Here’s a question for you. Obviously it’s too much to ask that national newspapers provide a critical view of polling methodology. And there are obvious problems in criticising a poll your own paper paid for on the front page. So bloggers will probably just have to do it. But here goes. To what extent is…
Read More HOWTO appear prime ministerial: first, be the prime ministerUpdate: I originally didn’t want to publish this because I didn’t think it was good enough, but I hit the wrong button. Anyway, Alistair Morgan read it and thinks one of the premises of the whole thing is wrong. Namely, the weapons were going in the same direction as the drugs, not the other way…
Read More Protection….Update: I originally didn’t want to publish this because I didn’t think it was good enough, but I hit the wrong button. Anyway, Alistair Morgan read it and thinks one of the premises of the whole thing is wrong. Namely, the weapons were going in the same direction as the drugs, not the other way…
Read More Protection….Well, here’s a contribution to the debate over the riots. The Thin Blue Trots’…sorry…Police Federation report has been leaked. Among the failings highlighted by the federation, which represents 136,000 officers, were chronic problems, particularly in London with the hi-tech digital Airwave radio network. Its failings were one reason why officers were “always approximately half an…
Read More Can you hear me now?Jamie Kenny says: Come to think of it, the only papers which their readers would miss are the ones which have have managed to establish their names and the word ‘reader’ as a social type: which is to say the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Mail. John Band argues that this is also true of…
Read More I am a Guardian reader. You are a Telegraph reader. They are Sun readersAfter the last post, I think it’s worth nothing that it’s not just an isolated lapse. The Guardian has recently been sucking up to the Treasury in a revolting fashion. Yesterday’s paper, in an astonishingly hagiographic profile by Nicholas Watt explained how clever George Osborne is in defining his “fiscal mandate” as being to get…
Read More 12 heads in a bag, I read it yesterday, buried like the others on page 27-AWhy has the Guardian gone so soft on George Osborne? Today’s paper is a fine example of the art of journalism as practiced to obscure rather than reveal. On the front page, we have this story headlined: George Osborne exploits fall in borrowing costs to boost growth Now, that’s pretty much precisely what the chancellor…
Read More Respectable mendacitySo, if you wanted really informed commentary on the Theresa May/Brodie Clark upfuck (now there’s some slash), where would you go? Wouldn’t you want to ask a distinguished civil servant? I bet you would. Specifically, a career immigration officer with 39 years in the service. Who’s just retired, and is therefore allowed to be snarky.…
Read More Operation Logroll is go for launchSo Viktor Bout is guilty. Some discussion is here, including the suggestion that the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) is losing out politically. Dunno about that, but it’s striking that the best politician they could find to speak out for him was someone from Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s outfit, and not even Anna Chapman or Andrei Lugovoi at…
Read More belated bloggingSo Viktor Bout is guilty. Some discussion is here, including the suggestion that the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) is losing out politically. Dunno about that, but it’s striking that the best politician they could find to speak out for him was someone from Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s outfit, and not even Anna Chapman or Andrei Lugovoi at…
Read More belated blogging