Author Archives: Mark Pack

Ken Clarke’s withering dismissal of David Cameron’s policy on the Human Rights Act as “largely gesture politics” on The Westminster Hour on Sunday has gone largely without comment so far. So here’s a comment: crikey.

With Post Office closures in the news again (though strangely none of the Post Offices in the Palace of Westminster are facing the axe…) I’ve seen a few people ask, “but is it worth campaigning against the closure of my local Post Office? Don’t closures always go ahead?”

So here’s a reminder of why campaigning is worthwhile and how you can save a Post Office:

AGAINST all odds, defiant campaigners have helped save the Connaught Road Post Office in Harborough from being axed.

A leaked document seen by The Mail revealed Post Office bosses were to announce at 10am on

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Duncan Borrowman has the story.

That’s the headline in today’s Yorkshire Post on a piece by Nick Clegg:

PENSIONERS sitting in coats, hats and scarves in their sitting rooms to keep warm. Others living the whole winter in their bedroom because they can only afford to heat a single room. Our senior citizens reduced to a choice between heating and eating.

And all the while, British Gas is raking in £1,000 of profit every minute of the day. The truth is, the only people who are cosy this winter are the companies who send us our ever-rising bills.

So what do we do to get a fair

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Saturday’s Daily Mail puts it succinctly:

The head of the financial watchdog criticised for not acting sooner to prevent the Northern Rock scandal tried to gag a senior MP who warned the bank was heading for disaster, it was claimed.

Financial Services Authority chairman Sir Callum McCarthy telephoned Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable in September and accused him of “scaremongering.”

He told Mr Cable Northern Rock was not caught up in the sub-prime mortgage fiasco in the US.

Hours later the bank admitted it had been hit by the cheap mortgage collapse there.

The rest of the story is here.

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Whilst the heavy defeat of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s party has dominated news coverage of the election results, there is also interesting news from the elections in the North West Frontier.

The secular Pashtun nationalist party, the Awami National Party*, appears to be doing well, defeating several Islamist incumbents. This marks a move away from extremists toward moderate secularists in an area that has been widely characterised as a hot-bed of Islamic terrorism and support for terrorism.

* Their website is rather incongrously currently displaying both the latest election results and a “This site is under construction” sign.

Labour have at last admitted that nationalisation is the only sensible way forward for Northern Rock, with Alistair Darling deciding to announce its nationalisation imminently.

Nice to see another Liberal Democrat policy being nicked by other parties 🙂

Number of votes cast in Lib Dem Voice’s poll on how long detention without charge should be allowed: 447

Number of votes cast in LabourHome’s poll on how long detention without charge should be allowed: 104

Exit stage left chanting, “Our poll is bigger than your poll, na na na. Our poll is bigger than your poll, na na na.” Etc.

Nick Clegg: Electoral Commission needs an overhaul to become a bloodhound sniffing out wrong doing.

Duncan Borrowman: a thorough fisking of Derek Conway’s latest public utterances. For example:

Let us look at the next few lines of what Mr Conway said to the Bexley Extra (I can’t find this on-line):

“The question turned on how many hours he would have done as a student and that he was paid six per cent above the mid-point of the lowest grade.

“The Committee argued he should have been on the starting point of the lowest grade. The rest is press fabrication.”

Hmmm. Well I

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