News has just broken that John Edwards is quitting his campaign to become president of the USA. This is a very interesting move as it now leaves only Obama and Clinton as the remaining runners and people will want to know how Edwards is going to side when it comes to his previous competitors.

While I am on the theme already tonight of BBC shoddy reporting (seems to occur like buses) I also would like to highlight this article about birth rates in the UK and the contribution of immigrants to this. The BBC reports there has been a 77% increase in the birthrate of children to foreign born mothers. It is a shame that amongst all of this reporting, however, has been on the level of impact this increase has rather than why the impact is so much of a problem.

I have to ask though what the big deal is. Higher birth rate has to in turn convey some benefits to long term economy. It has long been said that younger populations help maintain a growth economy and higher birthrates are the only way to achieve this, in fact without migrants having babies we would be falling in to a predicted slump economically as our population grows older.

It was only three days ago that I discussed the recent news about electoral reform, the BBC's woefully inaccurate reporting of a document, and Michael Wills' statement to the effect of saying "we are happy to stay as we are". Now curiously there has been a separate news story surfacing today on the BBC website that pretty much breaks the same news again, but changes the way it is presented. Where has this come from?

My feelings on this remain the same, Michael Wills is a minister that doesn't bother to vote on parliamentary transparency yet has too loud a voice on this particular issue of the public/parliament relationship, and the whole statement is geared towards not implementing or properly discussing the necessary systems until after the next election. This is democracy at it's worst because the people are being denied a referendum on the issues on the basis of the current situation with the House of Lords, despite a referendum on the public's wishes not needing to be a promise to change straight away. What does the government have to lose by simply asking the people of Britain what they want, once and for all, to fully inform this debate they're supposedly so happy to have?

Over on CentreRight Charlie Elphicke has posted a continuation of their new debate on Britain's relative decline (and not just economically, they say). In his post he talks about how we should be more rich, not touching the more ambiguous topics supposedly in distress such as crime levels and military power.

I feel Labour have kept the economic boat steady one way or another, with the counter-balance most probably being that we aren't reaching the GDP growth we're capable of. But with many less unemployed than under Tory led policies, more benefits for the poor stifling most hints of outrage at just how few people get so much of the total wage packet every year, and an economy that may not be super strong but also doesn't succumb to the mega lows of Conservative politics, one has to ask just how you should measure how "rich" a nation is in the first place.

I'm trying something new here, not sure if it's going to work as well as intended but here it is. Read more for the transcript of this movie.

I am sitting here feeling pretty incensed after reading the news on the BBC news website about Labour , linked initially from Paul Linford's blog. Firstly because it is typical cowardly Labour who admit one thing in their government initiated report yet make some startling admissions about the "value" that they put on certain criteria in their practice, and secondly because it has spawned an absolutely piss-poor article from the BBC.

In the end the facts are simple. Labour hold between 48 and 96 seats more than they should based on public opinion, and despite there being working examples in our own union of PR systems working, not being too complicated, not reducing turn out, and making government more representative of the people this government is going to do whatever it can to keep hold of FPTP until it gets over the hurdle of what will be a messy general election between 2009 and 2010. It's despicable, it's an example of everything that's wrong with modern "democracy" and it is authoritarian bullshit that has to end as soon as possible.

Over at Liberal Conspiracy this week, Jess McCabe has written an excellent piece on prostitution and the necessity to change perceptions around the world towards women. Unfortunately, while everyone could agree wholeheartedly on the issue of women's rights and the need to combat sex trafficking, the well used comments section ultimately divided people on the necessary measures needed to affect change most.

There will always be unethical businessmen and women that try to make their money with illegal sex trafficking, and one has to reluctantly accept the inevitability of some level of this happening. However with a system similar to that which I propose, giving legitimate workers no excuse to not be legal, and the current systems blurring the lines between abused and non-abused workers, I know which I would prefer when it comes to making it easy for law enforcement agencies to crack down own the despicable dark side of prostitution.

Since Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spat their dummies out at the latest democratic debate there has been a lot of talk about how the campaign has changed. The fact that Obama seemingly wanted to play it as "the nice guy" was shattered this week when he lowered himself to Clinton's level and she beat him with experience. Analysts are now asking what should Obama should do next?

There is seemingly a lot of scratching of heads going on over why Obama is still clinging to as much of the nice guy persona as he can. Certainly if he is truly "that nice" then it potentially affects his credibility to be the commander in chief, but if he is just holding back it makes him a poor strategist. Or does it?

With today's news about MPs getting ready to vote on their own pay increase, and in light of only 18.5% of respondents in a poll agreeing with an above 1.9% pay rise (in this case 2.56% spread over two stages), I have to ask what would be the most beneficial and least hypocritical for the members to actually vote on.

Update: So it turns out that not vote took place and the parties all agreed to the sub-inflation pay rise. I can't help but feel cynical that on one hand (and publicly) the opposition parties support the police and other public workers, but in practice know that they would have done the same. Or maybe it was just to maintain the public image of parliament

A few days ago a story went largely un-noticed about Hazel Blears proposing that local councils and local communities could form a contract with each other about expectations put upon local government. The idea is that if the council fails to tackle things like drug dealing, graffiti and dirty streets, then local residents could be entitled to some of their council tax back...though it is keenly stressed this would only be in the most serious of failures, an as yet unquantified level of problems.