When do you use RPI to measure inflation and when do you use CPI? The answer is quite simply "whenever we feel like it!". In a response earlier this month to a petition to change the student loan interest rate from being linked to RPI to CPI to reflect the government's inflation figures, the Prime Minister's office has stated it has no intention to change a thing...in line with the general policy of taking in to account public opinion through the site.

So, I've been working on this new site layout and so haven't been posting. Thank god then for Gordon Brown and his ability to provide us with such easy blogging material! In particular his call to Labour MPs to "build the Britain of our dreams"

Over on Liberal Conspiracy a very good debate is formulating over a series of posts about abortion and the liberal/left stance, with a surprising amount of decent interjection coming in from those that tend to always disagree with the postings on there. Once again I found myself responding to something on there and it getting too long to be a comment, so here is my view on the very muddy subject.

I can't bring myself to support abortion or oppose it on the basis of socially prescribed ethical codes, religious belief or, most crucially, the date at which a foetus has at least some chance of staying alive if removed from the womb…currently found to be 24 weeks and being argued by conservatives and more sensible religious groups to be lowered to 20 weeks. To me the issue is about the life of a child, just as it is for the god squad or those that put a great deal of weight on the rights of the unborn, it is just that such a question of quality of life and reasonable expectation have to enter the debate.

Have you seen this woman? She is wanted in connection with the instigation of a wave of terror sweeping over this nation. If you have seen her then you may be thankful for your very life, and if you do see her in the future authorities are urging you to hide and pretend you're a dead carcass simply lying on the street so that you are of no interest to her fanatical plotting.

Breaking news is that Lib Dems have walked out of the EU debate in Parliament this evening because the the Speaker had ruled their amendment on having a referendum on inclusion in Europe out of the debate completely. We have a speaker that firstly sets up enquiries in the MPs expenses using only MPs and no outside experts, then it turns out he was never the right person to set up such a body given he spends our money on his air miles and his wifes shopping trips, and now he decides that an amendment pertinent to the publics wishes surrounding this issue is scrapped and not to be heard?

It's one thing to put this amendment forward and for it to be voted down after proper debate, but to not be heard at all? Welcome to British "democracy" in action, and it's not as if we can even call for a vote of no confidence in the speaker of the house given he is the only one with powers to kick his incompetent and corrupt arse from the seat!

News today is about Jacqui Smith being prepared to accept an amendment being tabled by a fellow Labour MP to move the time limit that parliament has to decide on a person being held for more than 28 days from 30 to 10. The aim, apparently, is to move the debate on from "arbitrary" numbers. The trouble is that you can't stop delays over arbitrary figures by including MORE arbitrary figures!

...She would be required to close up shop and tell everyone to go home. I'm going out slightly on a limb, like many others, by predicting the end of her bid to become the Democratic nominee in all but name. The reason for this though isn't because of her more vindictive than ever attitude but because the people simply don't care for her now they've seen both sides of both arguments.

Latest polls are obviously starting to come in with more and more important data looking towards next weeks make or break primary session for the Democrats, and as I wrote earlier on this blog, the data has been looking worse and worse for Hillary. Just to remind you before you read on, Clinton really needs to win around 150 delegates from Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania...though ideally from Texas and Ohio alone to give her campaign a much needed boost. To do this she will have to win these large states by around 40 percentage points.

Well this is a little later than usual given I had to rebuild my news on the site from backups, but it is here...unfortunately Gavin was too busy to provide a hand with this one so you'll have to do with my voice, which I've decided is slightly camper when digitalised than my counterpart! It's not work safe and due to the time I've not got links at the end like last week...transcript can be found when clicking "Continue Article..."

The news for today will start off with some positive idea making by Labour MP Frank Field, not really through any effort of his own but by seeing the effect of the US Primaries on America and the rest of the world and wanting to emulate it. Is this the sort of thing we need in this country, will it solve any of our electoral issues, and would it ever have the same kind of esteem that the US version commands?

Unfortunately it seems I haven't kept my security up to scratch and I've been hacked. As such I'm going to have to search down and resubmit all my news, a minor annoyance but I'll be back up and running soon! Unfortunately this means that some links will be out of date linking here but I'll be doing what I can to alleviate that problem too