The government tonight suffered a damaging blow in its bid to introduce identity cards, with the Lords voting to force ministers into revealing the complete projected costs of the scheme before it can become law. Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers, backed by at least some Labour ones, inflicted […]

Another day, another assault on the legal system by the Home Office backed up by yet more flummery about ‘putting the rights of the victim first’ – this time its proposals to bypass the courts in many cases of petty offending by having defendents who plead guilty to […]

Plans to dispense with the ‘Wilson Doctrine’, a convention which bans the tapping of MPs phones (and presumably extends to e-mail and other communications) has lead to a predictable furore in both the dead tree press and the blogosphere – posts from Bloggerheads, Blairwatch and Longrider capture the […]

The first part of Richard Dawkins’ polemical documentary on religion, The Root of All Evil?, has certainly sparked plenty of debate and, not unsurprisingly, brought all manner of believers out in force to tell all the good things that there are about religion. I’m going to wait until […]

Chris is right on the money in his observations on Blair’s ‘Respect Agenda’ in noting that: What people in deprived areas are deprived of is not (merely) money; in any historic or global perspective, the average tenant in such areas is amazingly prosperous. Instead, what they lack is […]

This man was arrested and taken into police custody on August 1st 2005 during a protest in Parliament Square, London (the two arresting officers wore badges number KF705 and KF90). No one present at that protest has reported seeing him or hearing from him since he was bundled […]

What is history but a fable agreed upon? – Napoleon Bonaparte In thr past few weeks, Paul Anderson has twice had good cause to take Oliver ‘I’ve got a book out, y’know’ Kamm to task for his poor grasp of historical facts – here and here. Kamm, it […]

Apropos of my previous comments on bureaucracy, accountability and the Rochdale ‘Satanic Abuse’ case we come to an article in today’s Times by Camilla Cavendish, ‘Innocent but presumed guilty’, includes this quite staggering passage: A mother (I shall call her Sarah) entered this world voluntarily, when she began […]

Does the name Chris Huhne not remind you of Steve Martin’s character in the ‘The Man With Two Brains’; Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr… and if so does that mean that he’ll be working closely with David ‘Two Brains’ Willetts. And as Charles Kennedy has again claimed that he’s a […]

I’ve spent much of my working life dealing with, and sometimes working in, bureaucratic institutions in the Public, Private and Voluntary Sectors and, if truth be told, there is often little to choose between them. Anyone who believes that the private sector is somehow the ultimate antidote to […]