If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
What is the collective noun to describe an assembly of home secretaries, past and present? A rage? A choler? A fury? The better term might be an impotence.
If there is one source of energy less reliable than sun from Scotland, it must be oil from the middle east, especially now the Iranians are threatening devilment in the Straits of Hormuz, through which we are reliably informed a fifth of the world's crude passes every day.
There is much to celebrate in child protection from 2011, but we need a radical rethink if we are to make a real difference in 2012. This has been a year of significant change in child protection, much of it for the better. And it was also the year that saw ChildLine celebrate 25 years of helping vulnerable children. Over a quarter of a century it has helped 2.6 million young people since it was launched by Esther Rantzen... But sadly, serious abuse and neglect still occur. On average around 50 children are killed each year in England and Wales, most by those that were supposed to love and protect them.
The Cabinet Office have published their draft bill, supposedly to allow the public to recall their MPs when they've done something wrong.
I'm a lobbyist. I'm really proud to be one.After the last few days of headlines you would have thought I would want to keep my head down. Not at all. Now is the time to stand up for transparent lobbying and to drive out of the industry once and for all those who not prepared to stand up for transparency.
The time for talking on this subject is over. We are facing a major humanitarian disaster. If nothing is done to prevent another attack, a far worst catastrophe should be expected, and the people of Iran who are a nation holding their breath for a democratic change, will hold those capable of doing something about this situation, completely responsible, for the murder of their brothers and sisters at Camp Ashraf.
As someone who submitted evidence to the committee's inquiry, I'm glad they see both the need for a real strategy to tackle deprivation and the inadequacy of the government's response (in England, anyway: the Scots and Welsh are more enlightened).
As we enter November, we reach the 21st anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's resignation as prime minister. Despite the melodrama of more recent political events, it's hard to imagine what Westminster must have been like in the three weeks between Geoffrey Howe quitting the cabinet and Thatcher leaving office. Or is it?
"It is no secret that Tories in the south want to leave Scotland in darkness, but fixing the clocks to British summertime would mean that dawn wouldn'...
With an increasing number of people calling for change, it is an irrefutable fact that Mr Hunt's support for unpaid internships only diminishes attempts at reducing the disparity between elitism and equality. When will these people be called out for the exploitation they so openly support?
Although democracy may be the least bad system of government, it does not have all the answers, particularly if the democratic desires of two or more countries are in conflict with each other.
The Fox affair yet again demonstrates the media's inability to ascertain what is, and what is not, a 'lobbying scandal'. It also demonstrates a peculiar and irritating habit of putting the lobbying industry in the frame rather than seeing when it is the lobbied - not the lobbyists - that need to pull their socks up.
It would appear we are not the only ones concerned about future disorder on the streets of Britain. ComRes released figures this week from a poll of MPs taken last month. The poll of some 151 MPs found over half of them believe that the events of August will not be unique in this parliament - a worrying statistic.
We are now into the full swing of the party conference season, with all the usual bombast and political posturing that comes with it. It is a time when politicians often seem to be in a world of their own.
Earlier on this month, as my summer drew to a close, I published a report online in time for parliament's return on 5th September. It had taken the majority of my summer to write and was, by far, the most comprehensive piece I had ever written.
Will such common sense make progress in a political landscape dictated by the flexible morals and ethics of the right wing media? One worries, not a jot.
