My thoughts on life, the universe and everything
Archive for year 2012
2012 Reshuffle Part 3 – Stats and Graphs
Sep 8th
Tweet The first part (about the major positions) can be found here and the second part (about the minor jobs) can be found here. It’s fair to say that it has been a significant event and has gained a lot of press coverage. For example, there’s Jeremy Hunt escaping Leveson and now having to make…
2012 Reshuffle Part 2 – Minor positions
Sep 6th
Tweet In the previous post, I discussed some of the major positions, such as the more prominent Secretary of State jobs, the Leader of the Commons and the Chief Whip. In this post, I’ll mention a couple of the Secretaries for the regions, minor ministerial posts and changes amongst the Whips. This part of the…
2012 Reshuffle Part 1 – Major positions
Sep 5th
Tweet Government reshuffles happen for a number of reasons. It can be to get more like-minded people in place (e.g. Thatcher’s in 1981), but that can show you made mistakes in the first place and people may then question your decision making. In some cases, it can be to reward hard working MPs committed to…
Physical conferences – what’s the point?
Aug 31st
Tweet Conferences – a chance to network, find out new things and share best practice. In some, you can vote on policies or in elections. For many years they have been largely physical in nature. By that I mean that attendees go to a conference centre (sometimes at great expense) and engage with people face…
London Met’s licence is revoked
Aug 30th
Tweet The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has announced the licence London Metropolitan University had, which allowed them to sponsor non-EU students, has been revoked. This decision was a surprise for many and, understandably, there is much distress amongst some/all of the affected students. However, what doesn’t help is the massive overreactions from organisations such as…
My Carers campaign ends
Aug 29th
Tweet Regular readers of my blog will know that I admire the work of Carers and have felt (for a long time) that they don’t get enough recognition or support for what they do. They spend much of their time taking care of vulnerable people – often sacrificing part of their life as a result.…
Corby by-election preview – part 2
Aug 15th
Tweet Part one of this by-election preview can be found here. In the first part, I looked at the electoral history of the constituency and the wider region. I felt that the three successive Labour victories were strange given the large Conservative population in the area. Labour does control the Council though and a commenter…
Corby by-election preview – part 1
Aug 14th
Tweet It’s now widely known that Louise Mensch has stood down as the MP for Corby. She decided to do it in order to spend more time with her family. She will also be moving to the U.S., so she can be with her husband, Peter (the manager of Metallica). So, what does this mean…
Overreactions to tattoos
Aug 11th
Tweet A couple of things prompted this post. Firstly, there was the following series of tweets from the Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, made yesterday: I replied to one of these, but I’ll go into that later. The second thing that prompted this post was an article from the Guardian, entitled ‘Just one little tattoo‘. This…
Armed Forces Day 2012
Jun 30th
Tweet This blog post isn’t going to be long. It isn’t directly linked to politics, healthcare, education or any of the other topics I normally cover on here. It merely notes the importance of Armed Forces Day, which is happening at the time of typing. Across the country, there are celebrations, parades and all manner…