You Can't Be Banned From The Houses of Parliament✱


I was listening to the excellent RHLSTP - because I am one of the cool kids - when the guest, Richard Bacon, made a curious confession about his adventures bringing News Bunny to the State Opening of Parliament. I got a letter from Black Rod - who runs both houses […] and it says that I am banned for life from the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It's at the 7 minute 20 mark on the video - or listen to the whole thing on SoundCloud. "Hmmm…" I wondered, "Who else has been banned fro…

Continue reading →

Free Our Postcodes


A red UK post box.

VoteUK is no more.  In order to precisely show you where your electoral registration office was, I needed to take its postcode and covert it to latitude and longitude.  That's the service Ernest Marples provided. A few days ago, the Post Office - in their infinite wisdom - set their legal dogs on those running Ernest Marples. The Post Office charges for the file that they generated which converts post codes to location.  It can cost anywhere from £1,000 to £4,000 per year to get accurate data…

Continue reading →

VoteUK - Some Minor Setbacks


One of the problems with creating a service which deals with elections, is that boundaries change.  One year you might be in the Electoral Constituency of Woking, the next year it might be Guildford.  Boundaries have to shift in order to keep each MP with roughly the same number of constituents. The work to determine how these boundaries should be formed is done by The Boundary Commission.  They have produced a report to show how the boundaries will be set out at the next General Election.  The…

Continue reading →