Bad Science at the Council of Europe

I’m tied up with other stuff this morning, so this is going to be a bit of drive-by by my usual standards… The Sunday Telegraph has a front page report which claims that a Council of Europe committee are planning to recommend a ban on mobile phones and […]

Homeopathy in the BMJ: A response to Clare Stanford

My attention has been drawn, this morning, to a thoroughly absurd attempt to defend the provision of homeopathy on the NHS by a Dr Clare Stanford, a reader in experimental psychopharmacology at the Department of Neuroscience, Physiology, and Pharmacology, University College London. The text that follows comes from […]

Poetry in Ammunition

In today’s Indy: Bullets similar to illegal dum-dum ammunition and designed to cause catastrophic injury are to be used as standard by police marksmen in London. Senior officers at the Metropolitan Police have selected the bullet because it is better at incapacitating a target and is less likely […]

A Right Royal Hypocrisy

From the Torygraph: The Duchess of Cornwall yesterday launched an outspoken defence of freedom of the press in Britain, describing it as a cornerstone of democracy. In a surprise intervention, set against the backdrop of the debate over privacy and the courts, she said that she “passionately” believed […]

Must We Fear Nadine Dorries?

Over the last few years I’ve written quite a lot on the subject of teenage pregnancy, abortion and related issues, much of which has been prompted by the dull-witted and willful ignorance of a single MP – Nadine Dorries, of course. If there’s one pertinent observation that crops […]

Dorries’ Abstinence Speech – The Fact Check

Looking back over the speech given by Nadine Dorries when introducing her ridiculous 10 minute rule bill, there are several factual innaccuracies to be added to list I started the other day. Take, for example, Dorries’ claims about the opinions of Dame Joan Bakewell… I am sure that […]

Sex Education, Churnalism and 10 Yetis – A Cornucopia of Crap

If you visited the BBC News website late last week then you have have seen this story prominently featured in its education news section: Many parents ‘oppose school sex education for children’ More than half of parents do not think sex education should be taught to children in […]

Tory Fucknut Watch #1 – Steve Baker

In which alternate reality do the Tory Party find their election candidates? Seriously.. this morning I’ve accidentally run across the website of Steve Baker MP (Wycombe), one of the new intake of Tories elected in 2010. Steve, if I can be so familiar as to call him by […]

Abstinence makes the brain go softer

I was originally going to fisk the speech Nadine Dorries gave in introducing her ten minute rule bill on the mandatory teaching of abstinence to 13-16 year old girls, but much of what needs to be said can be readily covered using her pseudo-blog post on the same […]