Author Archives: Richard Huzzey

The Daily Mail rarely devotes its columns to the praise of Liberal Democrat councillors. Deva Kumarasiri is an exception. The newspaper approvingly reports on a policy he has introduced in the Post Office he manages: Mr. Kumarasiri will not serve people who don’t speak English because, he believes, they ought to learn it, as he has since emigrating to Britain 17 years ago. The paper says,

If his customers can’t be bothered to learn English, he tells them, they must go away and learn it before he serves them.

His bold stand against non-integration has sent a shudder of

…

Lib Dem MPs Chris Huhne and Tom Brake have tabled some concerns regarding Google’s new ‘Latitude’ service to track the locations of mobile phones registered with their website. You can read more here.

I read on the BBC website that the government will commit new money to mental health provision – always a Cinderella service – in anticipation of more people needing help during the economic depression.

As Tory MP Andrew Lansley says in that report, this is great news. But he couldn’t help but add that the government was following Conservative policy in doing this – presumably referring to his speech on the issue in November 2008.

If we were to be equally petty, we might point to another politician who raised this a month before Lansley …

Just after students from outside the EU have became the first guinea pigs for Labour’s inane and insane national identity scheme, they have been hit with more red tape from Westminster.

Students pursuing degree programmes in Britain will need to re-apply for a visa every four years, removing a guarantee that they would be permitted to stay for the duration of their course.

At a time when higher education institutions are struggling to compete internationally, this is about as welcome for British universities as Evan Harris at a Daily Mail Christmas party. Diane Warwick of Universities UK warns:

lthough

…

While the presidential contest has been the focus of attention, the party held a series of other elections for important internal committees. You can find the results in full at Colin Rosenstiel’s webpage.

As President-elect Obama picks his cabinet and administration, leaks suggest Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-Ill.) will be his Chief of Staff. After the inspiration for The West Wing’s Matt Santos has tapped the guy Josh Lyman was based on, can it be long before George Stephanopolous (aka Sam Seabourn) is recruited as Emmanuel’s deputy? Probably less likely is McCain (aka Arnie Vinick) being invited to be Secretary of State.