Author Archives: Mark Pack

Section 503 of the bail out bill voted on by the US Senate was this gem:

EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.

I know you want the details, so here they are:

‘‘(B) EXEMPTION FOR CERTAIN WOODEN
4 ARROW SHAFTS.—Subparagraph (A) shall not
5 apply to any shaft consisting of all natural
6 wood with no laminations or artificial means of
7 enhancing the spine of such shaft (whether sold
8 separately or incorporated as part of a finished
9 or unfinished product) of a type used in the
10 manufacture of any arrow which after its as11
sembly—
12 ‘‘(i) measures 5⁄16 of an …

From Nick Clegg’s website:

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg today called for the Government to issue a temporary guarantee for all deposits in the British banking system:

We are now in the eye of an economic storm. We have seen the dreadful effects of the bonus culture in the City that has led banks to take unacceptable risks for short-term gain ahead of long-term stability.

If we are going to reverse the greedy banking culture that went on for too long, we need to start at the top. This means an end to all bonuses for boards of directors in British banks that

…

Good if very succinct analysis over at MyDD: overwhelmingly those in close races for their re-election voted against the bail out.

Society – broken or not? Looks like someone can’t make up their minds:

• Cameron retreats from his claim that Britain has a ‘broken’ society (Independent)
• BBC must help to heal the broken society, say Tories (Telegraph)

From The Independent:

All the building societies that transformed themselves into banks quoted on the stock exchange between 1989, starting with the old Abbey National, and 2000, when Bradford & Bingley took the plunge, have either failed or had to be rescued. Following Bradford & Bingley’s demise, there is not one left.

Meanwhile the building societies which resisted the temptation, such as Nationwide, Britannia, Yorkshire and 56 others, have gone on doing their core job of providing home loans for ordinary people. They have been virtually untouched by the financial crisis.

You can read the full story here.

Keith Vaz is already facing an investigation over allegations that he interfered in a court case to help a Labour Party donor, and now is also facing allegations of secretly letting Gordon Brown influence the outcome of an independent inquiry into 28-days detention:

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs select committee, sought the private views of Gordon Brown for an independent report into government plans to extend the detention of terror suspects beyond 28 days.

Emails which have been seen by The Observer suggest that the MP for Leicester East spoke secretly to the

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In addition to the gain off the Conservatives in Hampstead Town (Hampstead and Kilburn constituency), there were three other excellent Liberal Democrat results last night in key Parliamentary constituencies: on Truro City Council, the Liberal Democrats took a seat off Mebyon Kernow (Truro and Falmouth constituency), in Alfriston ward, Wealden District Council, the Liberal Democrats took a seat off the Conservatives with a 24% swing (Lewes constituency) and in Colden Common & Twyford ward (Winchester constituency) we held a seat with an increased majority and swing from the Conservatives.

Sadly, not all in the same story, but here are three worth a look:

Labour plans online rapid rebuttal unit – Liberal England has the story.

Conservative MP Richard Benyon confirms he pulled his blog due to the rules over what his MP allowances can be spent on – Liberal Burblings has the story.

Car lobby loses fight to water down pollution rules – The Guardian has the story.

This post was brought to you without the aid of the Daily Mail 🙂

Compare and contrast two stories, bottom one published 16 minutes after the top one:

A couple of people have commented to me about how I moderately frequently make blog postings based on a Daily Mail story and linking through to their site for the full story (such as this one about Vince Cable calling for an investigation into Keith Vaz) – and querying why attention should be given to what the Daily Mail writes.

Why indeed? Well, my reasons are:

1. The Daily Mail is read (on the 2005 figures I have to hand) by 5.7 million people, making it by some margin the most read daily national newspaper. You can’t be interested in what …

This seems to be the week for questions over MPs and their expenses, so this time it’s back to Richard Benyon, MP for Newbury and the man with the disappearing blog.

A quick recap: his website says it is paid for out of MP expenses, but the blog on it had content that isn’t allowed under the rules controlling use of expenses. The blog is no-longer on the website, though his “Westminster Diary” still is.

Take a look at that, and what do we find? More content that looks to me like it isn’t allowed under the rules for MP expenses. …