A quick lesson in political plane-spotting: we observe, about 2.25pm today, a small business jet type, with minimal wing sweep and a tail about half-way up the fin, in an approach profile heading northwest over North London. Conclusions? It’s an RAF Hawker 125 heading into Northolt, and Gordon Brown is probably back in London. This…
Read More how criminals communicateOne outcome of all the MySociety work for this election was the survey administered by DemocracyClub volunteers to all candidates. The results by party are graphed here, with standard deviations and error bars. Some immediate conclusions: Surprising egalitarianism. Look at question 1, which asks if the budget deficit should be reduced by taxing the rich.…
Read More a centre-left nation needs what kind of government?I’m actually quite pleased with our little demo. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic when we assembled in Trafalgar Square, where various speeches were made of which not one word was audible (note to the various orgs involved: I’d happily spring for some batteries for the loud hailer. I mean, my student union would have got that…
Read More I don’t know what they mean by that…Does anyone know what time the Liberal parliamentary party and federal executive committee meetings happen? I presume the first will be at the House and the second at party HQ…
Read More Resisting the stitch-upSo how did I spend the election night? As it happens, I decided to go to bed about 1am, noting that I was beginning to get as drunk as most of the people on the BBC visibly were and there was still a while to go before any really substantive data came through. Did anyone…
Read More a great time to be a crazy backbencherWhat have they done to Kenneth Clarke?
Read More ruhbarab rhubrabb rhubarbMichael “The Arabs Are Comeeeenk” Gove on t’telly. Not convincing as a master manipulator. Even he doesn’t dare claim victory. Says we need “humility”. Loads of guff about uniform national swing projections based on the exit polls. UNS probably doesn’t work on this data. Everyone agrees with that. But everyone’s being Tebbly Serious about the…
Read More you know what to saySo here’s the plan; it looks like Bush vs Gore 2.0. Bullshit, bluster, and fake it ’til you make it. This is actually incredibly outrageous – we’re in the middle of a contested election and one party doesn’t feel itself bound by what is, effectively, the constitution. And the original version of the Grauniad story…
Read More resist the stitch upI briefly touched on South Sudan’s new instant brewery yesterday. A associated, rather than strictly related, development is this startlingly weird Reuters AlertNet story; OK, so there’s been a riot in a refugee camp in Darfur. Right. People have been killed. Not good. But a riot by people who lost money in an investment fraud?…
Read More Pyramid schemes in DarfurI briefly touched on South Sudan’s new instant brewery yesterday. A associated, rather than strictly related, development is this startlingly weird Reuters AlertNet story; OK, so there’s been a riot in a refugee camp in Darfur. Right. People have been killed. Not good. But a riot by people who lost money in an investment fraud?…
Read More Pyramid schemes in Darfur