Lynne Featherstone is a bit of a curve ball. Firstly she is much more liberal than most MPs (not hard these days in all fairness) for the Liberal Democrats, she is also one of the few MPs that is actually embracing modern technology and actually engages with people. I've also no doubt from her articles that she does her very best to represent her constituents.

However she counters that with populist witch hunts that purposefully try to circumnavigate due process, and has the biggest bug to bear with "equality", settling for nothing less than equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. And so, her recent article (for The Voter, an Electoral Reform Society magazine) on Monday adds more demerits to her person in my eyes. The subject? Not enough women in parliament!

Hey avid readers, this is a public service announcement! I apologise hugely for the decrease in quality of this site over the last few months. Firstly, my job is much more intense than my last which means much less time for blogging, hence why the number of articles has decreased. Also I feel Liberal Conspiracy needs more liberal bloggers writing for it so I am putting my primary thoughts that way for now too (though I'll continue to replicate here when I have time

The main problem though is also the site. Since having some bandwidth issues (which is great, makes you feel very popular) I had to move to a different method of storing my news....which is great until you see the load times on this page. It needs an overhaul, it also needs a redesign as the site which was built for maybe a couple of dozen posts is now growing terribly inadequate.

So, in short, bear with me if you can, I'll try to post more if you can cope with the website being clunky...I promise in time I'll rectify both problems!

This article was written for Liberal Conspiracy, and comments have been left on that discussion.

If there is one thing I detest when it comes to TV it is adverts that make spurious claims about a product based upon the dismal opinion of less than a handful of only one demographic; also usually people that at the same time are reading a magazine or buying at a store that has a heavy advertising deal with said product. Be it hair products where 93% of 140ish people surveyed in Marie Claire said it was definitely the most awesome hair care product (that they received a free trial of with the magazine), or butter that less than 50% of people say they preferred (yet the loop hole of those 7% of people that "don't care" allows the brand to claim "most" people like them best).

So then, with that lengthy precursor to the article, perhaps you can understand why Hazel Blears and her team of community action planners have so frustrated me this week, publishing a report about the attitudes of white working class people in the UK. Well, I say published but the master of making information accessible to the public has yet to even ensure that even the news is reported on the communities.gov.uk website (as of Midday, 5th Jan), let alone the actual report, methodology and findings.

The right to a private and family life, it seems like such a simple request does it not? Yet it is taken for granted, and is a right that is readily abolished by our government and other agencies to ensure our "safety". Are we really living in a world where we cannot be safe without giving up our right to a private life? Thankfully a couple of recent decisions, regarding the holding of DNA on a national DNA database and of being retained on the sex offenders register indefinitely, have had a huge impact on restoring the value to the Article 8 right of the ECHR.

What is personality? According to the announcement of the short-list for the BBC Sports personality of the year it is clearly something you can't have if you are disabled. One has to assume that the glee and excitement our Paralympians had in Beijing is a somewhat less endearing personality than the also professional glee of people like Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins. But perhaps it's all about achievement? Even in this category it would seem that for the papers that selected their nominations a single gold medal in the Olympics is worth more than the four golds and silver that an inspirational Darren Kenny hauled in for the Paralympics cycling team only weeks later.

Hazel Blears has become one of the first to fall in line with Obama rhetoric, damning career politicians and cynics across the spectrum.

Saying some ministerial colleagues live on "planet politics", Blears complained that their lack of real-life experience - as well as a cynical media and political bloggers - have left politics "in trouble".

ePolitix.co.uk

Well, that's interesting. I'm sure that people like William Wilberforce, and the people that have benefited from his work...and no doubt the work of other career politicians of their time...are in absolute agreement with Hazel. Not that the assertion that being a career politician is a good thing can ring true either, after all we only have to look to Gordon Brown there.

I don't think they should be nationally vilified. I think we should all listen to it before we pass judgement. I wonder if a lot of those people that complained will have read what was said in the paper, when it's taken out of context it can sound very different.

Who's words? A measured and objective leader perhaps? Someone in charge of the country urging calm? No...hostess of Big Brother, Davina McCall. The person that SHOULD have been uttering such words was too busy condemning the BBC and suggesting that they should be doing more to "give in" to tabloid pressure.

After some positive sounding, if not ultimately quite plain, news from the Tory conference; along with some more news of common sense policy pledges, it is good to see that the Tories can be trusted to revert to type at some point. This time it is the popular issue of benefit "scroungers" and the Tory plan to implement a "three strikes" rule

I hate to say it, but the Tories are sounding like a party heading for Government. While the Lib Dems have also done well in announcing some strong policies for the future, before conference season (a bit of a mistake, perhaps), the Tories have hit the nail on the head in getting their coverage at the right time. In the process they have already managed to thoroughly embarrass Labour on issues that Labour should traditionally be at the forefront of.

Just a short one today, I have a bigger post coming tomorrow (hopefully), but this is just a brilliant highlight of current events from Always win when you're singing. It's all about the Today program and an interview with George Osbourne. Check it out.