The campaign for scrapping 28 days detention without charge starts today

About bloody time: Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has said that plans to extend terror detention to 42 days will be dropped from the Counter-Terrorism Bill. This is of course great news. But the truth is Parliament should never had capitulated over 28 days in the first place. And it shouldn’t have moved up to 14… Continue reading The campaign for scrapping 28 days detention without charge starts today

Will Dunn win the by-election after all?

What is one to make of Politics and the City, founded by Gavin Whenman’s secret girlfriend June Sarpong? I’m tempted to dismiss it as vacuous fluff, but it isn’t aimed at me and it has kept going. Is this a quietly succesful tool for engaging women in politics? Will academics be praising it in the… Continue reading Will Dunn win the by-election after all?

But did she see it coming?

The BBC reports: A Norwegian politician has said she will not seek re-election after running up a large phone bill ringing fortune-tellers at parliament’s expense. Saera Khan [not to be confused with Saira Khan, the Apprentice finalist], an MP for the ruling Labour Party, admits calling pay-per-minute fortune-tellers 793 times in one nine-month period, for… Continue reading But did she see it coming?