After all the speculation, it’s finally been announced that Prince Harry will not be serving in Iraq. The military officials who had to make the decision were in a no-win situation – they would have been criticised whichever conclusion they came to. In the end, it seems they have done what was best for all […]
In Scotland, 100,000 ballot papers were spoilt in last night’s elections. This has been blamed on the layout of the ballot papers, and also on the Scottish Parliament and local council elections being held at the same time, each with a different ballot paper and voting system. The ballot paper for the Scottish Parliament looks […]
The BBC’s economics editor, Evan Davis, has a good article in his blog on the economics of Scottish independence. He basically states that the revenue from North Sea oil and gas an independent Scotland would enjoy equals the funding it currently receives from Westminster. So when, in the not too distant future, the oil runs […]
The fact that over a million people have now signed an online petition against the introduction of a road pricing scheme just goes to show how much the public hates this idea. Even if there has been a lot of encouragement in the press and the blogosphere for people to add their names, and even […]
Today, we hear that only two groups have submitted bids to become the next operators of the UK’s National Lottery: the incumbent, Camelot; and Indian lottery operator Sugal & Damani. The new entrant promises to raise a greater amount money for good causes with a more efficient operation than Camelot. Of course, we don’t know […]
Today, the government has announced that 2500 post offices are to close. It’s hardly surprising (and not just because the scale of the closures was leaked, and because it’s been under discussion for a long time). People now prefer to have their pension or benefits paid into their bank account. They pay utility bills or […]
On Thursday morning’s news, it emerged that protesters from Greenpeace had targeted Didcot power station in an attempt to shut down the coal-fired plant. Some of them chained themselves to a conveyor belt carrying coal into the station, while others headed for the top of the 198-metre high chimney. By abseiling from the top of […]
A number of local authorities in the UK have started to fit microchips to dustbins so that they can monitor how much rubbish households are throwing away. Many commentators believe councils will eventually use the technology to charge households according to the weight of their waste. Now, I think charging according to the amount thrown […]
The First Minister of Scotland, Jack McConnell, said that, as Scotland failed to qualify, he would be supporting Trinidad and Tobago in the World Cup football competition rather than England. This has generated a lot of comment, with an English company reportedly cancelling a pre-booked conference in Scotland in response to the First Minister’s “anti-English” […]
More than 3000 English football hooligans have had to hand their passports in to the police before the World Cup to prevent them from travelling to Germany to cause trouble. This is considered such an important measure by the authorities that the penalty for failing to surrender a passport is a £5000 fine and up […]
