Remember when Al Gore claimed to have ‘invented the Internet’…?

Well, Iain Dale’s at it…

I don’t have many claims to fame, but inventing the phrase “plastic poll tax” as a description for ID cards is one of them – back in 2005. I see it has become Chris Huhne’s phrase du jour. Royalty cheques should be sent to…

2005? Oh dear…

ID cards may be Blair’s ‘plastic poll tax’

Analysis: A large majority think they are a good idea, but a small group of passionate opponents could prove to be politically lethal, reports Anthony King

By Anthony King
Last Updated: 9:35PM BST 07 Sep 2003

Any attempt to introduce a system of national identity cards could land the Government in deep trouble, according to YouGov’s survey for The Telegraph.

The survey’s headline figures showing a large majority in favour of such a system conceals depths of potentially lethal opposition. Identity cards have already been dubbed “the Poll Tax in plastic”. They could turn out to be just that…

Looks like, at the very least, one of the subs at the Torygraph beat Iain to it by a couple of years…

It is, I think, time to give Nadine Dorries yet another lesson in honesty, openness and transparency and, at the same time, give Iain Dale a much needed lesson in checking your sources before you open your mouth and embarrass yourself.

Back in May, Sunny Hundal submitted a complaint to the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards in relation to certain elements of Nadine Dorries’ website, a… - Continue Reading...

I see that both Tom and Luke Akehurst has tried to broach the issue tactfully, which I guess leave it to me to come right and say what needs to be.

If there is a shoddier and more overrated piece of crap in the British blogosphere that Labourhome then I’ve yet to come across it and short of dragging round the… - Continue Reading...

I’m in a bit of a snarky mood today, so someone’s going to get it – and that someone is a guy named Greg Schmidt who lives in a small town not far from Nashville, TN.

So who is this guy and what has he done to piss me off?

Well, nothing much – directly.

Greg is nothing more than the registered owner of a… - Continue Reading...

As you might expect, poking a stick at John Hemming and his pet conspiracy theories about baby-stealing social workers has drawn the conspiraloons out in force and, as usual, the arguments they have to offer are none the more convincing for their continual repetition. Still, and somewhat unusually, we’ve got a live one here, in the sense that this whole farrago is well enough documented… - Continue Reading...

There are many things in life that piss me off and that, in some respects, is a good thing because things that piss me off are a constant source of inspiration for things to write about on this blog.

I will freely admit to having many pet hates and something of misanthropic streak which surfaces from time to time, almost always in the face of… - Continue Reading...

And lo it came to pass that yet a British court has been asked to consider the merits of a vexatious private prosecution brought by a Christian fundamentalist stooge of Nadine Dorries’ new BFF, Andrea Minichiello Williams…

Representatives for a gallery in Gateshead appeared in court yesterday charged with outraging public decency, after featuring a statue of Jesus with an erection.

The artwork was part

… - Continue Reading...

In the normal course of events, if its evidence of the increasingly casual normalisation of Islamophobic memes in popular culture you’re looking for then your best ports of call will be one or more of The Sun, The Daily Mail and the Daily Express. In fact, just about the last place you’d think of looking for a bit of ‘OMFG, the Muslims are coming’ type… - Continue Reading...

As you might well imagine, the fallout from last week’s attempt to silence Harry’s Place is rattling on nicely and it seems that not only does one of the principle characters, Jenna Delich, have a bit of previously undisclosed form when it comes to circulating links to material written by known conspiraloons but further inquiries into the provenance of the original article which… - Continue Reading...