Obviously I need to step carefully with this post given that the parents of Madeline McCann find plenty of time in their search of their missing daughter to sue the pants off of anyone that can help fund their mortgage repayments, but I'm surprised at myself for not having yet made a posting about this couple. The reason for the posting is news that a set of papers are giving the McCann's over £500,000 in a libel settlement and apologising to them for what they've reported.

Now I would usually be the first to say that firstly the tabloids deserve all that they get on this sort of issue and that secondly it serves them right for being speculative rumour mills rather than reporters of the news. However, I have to wonder what exactly it is they are apologising for?

The EU treaty was last night sent a step further towards being accepted by British parliament as the Labour party successfully managed to vote out the possibility of a referendum on the document. As the debate showed there is a lot of hostility towards referendums as a way of making decisions, contrasted with the moral dilemma of breaking a promise to the country. The following are a few of my thoughts and I have to say watching the debate sharpened my mind on the issue and was very worthwhile for me personally...

However it must be said, if referendums are supposedly no good because of lack of information, lack of clarity over why a decision has gone the way it has and because the act of debate is supposedly so essential to democracy in Britain, why have three line whips been used in this vote meaning that this great debate held yesterday is effectively nullified by party lines, and why has the time allotted to the debate been insufficient to actually fully debate the issue and thus leaving even our MPs only partially informed when they come to make their decision?

Despite this event now seemingly sapping my life from my very body I for some reason decide to persevere in watching it. I shall keep it, and thus the pain, brief...though an issue was raised during the event around referendums and I shall be visiting that subject tomorrow. But for today, my god...it might not have been the worse PMQs but it was close.

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!

It started with patio-heaters and air conditioning units, it has resulted in ex-Shell boss saying that inefficient cars should be banned, but it is interesting that in between these two wishes stands another Lib Dem gem, contravening just about all employment law you can on the subject and banning so many "foreigners" from coming in to our football teams.

The next episode of Politalks is now here, with thanks to Gavin Whenman who will for the foreseeable future be partnering me on the project. Video below is probably NSFW!

First we banned smoking in pubs, and there was general gratitude. Liberals, in fighting this particular battle, had won the case for all around liberty, not only in that of the smokers rights but also the rights of those around them. So why is it then that the so-called "liberals" of the Lib Dems are now trying to ban something else in way that acts so contradictorily to that previous philosophy of liberalism, patio heaters?

It's about time people started realising that the aim of reducing emissions is not to become carbon neutral, the world has an ecosystem and the planet has survived even huge industrialisation by man kind. Putting some carbon dioxide in to the air does not matter, it is when those levels are too high and stay too high for too long. If you're going to start assuming that people are not taking responsibility then you are turning in to an authoritarian who can only be seen as attempting to micromanage millions of individuals lives on a mass level. People deserve the basic respect and trust of their governments to do the right thing and manage their own lives, while being influenced by duties and educational material. Painting all patio heater users as inconsiderate world killers is not necessarily the truth and it undermines the message that we should all be sending out about reducing our emissions.

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.

Is this the real reason why Nick Clegg has turned his party towards supporting the Government? The report suggests that the day before the Lib Dem's changed their stance, Gordon Brown stated that Proportional Representation might be on the table after the next election. The story goes that Jack Straw is keen to introduce PR (in particular the AV+ system proposed by the Jenkins Report to Blair in 1999) and the view from some is that a deal has been reached between the two parties.

News has broken that Nick Clegg announced that his party would be voting against any calls for a referendum on the new constitution/treaty for the EU. This is leading to some calling him on it and accusing him of hypocrisy and of "selling out" the UK to Europe. They largely ignore that what the Lib Dem's do or don't do will be largely irrelevant while the Labour party whip continues to dictate a hard line on this, as the Lib Dem votes couldn't possibly swing the matter in favour of the Tory line anyway, and they don't seem to look too deeply in to what it is the Lib Dem's actually want a referendum for...