Whatever happens in May, Horsham will have a new MP because Francis Maude has announced that he is standing down. It will be interesting to see who is chosen there because Horsham is the sort of place where the Tories can win easily even when their candidate is unpopular with many people because of blatant […]
Entries Tagged as 'Politics'
Fact of the day
January 27th, 2015 · Comments Off on Fact of the day · Politics
Did you know that if you hold a large seashell to your ear you can hear the deafening silence of UKIP complaining about the London Ambulance Service bringing 175 foreigners into the country to be paramedics, with plans to have another overseas recruitment drive in September.
Tags: Immigration·UKIP
Thumbs down
January 27th, 2015 · 1 Comment · Politics
At tonight’s council meeting, to the surprise of nobody, the council effectively voted in favour of an extra runway at Heathrow. The vote was 25 to 11. Presumably the reason why that only adds up to 36 is because of the very public declaration by one councillor that he wouldn’t vote on something that wasn’t […]
Tags: Gatwick
Decision time
January 25th, 2015 · 1 Comment · Politics
Tomorrow night the local council will be having a special meeting about airport expansion and deciding whether to support an extra runway at Gatwick, oppose it, or not offer an opinion. It is a strange one because the topic is just about the most significant one locally for a long time, and yet the decision […]
Tags: Gatwick
Permutations
January 20th, 2015 · 1 Comment · Politics
All the so-called experts are poring over sets of inconsistent polls, trying to work out what might happen in the general election. Will the Lib Dems still be in a coalition with the Tories or would the Tories combine with UKIP? Might Labour have to form a coalition with the Greens and SNP and maybe […]
Tags: Elections
Father Vlad
December 31st, 2014 · Comments Off on Father Vlad · Politics
All that business in Ukraine earlier in the year – I just realised that in Father Ted terms, Putin was basically kicking Bishop Brennan up the arse.
Tags: Ukraine
Crisis? What Crisis?
November 18th, 2014 · Comments Off on Crisis? What Crisis? · Politics
I finally finished reading Crisis? What Crisis?: Britain in the 1970s by Alwyn Turner. It took a while. I would probably have read two or three novels in the time it took me to read it, even though it is a much shorter book than many other history books that often weigh in at 700 […]
Cast the net wider
November 3rd, 2014 · 1 Comment · Life, Politics
To adapt Oscar Wilde a little: To lose one chair of an inquiry into historical child abuse, Mr. Cameron, may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness. People have been asking whether the failure of the government to find somebody to chair this inquiry who doesn’t have some sort of personal […]
Tags:
First past the post explained
October 29th, 2014 · Comments Off on First past the post explained · Politics
This is a bit annoying, because I happen to think that proportional representation would be a good thing, but I thought of a good analogy to explain how first past the post isn’t necessarily unfair if a party gets fewer votes but wins more seats. I should throw in the caveat that by ‘good’ I […]
Everybody wins
October 27th, 2014 · Comments Off on Everybody wins · Politics
With all the doom and gloom around, it was nice to see some good news this week – that one of our Tory councillors has been selected as a parliamentary candidate in Stoke-on-Trent. This really is one of those times when everybody wins.
Tags: Elections·Local Government·Tories
