A lot of the comments coming from the liberal and/or left of this country following David Cameron's announcement about benefit reform seem to be largely missing the point and opportunity to debate what is an issue that, if not existing in reality, does exist with great umbrance in the minds of the Great British public. Rather than discussing whether the Tories are rehashing old policies but rather whether or not they have a point this time and if they do is it workable?

Of course people considering themselves thoroughly left wing may well say that such plans to force people into community work and off of incapacity benefit is a very anti-welfare idea, and those considering themselves deeply liberal may say that the idea of forcing people to join in with community work is not a very positive approach to civil liberties, though I think they'd be stretching with that analysis more than just a little in both cases.

Today (Monday) saw the start of what wasn't immediately apparent as a food campaign taking place on Channel 4. Tuning in for the "Big Food Fight" I assumed from the trailers, forgetting the modern C4 style, that we'd have some offbeat adventure cooking program with three of the top TV chef's this country has to offer. In reality the line up of programming is probably a whole lot less humorous but vastly more insightful. Starting off as it means to go on the next two nights following this one will continue the program "Hugh's Chicken Run" which tonight started the journey of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on his crusade to get people buying free range chickens.

Chickens were the first ever livestock that I raised at River Cottage. They've been giving me eggs and meat all my life, and now I rear my own, for both eggs and meat. And I think they're the front line of animal welfare in this country, and the way in which they're farmed is something to which the public are denied access. You've got chicken farms with barbed wire all around them, which is not necessary to keep the birds in. I particularly target the supermarkets because they sell so much cheap chicken - it's right at the heart of their price wars with each other, and they use it to try and gain market share.

On the Today program on Radio 4 Gordon Brown was interviewed on a series of issues: the NHS, Northern Rock, national borrowing, national crisis's and his state in the job. All in all it was a painful listen, with a Prime Minister that had clearly gone into an interview situation somehow wishing to dictate the agenda and continually finding himself on the back foot and defending himself on pretty much every decision he's made...most of the time without necessity.

There is a train of thought in the world of Climate Change, and by Climate Change I'm talking about the Greenhouse effect, and that is that we are not currently suffering from the effects of our own doing and that in fact we are simply at a natural high point in terms of heat from the sun based on our history. Recent records don't necessarily indicate this, though they do indicate fluctuation. in the early 1900's the temperature on average rose by 0.25 Celsius, but then proceeded to drop again by 0.2 Celsius in the next 40 years after that. Now we are back on the temperature rise side of things and it does seem to be happening faster than it should for natural fluctuation. But all of this is based on a very short frame of reference and I for one feel that while the theories are all sound enough in their appearance, and that the action being proposed should be carried out regardless of our situation, the most prudent thing to do for the integrity of our actions is to actually widen that frame of reference

An article published in the New Scientist suggests that we can get details about solar heat strengths all the way back to the 1600's, greatly increasing our ability to understand the context of the climate that we are discussing so avidly in these recent times. It is vitally important, I feel, that this sort of work is done. If this Climate Change period turns out, as small as a chance as that appears, to be a natural freak occurrence then without having more information about solar patterns we can fall foul of people, especially industries that would really rather not spend money to become more green, bending the situation to their own means.

It seems as though everything on the political blogosphere is about the US election race. While it is of course apparent to any old fool that the outcome of the election in a years time is important for the state of global politics, I personally think there are more pressing matter that also deserve some light of day. Futilely, perhaps, I would much prefer to read some more learned opinion about the situations brewing in Pakistan and Kenya than the media food that is largely irrelevant until at least the beginning of February. In fact I would normally be annoyed if we merely centred on the largely irrelevant political point scoring of the UK's national parties such as Cameron's ever so slightly altered Labour policies or Gordon Brown's desire for more screening for all rather than these crisis's in Middle East and Africa (Darfur is more than a lost cause for debate in the public domain now that the allure of saving that part of the world has worn off), however what really confuses me is that even important stories such as the ministers pay rise issue, or a recent report that Labour are failing the very people that they are supposed to be strongest at supporting are getting no insight right now.