Regular readers will know that I think Woking Council's subsidy of curchgoers is ridiculous, illegal, and unfair. It's an issue I've raised with local councillor Carl Thomson in writing and on Twitter. A few days ago I entered into a discussion with him online about the issue. He has since deleted the tweets. But, as we know, the Internet has a long memory - so here they are. I've reordered a …
Continue reading →
My local council, Woking, have found themselves in a spot of bother recently. It has emerged that they are subsidising parking charges for specific Christians churches. If you belong to a different church, worship a different god, or just want to go shopping, you have to pay for parking. The total subsidy was at least £55,864 between 2009 and 2011, and is still rising. The National Secular …
Continue reading →
I've been pretty disgusted with how the Tories are treating equal marriage, so I decided to put the case to my local MP. Here's my letter and his somewhat disappointing reply. Dear Jonathan Lord, I understand that there will shortly be a free vote on the issue of equal marriage. Some politicians have insisted that this is an issue which is not a priority for the electorate. I disagree -…
Continue reading →
Last week I attended Google's Big Tent event. I may write about some of the panels later, but I want to focus on how I flummoxed the Minister for Universities and Science - David "Two Brains" Willetts (Photo by Paul Clarke) I posited to the Rt Hon Gentleman, that student loans were crippling the high-tech workforce of the country. When I graduated, I was unable to get a bank loan for a…
Continue reading →
I've already blogged about the Leveson Inquiry's disturbing habit of releasing evidence as scanned in PDFs. I had a suggestion from digital journalist Kevin Anderson Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentGah! The #leveson witness statements are photocopied & scanned in levesoninquiry.org.uk/evidence/?witn…Disastrous for open justice - shkspr.mobi/blog/index.php…❤️ 0💬 0🔁 110:12 - Fri 11 May 2012Mr And…
Continue reading →
I've been listening to the Leveson inquiry. A large part of the exchanges seem to go like this: Jay: Turning to page 51. Witness: Which bundle? Jay: 1606. Witness: 1660? Leveson: No, the page after. Jay: Paragraph 7. Witness: I don't have a paragraph 7. Jay: Ah, I have an earlier print out. Leveson: You'll find it in tab 15. Witness: Is this Volume 2? And so on, ad nauseum. Surely there's no…
Continue reading →
In which the BPI threaten to sue me. Last night I was fortunate enough to find myself addressing the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Digital Economy Act. Eric Joyce MP managed to bring together a diverse group of people from all sides of the debate for a (mostly) civil discussion on the Act, its limitations, and potential problems. MPs and Musicians in Perfect Harmony This was exactly …
Continue reading →
For those who don't follow the hive-mind on Twitter, there has been a run in with Scientology trying to stifle free speech. Or, as I think, not. Here are the brief facts of the case. A local councillor (John Dixon) has a Twitter account "CllrJohnDixon" Last year, he tweeted: "I didn't know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid…
Continue reading →
There have been howls of protest from Labour voters at the prospect of a Lib/Con coalition. The main complaint is that anyone daft enough to vote for Clegg has caused a Tory government. But is it true? Using data from The Guardian, we can see if the Lib Dems cost Labour a majority. In how many seats did a Labour candidate lose to a Conservative? 137. But this doesn't tell the whole story. In…
Continue reading →
I'm a natural Labour voter. As I explained several months ago, I went in to this election thinking I may vote Labour. It's now become clear that my vote will be going to the Liberal Democrats. More than that, I will be joining them. I want to explain why - without resorting to attacking the other parties. Voting Reform As I've said, I was raised in a Labour household. I went to university e…
Continue reading →
Weeks before Britons go to the polls, there's still no comprehensive list of candidates. Four citizens' initiatives have joined forces to tackle the problem. They've been gathering basic information about thousands of candidates and making the data public. "It may seem surprising but there simply is no single listing for all prospective parliamentary candidates. We want people to make an…
Continue reading →
As you may know, I'm a supporter of the Open Rights Group. They're the campaigning group dedicated to protecting our online civil liberties. I pay them £5 per month, I think you should join them too. I'm not just putting my money where my mouth is. I'm also standing for the Board of Directors. I was nominated by the wise and talented duo of Suw Charman-Anderson & Basheera Khan. As part of …
Continue reading →
