Recent Articles
Rally to defend abortion rights on Friday
On Friday 30th March, ‘40 Days for Life‘ – the anti-choice group protesting in front of the BPAS abortion clinic in London will host a big ‘prayer vigil’ by Bishop Alan Hopes
In retaliation, Abortion Rights have called for a peaceful counter-protest alongside other pro-choice groups.
Abortion Rights say:
Women attempting to access a legal medical service must be able to do so without fear of harassment or intimidation. It’s time for the UK’s pro-choice majority to say we’ve had enough of this kind of behaviour and to stand up for our right to safe, legal abortion.
It is billed as a family-friendly event, and babies, kids and partners are welcome!
Abortion Rights say they plan to be noisy, but good humored and non-confrontational.
Where: Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3HP (nearest tube Tottenham Court Road)
When: 7.00pm on Friday 30th March
Follow @BloomsburyPCA and @Abortion_Rights on Twitter for updates.
Earlier – we posted pictures from the on-going vigil that ’40 days’ have been holding. Friday is their big event.
Earlier video
Don’t vote or support George Galloway today
Do you remember when George Galloway interviewed Ahmadinejad? His ‘excellency’ Galloway would refer to him as.
All eyes were on Galloway to mention Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtani, the woman in Iran who was due to be put to death by stoning for supposedly committing adultery.
Final question Mr President, every so often an issue comes along, which is seized upon by the enemies of Iran, and magnified, and it becomes a heavy problem. One such is the punishment, scheduled originally against a woman convicted of adultery. The so called stoning case. I see that president Lula from Brazil has asked Iran if he can take this woman into exile there, to solve this problem. Can Iran agree to this? [my emphasis]
News Corp’s NDS ‘paid Surrey police’
On Monday a BBC Panorama programme alleged that a News Corporation subsidiary had ‘hacked’ a rival company’s systems.
NDS is accused of leaking information from On Digital which ‘could be used to create counterfeit smart cards’, said Panorama.
The claims were made by Lee Gibling – who said he was paid to publish stolen information.
His contact at NDS was Ray Adams, who at the time was head of UK security for the firm – which manufactures smartcards for all News Corporations’ pay-TV companies across the world.
Now, thousands of emails from Ray Adams have been published online by the Australian Financial Review.
The emails allege that NDS set aside payments for Surrey Police.
This morning, the Independent reports that when it asked NDS about the payment, the company said in a statement: “This was a one-off charitable donation of £2000 to Surrey police in August 2000. NDS’ support and donation was acknowledged with a thank you from Surrey Police.”
Surrey police now say they are looking into the claim they received a “charitable donation” of £2,000 from NDS in 2000.
Earlier this morning, Rupert Murdoch tweeted:
Seems every competitor and enemy piling on with lies and libels.So bad, easy to hit back hard, which preparing.
— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) March 29, 2012
It’s about to get hairy… again.
Michael Gove’s team spent £14k a year on tea
Michael Gove’s department spent over £14,000 a year just on tea and coffee, an answer from Tory MP Tim Loughton revealed this morning.
Labour MP Tom Watson asked:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education how much his private Ministerial office spent on (a) tea and coffee, (b) wine, (c) alcoholic refreshments other than wine and (d) bottled water in the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Tim Loughton replied:
We do not hold separate information for each ministerial office. During the 12 months from February 2011 to the end of January 2012, the total expenditure for all five ministerial offices was as follows:
(a) £14,003 on tea, coffee and other refreshments for meetings, and
(b) £508 on wine.
There was no expenditure on other alcoholic refreshments or on bottled water.
Insert own jokes here.
How Cameron is linked to ITV Digital hacking
ITV Digital was launched as ‘On Digital’ as a rival to News Corporation’s Sky TV in 1998.
On Monday, BBC Panorama revealed that a News Corporation subsidiary company used a computer hacker to sabotage On Digital.
NDS is accused of leaking information from On Digital which could be used to create counterfeit smart cards, giving people free access to paid for TV.
…
The latest claims have been made by Lee Gibling – who set up a website in the late 90s known as The House of Ill-Compute, or Thoic.Mr Gibling told the BBC he was paid to publish stolen information. His contact at NDS was Ray Adams, who at the time was head of UK security for the firm – which manufactures smartcards for all News Corporations’ pay-TV companies across the world.
Now here’s something the BBC story missed out.
On Digital’s biggest shareholder was Carlton Communications, along with Granada TV. The company folded in May 2002 after spectacularly failing.
Carlton and Granada effectively ran ITV Digital as the companies who conceived and launched it.
Guess what? David Cameron was director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton from July 1994 to February 2001 – while ITV Digital was being allegedly hacked.
Did Cameron know nothing of ITV Digital’s tussles with Sky at the time?
Bizarrely, Cameron’s name is not mentioned in the BBC article at all.
Cameron caught out on pasty eating fib
Here’s David Cameron this afternoon pretending he is still in touch with ‘the masses’:
I’m a pasty eater myself. I go to Cornwall on holiday. I love a hot pasty. I think the last one I bought was from the West Cornwall Pasty Company. I seem to remember I was in Leeds station at the time.
The choice was to have one of their small ones or their large ones. I’ve got a feeling I opted or the large one and very good it was too.”
Nice try Mr Cameron… but
West Cornwall Pasty store at Leeds station closed 31 March 2007
— JamesLyons (@MirrorJames) March 28, 2012
Cameron has his Jackie Milburn moment. West Cornwall stall at Leeds station where he supposedly ate a pasty closed in 2007 #pastygate
— Tim Shipman (Mail) (@ShippersUnbound) March 28, 2012
Brilliant. It is now officially pastytax-gate.
Update: A Leeds woman tells the Telegraph live-blog: “David Cameron? Buying a pasty on this station? I don’t remember that.”
Greens back Ken for second preference
At a special meeting on Monday night London Green Party made the decision to recommend a second preference vote for Ken Livingstone for Mayor, after their own candidate, Jenny Jones.
Livingstone attended the meeting and was grilled by London Greens on topics as diverse as domestic violence, the financial system, and the record of Labour councils as well as more traditional environmental topics like air pollution, walking and cycling and incineration.
Although many at the meeting were skeptical when Ken claimed that the election of Ed Miliband proved that New Labour was dead they also appreciated that his environmental record was head and shoulders above that of Boris Johnson.
The Greens formally backed a second preference vote for Livingstone after debating whether associating with Labour would cost them votes by associating with a “toxic brand”.
A number of members pointed out that their experience of Labour was not a happy one and they had no wish for the decision to be misrepresented, as it has sometimes been in 2008, as an endorsement for Labour as a whole.
Others thought the priority had to be to get Johnson out and that Livingstone was the only candidate placed to do that.
After a robust but friendly debate members voted by a ratio of just over two to one to back a second preference for Labour’s candidate.
Why Cameron is now vulnerable like he wasn’t earlier
There’s much debate about what’s causing the sustained 10-point Labour lead in the opinion polls.
The first thing to make clear is that this isn’t so much a Labour bounce as the first instance of an erosion of the Tories’ previous floor on their vote.
What’s new, and what separates these 10 pt leads from the 5-7 pt leads the party enjoyed during the phone hacking scandal – is the new dimension of the Conservative vote consistently dropping below 36% for the first time.
continue reading… »
Boris shamelessly calls for ‘cash for access’
Boris Johnson sent out ‘cash for access’ demand to potential donors at 6pm last night. Give me £2,012 and have a drink with me next Tue
— Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) March 27, 2012
Wealthy supporters were told:
You have been sent an invitation to join CLUB 305 – please consider this invitation to play your key role backing Boris’s campaign for re-election. Membership is at a suggested fee of £2,012.
According to Political Scrapbook:
The 305 Club dates back to at least July 2011, when, fittingly, 305 members were expected to attend the first meeting. The event was a flop, however, with reports that the numbers were “less than 50 per cent” of what BoJo hoped.
Boris as shameless as ever. What are the chances the Evening Standard will cover this?
Being jailed for racist tweets about Fabrice Muamba is going too far
contribution by The Mambo
It’s difficult to have too much sympathy with Liam Stacey, who has just been jailed for 56 days for posting racist tweets about footballer Fabrice Muamba.
In fact he is a complete wanker.
But I’m a little uneasy about locking someone up because they say something that I think is foul.
continue reading… »
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