Here’s someone from Policy Exchange arguing that what the prime minister needs is an internal thinktank made up of partisan Tory special advisers, not civil servants like the people in the No.10 Policy & Implementation Unit. That might cost money, but… it tends to be forgotten that some of the special advisers to the Centre…
Read More Best wanktank pitch everMike Smithson tweets this poll, showing that even Tories hate and fear the possibility of another Republican presidency: https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/264720136831901696/ Stian Westlake remarks that this isn’t true of Tory pundits: Funny that 8 out of 9 UK conservatives want Romney to lose, but most UK conservative pundits want him to win. pic.twitter.com/MuI30sm8 — Stian Westlake (@stianwestlake)…
Read More The difference between pundits and votersIn the recent case of Liam Fox and Adam Werritty, there was an issue that the news media spent an enormous amount of time and effort dancing around with innuendo, newspaper code, and carefully lawyered prose. It is a fact that the word “lawyered” is to the word “lawyer” as the word “doctored” is to…
Read More Now that’s what I call lobbyingHere’s something interesting, from a post at Owen Jones‘s. Has Donal Blaney’s “Young Britons’ Foundation”, the Tory wanktank that was too wanky for the Tories, been reactivated? I will not distance myself from the right wing spin machine which attempts to bring down NUS’ credibility, but tackle it head on. Both of those occasions have…
Read More Enduring stare: Donal Blaney editionThe Philip Blond test: if you have a new policy idea, ask if Philip Blond would support it, and if so, bin it.
Read More Dumb BlondSo I scraped the government meetings data and rescraped it as one-edge-per-row. And then, obviously enough, I tidied it up in a spreadsheet and threw it at ManyEyes as a proof-of-concept. Unfortunately, IBM’s otherwise great web site is broken, so although it will preview the network diagram, it fails to actually publish it to the…
Read More Exactly what is Communication Strategy & Management Ltd?So I was moaning about the Government and the release of lists of meetings with external organisations. Well, what about some action? I’ve written a scraper that aggregates all the existing data and sticks it in a sinister database. At the moment, the Cabinet Office, DEFRA, and the Scottish Office have coughed up the files…
Read More so you want to know who’s lobbying?Deeply unprofitable Crooked Timber thread produces an interesting point. Not so much “why do libertarians hate Fairtrade coffee?”, but why on earth do they insist on lying? From the link: By guaranteeing a minimum price, Fairtrade also encourages market oversupply, which depresses global commodity prices. This locks Fairtrade farmers into greater Fairtrade dependency and further…
Read More coffee and stupidityWell, well, well. The Conservative chairman, Eric Pickles, last night appeared to disown the leadership of the Young Britons’ Foundation, a rightwing training organisation for young Conservatives whose officials have described the NHS as “the biggest waste of money in the UK” and suggested the waterboarding of prisoners can be justified. Pickles spoke last week…
Read More tha mun laike wi’t gangling-iron, Councillor DuxburyBefore moving on to more serious issues, does anyone know what, exactly, the Young Britons’ Foundation is? I mean, if you were to sign a cheque to it, what kind of a legal entity is it that cashes it? (I’m tempted to cut them a £10 cheque, just to see what comes up on my…
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