The Poliblogs: 11th July 2007

Marriage, marijuana and morality
I am the last person qualified to pass comment on proposals designed to keep marriages together. But my personal experience strongly suggests that when a relationship is goes wrong, twenty quid a week is unlikely to make much difference either way.

Dave’s Part

Brown's New Politics: Let's all Jerk our Knees

And there was me thinking that Gordon Brown wanted a new sort of politics. Labour's reaction to IDS's report on Social Breakdown today proves that nothing has changed. Rather than welcome the report as a contribution to an important debate, or even, heaven forfend, to talk about some of the issues raised in the report, Labour's Andy Burnham responded thus...

Iain Dale

Cameron on the slide?
According to an interviewee on the Today programme this morning, when Cameron was elected, 75% of the Tory party thought he'd be their next Prime Minister. Now, only 50% do.

If even half your own party don't think you'll win, how much of a hole are you really in? But then if you can't find a decent candidate for a by-election from your loyal members, what does that say about those on the Tory parliamentary panel?

Political Hack UK

Would AV finish off the Tories?

Since the election of David Cameron as Conservative leader the polls have consistently shown a Hung Parliament as the most likely result of the next Election. Apart from the obvious practical difficulties that would follow, such an outcome would arise amid novel and explosive circumstances.

Political Betting

The cause of the world's problems isn't rich families of Chelsea after all; it is the rear end of a cow
I love it when a story like this comes along. Partly because it really upsets all the enviro-scaremongerers who seem happier to hear that the world is doomed rather than hear some balance to the debate. It turns out that cows and sheep and doing more damage to the environment than 4x4s or "Chelsea Tractors". Actually, this isn't new news at all, but the green nutters wouldn't want anyone to know this, because Chelsea tractors are evil. I, too, don't see the point of having a Range Rover Discovery to navigate your way round the mean streets of Chelsea - but I don't see the point in Le Tour de France either, but I hardly think that is grounds for banning it.

Picking Losers

Lembit not marrying (at least not yet)
Sorry to disappoint all those of you had rushed out to buy a morning suit or new hat. The Lib Dem MP for Montgomeryshire has no current plans to wed his current beau, former Cheeky Girl, Gabriela Irimia.

Lib Dem Voice

Feeling peaky
'Peak oil' doomsayers are wrong - there is plenty out there. It's just a question of whether we are willing to pay the environmental price to get it.

Deborah Hargreaves

Bad Day for Virgin
I was very surprised and saddened to see that Virgin has lost its bid to continue running the Cross Country rail franchise to Arriva. Virgin inherited one of the most neglected routes of the old British Railways when it was privatised in 1996. They invested huge amounts of money to replace the creaking rolling stock with shiny new Voyagers. It's been a painful process but there have been some huge improvements.

James Edmondson

Big Brother
You know how Nanny keeps telling us that all these CCTV cameras that she has erected (can I say erected?) are all for our own good, and that we have nothing to worry about?

May I suggest that you don't go to Cardiff Bay in Wales then.

It seems that householders in Cardiff Bay have been spied on by security guards, using the National Assembly's high-powered cameras.

Nanny Knows Best

Don’t let NHS become Sicko
In the United States of America, there are 47,000,000 people with no health insurance and every year 18, 000 of those die because they cannot access medical care.

That is the equivalent of six 9/11s every year

NHS Blog Doctor

If cast as rational rival to Cameron's man of emotion, Brown is sure to lose
The lessons of successive US elections are clear: voters want their leaders to appeal to the heart, not just the intellect

Jonathan Freeland

New BBC Slime
So WTF does the BBC think it's OK to give the odious Campbell £250,000 of our money? They say:

"The fee paid to Alastair Campbell is not a matter for us but the independent production company. The fee we pay them is a standard one for this sort of programme."

But why are they showing the programme at all? Haven't we all had more than enough of this appalling man?

Burning Our Money

Up to a Point Mr. Heffer
There's something wrong here:

Used sensibly, there is no harm in drink, as many doctors testify: this is not true of tobacco, or heroin, or cannabis, or cocaine.

Spotted it? The "sensible" use of heroin causes no harm either.

Tim Worstall