New blog post up on my shiny shiny new blog, taking apart the silly obsessing about Hilary Clinton's so-called "bad hair day", the ugly attacks on Harriet Harman and her anti-violence initiative, and the connection between empathy and othering. It's really really good, promise!

Today I took my Life in the UK Test (I passed). On the way back into the office, I saw a diary lying on the ground - one of those large desk diaries with 2 days on each page. I picked it up, as people quite often drop things just outside the door, while fumbling with keys or whatever. And I opened it, as you do - it might have some info inside that ( Read more... )

Look, people. Yeah, the Daily Mail seem to have jumped the shark with this one. Yes, their opposition to the monstrous notion that teaching children to avoid violence is ridiculous, and is bordering on evil ( Read more... )

From the Border Agency's Consultation section on proposed changes to the current immigration rules:

The Government has already made fundamental reforms to the immigration system, to control migration in a way that is firm but fair. We now want to take these reforms a stage further, to build upon and strengthen the principle of earned ( Read more... )

 
In a week when the Guardian publishes a sympathetic profile of the ultra orthodox anti-Zionists holding violent demonstrations in Jerusalem and a column about the limits imposed on free speech in Israel (apparently you could get into a row with your dad), Mehdi Hassan asks:

Does Israel "cause" anti-Semitism?Why yes, yes it does, now you mention ( Read more... )

( What I find most interesting about this so called Coulsongate is that it exposes one of the main assumptions at the bottom of capitalism: that  free  markets lead to a general increase in liberty for all, and that regulation is totalitarianism/communism. )

 
Seriously. The Grauniad have launched a new section on their website: "A New Politics: Blueprint for Reforming Government". They say this is "in the wake" of the expenses "row".

So let me get this straight. When Alistair Darling was giving away FIFTY BILLION POUNDS of OUR MONEY to a bunch of incompetent, mendacious, infantile, off-with-the- ( Read more... )

 
At the end of August 2004, the Zogby people discovered that 57 percent of undecided voters would rather have a beer with George Bush than with John Kerry. Now, how many people with whom you've spent time drinking beer would you trust with the nuclear launch codes? Not only is this not a question for a nation of serious citizens, it's not even a ( Read more... )

This is where the real fight begins ( Read more... )

[01] Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey ( Read more... )