Socialised healthcare? Yes please!
Since I commented on Barack Obama’s difficulties last week things have improved for him considerably, with his healthcare reforms finally signed into law.
The final bill may not be entirely what many on the left were hoping for but given the entrenched interests he was battling against and the wholly dishonest and unprincipled disinformation campaign by [...]
Thoughts on assisted suicide
I have to say that euthanasia is one issue on which I genuinely find it impossible to reach a firm opinion. Still it’s right that the CPS has issued guidelines clarifying the law on assisted suicide - if people really feel moved to carry out such a drastic act they should at least know where [...]
A banker writes
No doubt by the time you read this I and my colleagues will be manning the barricades, creating makeshift shelters from upturned desks and filing cabinets in order to repel the rampaging hordes at our doors, at least if the combined wisdom of the media and the City of London police is to believed. As [...]
Privatising the mail
So Peter Mandelson has pledged to proceed with the part-privatisation of the Royal Mail despite strong opposition from Labour MPs.
The main reason given in justification is that the Royal Mail needs a substantial cash injection in order to modernise. Leaving aside the point made in the linked article that it has already received a loan [...]
Human Rights and responsibilities
Today sees the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it’s good to see that Justice Secretary Jack Straw is commemorating the event by, er, planning to water down our own human rights laws. In an interview with the Daily Mail he has vented his frustration with the Human Rights Act
The Justice [...]
Baby P…a voice of reason
Great post by Unity at Liberal Conspiracy on the subject of Baby P. I would encourage anyone to read it before passing judgement based only on what they have read in the press or seen on TV news.
Whitewashing the police
In my previous post I highlighted the damning contradiction in the account of the police’s actions given by the coroner in his opening statement to the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. Now I don’t claim that Nick Cohen (or anyone else for that matter) reads Mutantblog but he certainly has no [...]
It’s time they were held to account
Reading accounts of the start of the inquest into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes I was struck by two remarks the coroner, Sir Michael Wright, made in his opening statement -
“Both officers said that they were convinced that Mr de Menezes was a suicide bomber, that he was about to detonate a bomb [...]
Are you being served?
The Independent is running a campaign against restaurants who do not pass on tips and service charges to their staff in full, or use them to top up basic wages which are below the minimum wage. It seems obvious to me that the latter practice is indefensible and it was craven of the government to [...]
A silly woman…but not a bigot
There is a spat going on here about the case of Lillian Ladele, the registrar who won a discrimination case after she objected to performing civil partnership ceremonies for homosexuals.
Now I have certainly had little sympathy for Ms Ladele up to now; I don’t agree with the tribuneral’s decision (on the discrimination issue anyway, it [...]