Sky News were talking about websites that facilitate vote-swapping for people wanting to vote tactically this year, like VoteSwap and Swap My Vote. I have been lucky in that I have never lived anywhere that tactical voting would have applied for me, Labour has always been 1st or 2nd so a pro-Labour vote is the […]
Entries Tagged as 'Politics'
No wonder he’s going
February 20th, 2015 · Comments Off on No wonder he’s going · Politics, Technology
When Francis Maude first talked about combining all the government websites into one big one, that part of me that had worked in IT since before there even was an internet, thought it sounded a bit risky. The principle isn’t too bad: why not provide a single front end, or a portal? It could be […]
Tags: Internet
Bert Crane
February 11th, 2015 · Comments Off on Bert Crane · Politics
I am hearing news that Bert Crane has died, which is not unexpected but nonetheless very upsetting. Yes, he was looking quite frail the last time I saw him, but then he was apparently not expected to live very long when he left the forces yet managed to go on to serve as a councillor […]
Tags: Labour Party·Obituaries
A new MP for Horsham
February 1st, 2015 · Comments Off on A new MP for Horsham · Politics
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 […]
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 […]
