This report (quoted below) from Friday’s Independent, has quite rightly attracted the opprobrium of several bloggers including Justin (Chicken Yoghurt), Jeremy (My Way Of Thinking) and Mark (Longrider). A day earlier, Mr Blair had told MPs: “We do not agree with the use of torture.” Pressed over whether […]

From Jesus’s General

Having found myself broadly agreeing with something written by Polly Pot the other day I now find myself faced with a saluatory reminder that as vapid and ill-conceived as many of her columns are there is one thing going her favour as journalist. She isn’t Melanie Phillips. There […]

Via Recess Monkey comes this prime example of statistical hyperbole from the PM no less. Written answers Monday, 21 November 2005 Prime Minister Terrorism Legislation Grant Shapps (Welwyn Hatfield, Con) “To ask the Prime Minister pursuant to his oral answer of 9 November 2005, Official Report, column 298W, […]

Lots of ground to cover here so I’ll straight down to business. First up Tim Worstall notes an interesting statistical claim from Julie Bindel in today’s Grauniad, which he files under the category ‘idiotarians’: Violence against women is the cause of more deaths and disability around the world […]

The range of political opinion emerging [in the] British blogosphere subculture is emphatically not representative of public opinion in this country: bloggers from left to right have a liberal (or libertarian) streak that leads to a broad oppositional consensus to things like ID cards and 90-day detention without […]

Well whaddya know, for once dear old Polly Pot has managed to write something which makes a bit of sense. Admittedly the subject of state funding for faith schools is one of those rare topics in which she’s both consistent in her views and entirely correct in both […]

Via the estimable Mr Worstall, purveyor of the ever excellent Britblg Roundup (now at #40) and editor of this year’s must have Christmas gift; 2005: Blogged, in which your humble chronicler gets a mention – buy the book and have all the fun of RSS feeds in the […]

Well, if this week’s anything to go by then the future of the Child Support Agency looks set to join the long list of other things (drugs, terrorism, etc.) where its close to impossible to engage in a sensible, meaningful debate. Of course the doyen of foot-in-mouth op-ed […]

Nosemonkey’s back from nuptuals in the Land of the Rising Sun/Credit Card Bill/Overdraft [best not speculate on other possible ‘risings’ here] and clearly full of his usual vim, vigour and vitriol. Getting both barrels today is the newly elected Labour MP for Burnley, Heather Graham look-a-like, and the […]