. We now have the opportunity to build a modern, compassionate Conservative party, willing and able to deliver for a modern British society in desperate need of strong leadership and reasoned policy after ten years of Labour mis-rule. Together, we can make a difference as a growing voice for change, optimism and hope in our country. I would like to thank you for the excellent work that your society does in raising conservative issues within your area.

Good luck,
The Rt. Hon David Cameron MP

I can't fault the approach. On Facebook, David Cameron will be privy to every campaign day, meeting and pub crawl of any CF group with a listing in the country. There really is no better way to track us.

However now I face a dilemna. I note he has joined the Boris Johnson Appreciation Society as well as the various CF groups. And now I am itching to invite him to some other groups as well; the Petition to Revoke the Independence of the United States for a start... I'm just not sure he'd appreciate it though.

Apparently the European Commission is going to start proceedings to sue Germany over their passing a law to protect a telecommunications monopoly the government has a sizable share in.

The law, passed by Germany's upper house of parliament in December, was published in the legal gazette today and will take effect tomorrow, the Economy Ministry said in a faxed statement. European Media Commissioner Viviane Reding has threatened to sue Germany, which holds the EU presidency in the first half of 2007, unless it scraps some provisions in the legislation.

Deutsche Telekom, which is 32 percent owned by the government, has said it may halt spending on the network unless the company gets guarantees that it will have exclusive access long enough to recoup investments. The European Commission said today it "has taken notice of Germany's publication of the new telecom law'' and is set to start legal proceedings against the government.

Tut tut. Although, since Germany is really just trying to safeguard German jobs, I can't say I blame them. However it seems bad form for the country holding the EU Presidency to get sued by the EU! Doesn't set a very good example at all.

“I raised my hand and fingers in the shape of a gun — it’s what we call a ‘click bang’ around here. I was doing it for a laugh and a buzz.

I thought it would be fun to showboat for the lads so I went up behind him and made like I was pulling the trigger.

My mates thought it was well funny, but I didn’t know how important he was until somebody told me. The guy at our local gym told me he was an MP.”

The kid in this picture (from here) truly is the poster child for our society. Jobless, hooked on soft drugs, electronically tagged for burglary, no interest in the workings of the country... Sad. But he's just one of an army of kids failed at every level by the government, by the education system, by his community, and consequently by himself.

I do wonder what David Cameron's family must think of this picture. If it was someone related to me, or a friend, I'd be very disturbed by it. How easily it could have been for real considering how many kids are getting shot in London, Nottingham and other cities in this country. Yet I doubt this boy would care even if he knew just how sick the timing of his little prank was. That's the worst part.

It couldn't have happened to a more deserving ex-Prime Minister. And rather fitting too I think that Blair declined to show up. After all, it's an honour he will never be on the receiving end of.


I look forwards to paying my respects to the great lady when I visit the House next month.

I've been following the case of the Muslim girl claiming that her school's refusal to allow her to wear the niqab breaches the European Convention on Human Rights for a while now with interest. It's been a case filled with unexpected surprises, such as the decision of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford to fund the school in order to fight against her case.

Now she has lost her case, and rightly so in my opinion; not even so much on faith grounds but uniform grounds. However there is something worse about all of this, which goes beyond the mere matter of some girl wearing a niqab to school.

She has not attended the school since October and is receiving three and a half hours' tuition a week at home, compared withmore than 30 hours if she had been at school.

A grammar school has offered her a place and the chance to wear the niqab and the local authority is prepared to transport her on the 25-minute journey from home. The court heard that the parents had given no reason why they have not accepted this offer...

The judge added: "Everybody involved in this case will be anxious to ensure she can return to school, especially as she has been away from school for four and a half months which, not surprisingly, depresses her.

"I hope she and her parents will give very serious consideration to the offer of a place at the second school. But, if the offer is not accepted, X can expect another lengthy period away from school."

I know I'm coming at this from a secular angle, but does faith outweigh the need for this child to get an education? Do her parents really believe this battle is more important than her wellbeing? She has missed a great deal of schooling that she won't have the opportunity to make up without repeating the year. And now they are going to appeal, so she will miss yet more time in school since they won't accept the alternate offer either. That in itself is suspicious.

Of all the details of this case, her missing school is the part that angers me the most. How can any parents put their kid through something like this just to make a point?

Well now. That didn't take long did it? Not even a year in office.

And he was only two votes off winning a parliamentary motion of support for his foreign policy as well. That has to hurt a little. Talk about your bad luck there. But I suppose it just goes to show that foreign policy can make or break a Prime Minister. If only it would finish off ours as well.

Oh well. Bye Prodi.

"The government in general - and Gordon Brown in particular - have come out of this affair looking like mean-spirited bully-boys..."

You betcha. It has long been my opinion that the pensions raid will be the action for which this government is most remembered and a significant reason they will be condemned in future years, when my generation are struggling to pick up the tab. So I'm overjoyed that the pensioners fighting for compensation have made some headway today, even if it's not much when all said and done. At least they won't be bankrupted if the government manages to grease its way out of this, as I have a feeling they just might.

I don't believe it. And nor will you when you read this.

After the Government sought to slip out in an obscure document that the discredited Deputy Prime Minister has been given a £587,000 "bonus" by increasing the budget of his department to £2,547,000 a year - a massive 30 per cent hike on the money he was awarded in November - Oliver Heald protested: "At a time when savage NHS cuts are being imposed by Gordon Brown, spending £3 million on a vanity post and vanity department is a scandalous waste of time and money."

The news of Mr Prescott's "bonus" was buried in a long list of 32 different written ministerial statements released at Westminster. They show that on top of the departmental budget, Mr Prescott's pension, salary and allowances - including council tax payments on his home in Hull - cost taxpayers a further £284,921 a year, pushing the total bill for keeping the Deputy Prime Minister in Whitehall comfort to nearly £3 million a year.

Yes, our old friend John Prescott has hit the jackpot again.

Seriously though, just what dirt does he have on Tony Blair or Gordon Brown to justify this? It's nothing short of incredible.

A hat tip goes out to The Barfly for pointing me towards this story. Cheers mate.

Labour have been trying ever so hard lately to resurrect the old "Tory Toff" jibe against David Cameron, in the hopes that it will enthuse their core base and turn people off the Conservative leader. Releasing the above picture of the exclusive Bullingdon Club's class of 1987 (he's no.2) was expected to kickstart a backlash against the Toff. Yet the ICM poll today would seem to indicate that it has been all in vain. And the great irony is, New Labour is to blame for it not working.

If we go back to the inception of the project, we can see that New Labour was all about targeting the Middle Classes; the group of people statistically most likely to go out and vote. It reinvented itself as a Middle Class party rather than a Working Class one in order to gain power. Now, as a result of a fairly buoyant economy (based on bad debt, but still), an influx of cheap labour from abroad alongside a large number of people stuck on welfare, neither of which tend to vote, and the trend - which started in the Tory years but went into overdrive under Labour - towards an ever-growing Middle Class, the jibes about Cameron, and indeed most of the Tory frontbench, being privileged to pretty much lose their bite.

Why? Because the Middle Class are Upper Class wannabees. It's been said many times. They are reasonably secure in life, with decent jobs and homes of their own. They have enough money to be fairly comfortable and the only perceived way forwards is upwards. They're the ambitious class, so to speak. With a large number of people now in this bracket, who aspire to be in the "privileged" category David Cameron was fortunate enough to be born into, rather than in the traditional Labour Working Class category which hates anything and everything which dares to have it better, the "Tory Toff" accusation doesn't mean anything anymore.

No matter how hard Labour try to stimulate their members with the old seething hatred for those with privilege, it wont work any more. Their days of their being a Working Class party are too long gone. Thanks to Blair's reinvention of the party, a lot of their members themselves are Middle Class; part of the aspiring class. So why would they hate David Cameron? They're more likely to admire him.

Labour are trying to enthuse a Working Class grass roots which has been smothered by a new Middle Class core membership, and are wondering why they're getting no response. Until the penny drops and they figure this out, they will never manage to land a successful blow on the Tory Boy Wonder.

Gordon Brown, I say this from the bottom of my heart...

Check out the ICM Guardian poll out today.

Haaaaaaappy birthday!

I can't believe it. Yes, this is my 500th post. 500! Gosh that's a lot. It's taken me eight months and who knows how many hours, but at least I made it this far. Definitely cause for a little celebration I think.

SPEECH! SPEECH!

Well, since you ask... I would like to do a quick roll call of some of the people I have cause to thank. First of all, I'd have to say thank you Mr. David Cameron for getting me enthusiastic about politics again, and to all of the tutors in Hull University Politics Department for broadening my knowledge on a daily basis. Honourable mentions go to Cristina Leston-Bandeira, who got me on the course I'm on, and Lord Norton, who really has taught me an enormous amount in a relatively short space of time.

Now, onto the blogging family. Iain Dale deserves some gratitute definitely, since his was the first ever political blog I encountered and reading his daily contributions made me wonder if perhaps I could do the same. I probably never would have started this thing otherwise. I'd also like to thank Dizzy, as his linking to me gave me my first burst of regular traffic and really kickstarted this blog. Praguetory too deserves my gratitude for being so complimentary and really helping to keep my spirits up on those occasions when I considered throwing in the towel. I'd like to thank Ellee Seymour for mentioning me on 18 Doughty Street (even if I never got to see it) and for being such a fantastic friend and genuinely lovely person. Croydonian too; I'd like to thank him for being a great friend, a genuine laugh, and for being so amazingly supportive throughout.

There are many more I'd like to thank, who have and continue to have an real impact on this blog for different reasons - Chris Black, UK Daily Pundit, Andrew Allison, Andy Percy, Chris Palmer, the Webcameron team, Joe Brice, my mum - to name but a few. But at the risk of going on and on, I'd just like to say that I am hugely grateful for all of their help and support and I hope I can offer the same to each one of them whenever needed.

Now... back to blogging I suppose. Jeez the shine soon wears off, doesn't it?

This is one for my desperately cash-strapped student friends really. The Adam Smith Institute are running a competition for someone to write a new, shorter, more economically-focused and UK friendly potential Constitution for the European Union... and there is a money prize, folks.

The UK preference for no Constitution will get no traction and win no friends, since it looks to be hostile to the very idea of the EU. Both Labour and Conservative politicians hope the Constitution will go away. It will not.

However, the UK could well emerge with the best solution if it promotes a new Constitution that appears good for the EU and the UK — in that order. Perhaps the UK proposal will fail but a positive approach would at least allow us to get the best from which alternative wins out.

Since our politicians are making no progress in drawing up alternatives, the Adam Smith Institute is offering a £1,000 prize to whoever draws up the best draft for a new EU Constitution.

I contemplated taking up this challenge but I just don't think I'm cut out for it. I tinkered, and wrote some notes, and only ended up getting bored and doing some random automatic word-replacements. Basically, I Lebwogised it.

Article I-1

Establishment of the Fanclub

1. Reflecting the will of the Pirates and Pirate Ships of Europe to build a common future, this Paper Aeroplane establishes the Blessed Fanclub, on which the Brian Blessed Fanclubs confer idiocies to attain objectives they have in common. The Fanclub shall coordinate the policies by which the Brian Blessed Fanclubs aim to achieve these objectives, and shall exercise on a Community basis the idiocies they confer on it.

2. The Fanclub shall be open to all European Pirate Ships which respect its values and are committed to promoting them together...

I don't think I'm going to win, to be honest.

Hat tip goes out to Tory Radio for this one. Thanks Jonathan!

This round of Lords reform seems to be fairly dead in the water, thank goodness. I wouldn't say it's actually a done deal yet; you never know, it might just scrape through the Commons. Jack Straw hasn't exactly recanted but he has backed down a little.

"I don't want discussions about procedure to overshadow the important substantive debate we're going to be having on the future of the Lords itself, and I think we'd all agree we mustn't let this kind of process get in the way of a reform to which all parties are committed."

Here's hoping they won't agree again! At the risk of going on and on about Lords reform, I won't say too much about it this time around (I have a feeling I've made my overall objections pretty clear). I'll save it for the inevitable next round, when David Cameron starts twitching in that direction, or Gordon Brown decides to make his push for a fully elected second chamber. Oy, the stupidity never ends.

"The Lords is functioning well. The Commons is functioning poorly. What do they want to do? Reform the Lords."
- Lord Norton of Louth (19th February, 2007)

I know this is slightly old news now but I only just caught this story and was induced to pass it on for sheer disbelieving horror. Word has it that Tony Blair is being lined up for a special interview for Comic Relief. I attempted to imagine the scenario being suggested, and can only state that it could potentially be the most cringeworthy spectacle since Richard Madely decided he could do an Ali G impression.

The big idea is for Blair to be interviewed by Lauren, Catherine Tate's schoolgirl character with the "Am I bovvered? Do I look bovvered?" catchphrase. Sounds utterly dire. Not only is the character incredibly irritating and entirely beyond a joke, but Lauren isn't much better...

Seriously though, who came up with that one? Fire them immediately!

A - Money gets donated to UKIP across the country
B - It gets filtered into Nigel Farage's office's accounts
C - £500,000 comes up missing

You can't get from point A to point C without taking into account point B, even if Nigel Farage is claiming that, despite all evidence to the contrary, no money is missing. Now perhaps it was merely blown on various campaigning bits and pieces that nobody bothered to jot down. Could happen if they were winging it. Yet it's difficult not to see it all as a tad suspect, given the dubious handling of accounts from the word go.

The UKIP bubble continues to haemorrhage it seems. Definitely a story to keep an eye on.

One week almost precisely and the T-Shirts are already out. I can tell this story about Dave's dope days is going to run for a long long time to come, urban legend style.

I hope I'm not the only one seething about these new plans to force people to have face to face interviews in order to get out of this country. To read the BBC's take on it, it's all about fighting passport fraud and the only objections to the scheme are over the inconvenience of it all. Talk about glaring omissions.

Surely interviews for passports isn't the real story. The story is that this is the official beginning of the big shiny National Identity Register the government are so looking forwards to having. This is from their information sheet [PDF link], dated last May;

UKPS shared and discussed details of the application process with the ID Cards Programme (IDCP) and the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) as part of the planning for the establishment of the Identity and Passport Service on the passing of the Identity Cards Act 2006. It has been agreed that the AbI process will continue for enrolments of British nationals on the National Identity Register. The handling of applications from other nationals will differ in detail but will also consist of an identity interview based on a prior “biographical footprint” check.

The passport interview offices have been planned with sufficient space to allow for the enrolment of biometrics. This will be necessary for the second generation of biometric passports expected to be needed by mid 2009 and will also provide the passport interview offices with the capacity to pilot the identification and biometric enrolment processes for ID cards, using passport applicants.

So these offices are being prepared for the biometric stage they plan to implement right from the outset it seems. I wonder if this includes the actual technology and if so, how much money is being thrown at it. Seems a bit brazen considering how much opposition there is to the whole thing from the opposition parties and the population in general.

So far the Lords have opposed the government on having compulsory biometric registration at passport offices. At the moment I'd say that they are probably the only thing standing in the way of this terrible infringement on practically every civil liberty we ever had being in place already. The way the government is setting up these officies seems to me to be an indication that they fully expect to push through compulsory biometric registration on their damned database however much we object.

What a waste of money it will prove to be when we win the next election and dismantle it! (What? I'm feeling optimistic today.)

Alright, so it's not Chinese New Year until tomorrow officially. But I went out canvassing today with Graham Stuart's team, out in Wawne and Coniston, and the village's pub has been converted into a big Chinese restuarant (in a slightly perplexing move it must be said), so we ended up watching a minor Chinese New Year ceremony. A yellow dragon emerged out of the back of a white van to the sound of drumming music. It then danced around a bit and finally made its way into the restaurant. Rather fun to watch.

Anyway, I am sorry for the lack of posts here, I've been too busy, too tired, or too blah of late. Perhaps it's the weather.

With little else to say on the subject, I'll draw upon a classic. Here it is again; the ultimate political valentine...

We have had ten years of Brown's welfare policies, ten years of a tax system encouraging family breakdown, and look where it has got us. Of the 21 richest nations, Great Britain comes bottom of the pile for child well-being.The worrying thing is, I honestly can't think of anything to contradict this. The education system is in a shambles, the tax system is designed to keep people reliant on the state and a significant proportion of our kids seem to spend their time terrorising people, getting drunk or getting pregnant. It's heartbreaking that we've come to this.

As the Downing Street Petition against Labour's desire to introduce road tolls by the mile edges nearer and nearer the one and a half million mark, and continues to grow, I really think it's time the Conservatives kicked the football into the goal.

According to the DM today, road tolls aren't even the worst part. Labour have a whole host of stealthy taxes and insidious little bits of small print that should ring alarm bells in the mind of anybody with half a brain;

• Larger 'gas-guzzling' cars can be made to pay far more by charging according to their exhaust emissions.

• There should be no discounts for motorists who live within road-pricing areas.

• Identification 'tags' in every car will make detection 'easier'.

• Local schemes will marry up eventually into a national scheme, and ultimately a European scheme.

• Councils can adjust their road prices 'to meet social and environmental directives'.

• Central Government will ultimately dictate the technology to be used.

This will be the most unpopular policy Labour has ever pushed through, and that's saying something. If the Conservatives would do with this policy as they did with the ID Cards one, saying unequivocally that it would be scrapped, the groundswell of support would be massive. It would be the least risky policy move ever made. Even those who don't drive are against this insanity.

So come on Dave, put out the word that the Tories won't stand for this and just watch the votes flood in.

Apologies for the radio silence on this blog the last few days, I've been hugely busy lately and yesterday my internet connection fizzled out. It's back now, however it's still a little wobbly.

On the bright side, I won a seminar debate yesterday arguing against Lords Reform. Okay, my group was a very sympathetic to the idea anyway, but still! It was a very lively debate, with four arguments on the table; retain, reform, replace and remove. I argued for retain. Incidently, another group doing the same debate had the same result. Apparently the younger generation are rather happy with the Lords remaining more or less as it is, as an unelected scrutinising chamber. Read into that what you will.

Anyway, I'm liable to be pretty busy over the next few days lending a hand with a web project for Hull University's Politics Society and sorting out all of the information from the questionnaires you have been sending me. Posts might be a bit more scarce than usual but a student has to do what a student has to do! Huge enormous thanks, by the way, to those who have joined in with my Blogging Project and filled one out, I appreciate it very much. So far I've had 69 responses.

Speaking of which, the lines don't close until tomorrow, so there's time for more to take part...

The Daily Mail is doing the internet/print equivalent of hopping up and down with excitement today with its proudly proclaimed "exclusive" about David Cameron smoking pot as a teenager. Shame they're not the only ones (very well spotted Mr. Dale).

The rather unsalacious story goes, he and a bunch of other kids at Eton were caught smoking and selling cannabis. Seven were expelled for selling it, four gated for merely smoking. A 15-year old David was amongst the latter group. It is also claimed that he smoked occasionally at Oxford as well, though there seems to be no real evidence of that. Yawning yet?

The most perplexing part of the DM's report, to my mind, was this paragraph:

It will also provide ammunition for a hard core of Right-wing Tory enemies who will see Mr Cameron's youthful flirtation with drugs as further proof that he is too liberal, politically and personally, to be a successful Conservative leader.

Will it? Really? I would have thought that the worst thing that could happen as a result of this would be some jokes being thrown around at PMQTs. Trust me, on the list of reasons motivating the hardcore Right-wingers to have a go at Cameron, drug-taking in his youth will be very low priority!

Actually I thought the weirdest thing I learned from this was the fact that the Headmaster who gated David at Eton, Eric Anderson, taught Tony Blair at Fettes precisely a decade earlier. I didn't know that. Are David and Tony living in some sort of time warp - living the same lives ten years apart or something? With Cameron currently wooing the Prince of Darkness himself, Peter Mandelson, you do have to wonder...

So Gordon Brown has gone to see the Pope and together they are working on a vaccination fund for kids in developing countries. That's great. I really can't fault the intention. However I do have one burning question which just won't let me rest.

While Gordon's off to India and Italy and all these other places, who's minding the Treasury? I don't know if he's noticed or not, but we are facing several financial crises right now. The NHS deficit is one. The lack of Prison spaces due to Brown's failure to budget them is another. Another increase in the trade deficit is yet another.

We need a Chancellor, even a crap one, here and doing something. Or has the entire Cabinet been reshuffled in all but name, with Ed Balls hiding in the shadows of No.12 nowadays? Gordon's jetsetting just reinforces the fact that Blair's limpet-like behaviour is getting beyond a joke. We don't need two Prime Ministers right now, we need someone to take the reins as Chancellor and for them to start sorting this all out. If Brown is Chancellor, then he should be doing that. If it's Balls, then let him get on with it. But at least extend us the courtesy of knowing somebody is doing something about it and that this ridiculous paralysis isn't going to last another five months.

It's been three months since Pastor Haggard's career as a fire and brimstone Evangelical Church Leader went up in, well, flames (see Another Prominent Homophone Outed). Further news on his case is now out.

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is "completely heterosexual" and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

There's no mention of the accompanying drug problem, but then again, nobody from his church seems to mind that part. It's always all about the gay thing. Either way, Pastor Haggard is apparently coming out the other side of this storm, though he is being run out of leaving town and being told he should probably stick to secular work from now on.

Now Haggard wants to go into psychology. In many ways, that's more frightening than his last job, in my opinion. The man who screamed, "how dare you call my congregation monkeys!" at evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wants to have free reign in the minds of the vulnerable and damaged? Yikes.

As usual, the Daily Show has its finger on the pulse with regards to this story...

Blogging with be light this weekend, as I have a bit of a cold and too much work to get done. However, I can't help but comment on the pun-inviting revelations coming from the Pentagon, with regards to who was to blame for the inaccurate intelligence which led America to war. Get this:

The long-awaited report by the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble, was sent to Congress on Thursday. It is the first major review to rebuke senior officials working for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the way intelligence was used before the invasion of Iraq early in 2003.

Working under Douglas J. Feith, who at the time was under secretary of defense for policy, the group “developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and Al Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers,” the report concluded. Excerpts were quoted by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who has long been critical of Mr. Feith and other Pentagon officials.

So it was a Feith Based Initiative. Well, I found that amusing anyway. But in all seriousness, the existence of such a policy group does call into question a few things, to my mind. Take this piece of information, for example:

The Feith operation dates to shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when the Pentagon established a small team of civilians to sift through existing intelligence with the aim of finding possible links between terror networks and governments. Bush administration officials contended that intelligence agencies were ignoring reports of collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

So the group was established with the express purpose of finding links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. And now they're being criticised for... finding links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. It doesn't seem to be the case that they made anything up, more that they sifted the intelligence carefully highlighted any links, however tenuous. Which is what they were supposed to do. Decisions to act upon it came from higher up, so I'm not sure why Feith is getting the flak for this. Surely Rumsfeld should be getting the blame, since he set up the operation to find links to Iraq based on nothing more than a desire for it to be the case.

"The Prime Minister is fond of comparing himself to Margaret Thatcher. But there's a difference between a conviction politician and a politician who's about to get a conviction."
- David Cameron (2007)

Last month I was approached by the rather good up-and-coming website Friction TV to make a contribution, and though I haven't yet made a video myself, I'm glad to see that it's starting to catch on. In fact I predict big things for it, purely based on the fact that people do like to rant, a