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If you have something to say...
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The Abu Qatada saga demonstrates the challenging complexity of extraditing suspected criminals and terrorists through bilateral arrangements. Of course there are special features in that case and it concerns a non-EU country, but it still serves to highlight the sheer absurdity of the Conservatives' desire to pull out of the European Arrest Warrant.
My, we are a gloomy lot. Last week, I discussed the possible impact of a triple-dip recession. Last Thursday's GDP figures suggest that Britain's economy has so far avoided this fate. However, it is also clear that the government's hopes of steady growth of 2 - 3% a year have yet to be realised. And YouGov research for the Resolution Foundation finds that five years of economic troubles have left a deep mark on public opinion.
The politicians' draft Royal Charter is supposed to be a wizard wheeze to entrench "voluntary independent self-regulation", Judge Leveson's Orwellian oxymoron, without crossing David Cameron's Rubicon into statutory regulation. Of course, it does nothing of the kind. It is state regulation by any other name.
Let's get one thing straight. UKIP do not provide a credible alternative in local politics.
The ability to discuss and debate freely, without the threat of illiberal libel action hanging over us, is a fundamental freedom that we must defend - should the Defamation Bill be amended as proposed, progress towards that freedom will suffer a substantial blow.
The Euromyth has fuelled journalists for many years. Some of the stories have been ludicrous, some have been genuinely funny. Plenty have been disingenuous.
David Cameron is not the only British politician who has attempted to stir the dank waters of prejudice, bitterness, xenophobia, racism, paranoia and ignorance where the likes of Ukip and the Daily Mail swim, in the hope of gaining some political advantage from them.
I suspect in some ways the Ancient Greeks would have embraced social media as a medium for complimenting direct democracy and involving citizens in the political process, because it helps stimulate conversation, foster greater understanding of the political process and can act as a breeding ground for ideas.
The most welcome element of Osborne's budget is the introduction of the Liberal Democrat policy to raise the personal tax allowance to £10,000 next year, taking the poorest earners out of income tax altogether. The rest, I'm afraid, fails to be sufficiently progressive to satiate the social liberal majority within the Liberal Democrat party membership.
That childcare is now high on the government's agenda, at a time when many areas are of growing financial concern, is an achievement by campaigning parents and charities that should not be minimised. The government's proposal for tax-free childcare support, unveiled earlier this week, demonstrates that the prime minister and the deputy prime minister have heard the warnings that childcare costs were spiralling alarmingly.
We are all affected by Page Three whether we buy it or not, because we all live in a society where the most widely read paper in the country makes 'normal' the idea that women are there primarily for men's sexual pleasure.
Nick Clegg has spoken this week of the need to extend the Funding for Lending scheme and "put it on steroids". George Osborne, Vince Cable and the Bank of England are also desperate to get the scheme working for small businesses.
Gibraltar is a play concerned with the military operation conducted on 6 March 1988 on Gibraltar
The flip-flop, the backtrack, the reversal, the U-turn; all terms that have entered public discourse to describe an intriguing catch-22: Reneging on policy commitments too often is seen as a surefire sign of a weak political will, yet slavery to principle whatever the weather is the defining characteristic of a political bigot in the eyes of the electorate.
Nigel Farage was quipping that the Tories split the UKIP vote in Eastleigh - ouch. With the recent decline of the BNP and soon to be expired incarceration of the EDL leader Stephen Lennon - their masses of frustrated followers have found their mouthpiece in Farrage.
To remove Ed Balls from the post of shadow chancellor would deprive the opposition of its most accomplished macroeconomist - and its fiercest attack dog. It would also be an act of supreme cowardice, not strength, on the part of Ed Miliband. Like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before him, the Labour leader would be dancing to the tunes of the right-wing media echo chamber - the Dacres, the Desmonds, the Murdochs.
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