Category: Politics

  • Vote Early, Vote Oft… Er… Well Vote Anyway

    Polling stations are open until 10pm.

  • The Power of Newspapers… Or Lack Thereof

    After the 1992 election when John Major defeated Neil Kinnock, The Sun published a now famous headline: “It’s The Sun Wot Won It.” I suspect that this is now a standard text that pupils examine in their GCSE Politics courses. Did The Sun really win it? Or were they just reading the runes and backing…

  • The Day We Phoned Maggie

    One of the big stories in the news today is that someone somehow got through to David Cameron on the phone, and pretended to be the head of GCHQ. Cameron says that he realised that it was a hoax fairly quickly and hung up. I suspect that a lot of people are wondering: “Surely it…

  • Election Fundraising

    Last week Jon Stewart did a very good piece on the emails that the Democratic campaign has been sending out ahead of the upcoming mid-term elections. (Theoretically you can see the video here. Except that in the UK, you can’t. It suggests you go to Comedy Central’s UK site, but that only has some extended…

  • Polling and the Scottish Referendum

    What an interesting few weeks it has been for poll-watching. I say that from my London perspective. Obviously north of the border, this is a debate that has been running for years now, and us southerners have only really woken up to it recently. In particular, we woke up to it following a Sunday Times…

  • Capital

    I saw this copy of the economics book du jour in WH Smith of all places. Somehow the sticker and the book’s subject matter seemed incongruous. That said – don’t knock the half-price offer. I note that Amazon isn’t discounting it at all which is significant since the cover price is £29.95.

  • space4cycling

    Earlier this evening, while the House of Commons debated the Get Britain Cycling report, the LCC organised a massive cycle ride around the Houses of Parliament. The demonstration of something like 5000 cyclists was to make the case for road planning and traffic infrastructure to properly take cyclists into account. This certainly hasn’t happened to…

  • State Intimidation

    I’m thoroughly sickened to learn of the intimidatory behaviour that representative of the UK have made against the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald in holding his partner for 9 hours for questioning under Section of the Terrorism Act. He’s not suspected of terrorism, and therefore it’s entirely intimidatory. Is this the kind of thing…

  • Ignoring The Leveson Obvious

    As stupid politics ruins a perfectly good, and vitally necessary libel reform bill, I again get back into the quagmire that is Leveson reforms. Her Majesty’s Press sitting there refusing to have any kind of legislation oversee them, while Leveson seems to have done his best to work around this issue. But it all feels…

  • The Big Ride

    Watch in HD over on Vimeo Yesterday, I joined several thousand others riding around some closed streets of Central London as part of the LCC organised Big Ride. In the week before Londoners vote for who should be the next Mayor, this was a massive protest to ensure that the person who does sit in…

  • Following the US Election in the UK

    As the US gets into the swing of things in 2012, the contest between Republicans to become the candidate who will fight it out with Barack Obama gets more intense with each week. The best place to follow the ups and downs of the electoral combat would be on The Daily Show, and its sister…

  • Tour Du Danger

    On Saturday, around 300 cyclists took part in the Tour Du Danger, a cycle tour of London’s most dangerous junctions. This came less than 24 hours after a second cyclist had been killed at a junction in Bow which forms part of the Cycling Superhighway to the Olympic site. This was a protest at the…