I’m seriously considering starting a new blog dedicated to awful BBC ‘satirical’ computer graphics features on ‘The Daily Politics’ and ‘This Week’
Stop the war : A graphic history - in pictures
There are few things more beautiful than people showing they care about something.
#AgainstApathy
The Ed Balls file database is overwhelming.
Political nerd-out trawling through these…
Analysis of the Conservative and Labour brands in 2006 and the “psychology of the next election”, which it correctly assumes will be between David Cameron and Gordon Brown. It explores the early “Love Affair with New Labour”, noting that “Thatcher & Blair both achieved iconic status with the electorate.” Where Thatcher’s status was built on “respect. And fear”, Blair’s was “built on novelty. And love.” Brown is identified as a “performer brand”, like BMW and British Airways, while Cameron is a “challenger brand”, like Mini or Apple.
"
…I do not want to lose the ethical, political, and also ideological at times, case for abortion rights and reproductive justice. Women have the right to own and control what happens to their bodies. These rights are enshrined in laws and human rights principles that the UK has signed up to. And all women are entitled to them….
let’s also remember that our work is political: our rights to our bodies is a contested ideological terrain. Let’s not be so keen to leave this arena lest we suddenly find ourselves out of the conversation altogether
"—
Zohra Moosa, On the need for ideology to enter the debate for the pro-choice camp in abortion debates.
Pro-choice groups aren’t morally deficient. They need to embark on a debate of morals, ethics and ideology too.
"
Deputy PM’s office ineffective
The deputy prime minister’s office is ineffective, Liberal Democrat junior ministers are spread too thinly, and many policy decisions are made in regular evening phone calls between Nick Clegg and David Cameron, according to one of the most thorough studies of the coalition’s workings so far undertaken…
And it singled out the home office as a department in which the Liberal Democrat minister Lynn Featherstone has little influence partly due to ideological differences with the home secretary, Theresa May.
The report found: “The Lib Dems are still reeling from the loss of their state funding, given only to opposition parties. This has led to the loss of many of their staff. It may help explain their under-powered performance, particularly with the media.
“By going for breadth over depth, and seeking to place a minister in every department, the Lib Dems have spread themselves too thinly.
“Their objective was to influence every aspect of government policy. They may have achieved this, but it is very difficult to demonstrate to the public.”
In some of its harshest criticism, the report found: “The deputy PM’s office has not established recognisable priorities for the Lib Dems; Lib Dem junior ministers struggle to play the cross-departmental role envisaged for them; special advisers do little to help, because (outside Cabinet Office and No 10) they do not have the confidence or experience to operate as coalition brokers.”
"—
It’s simultaneously hilarious, sad and worrying that this is how the coaltion is ‘working’.
"There were only 11 articles written about tuition fees in national newspapers during the entire general election campaign. There were another 22 articles which mentioned the issue as a secondary focus and 38 articles which included a one-sentence reference to it. “If there was a cross-party conspiracy to keep tuition fees off the political agenda, it is difficult to escape the conclusions that, in media terms at least, it was extraordinarily effective,” according to the authors of the essay, David Deacon and Dominic Wring."
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/may/09/politics-live-blog
Well, that does suprising me given the only political issues of the coalition that many around me seem to even know about is related to tuition fees. That probably has something to do with the fact i’m a student.
Nadine Dorries MP wants more sex education for girls.
Specifically, abstinence lessons.
Ridiculous. Sex education in schools already teaches the ‘benefits’ of abstinence and the importance of saying ‘no’ if you don’t want to do something.
I’m appalled at her targeting young girls. It suggests that boys are both more able to, and expected to, make firm decisions about their sexual activities.
Effectively, if a boy wants to have sex, he probably wants to have sex. If a girl wants to have sex, she probably doesn’t know ‘the facts’.
Day 5 of Labour Love God Series: Ed was always a ‘player’ and he never missed his chance with an experienced woman.
I absolutely bloody love awkwardedmilibandmoments.
