Mr Fallon’s Merton Rule Bill - another mighty oak from Sevenoaks?

Each year twenty back bench members of the House of Commons names are drawn from all back benchers names in a ballot. The twenty lucky ones will be given some of Parliament’s time and resources to draw up a bill that might become law. Usually only the top few names in the ballot have a [...]

What birds can teach us about climate change

I must admit that I don’t know a lot about birds but I do know that they can be harbingers of change. I have been looking at the Royal Society Protection of Bird’s website and at the Chaffinch in particular, because it is a pretty yellow gold bird, and when I played the chaffinch song [...]

The unknowns of climate change

People who do not believe that climate change caused by human activity is happening (and they are perfectly entitled to their views) point out that there are many unknown factors in the science and theory of climate change. This is bound to be true of any scientific theory that you cannot verify by experimentation. Instead [...]

Coral reefs are dieing

 If you have been lucky enough to snorkel around a coral reef you will know what marvellous places they are. They are homes to about a quarter of all marine life and are an invaluable source of shelter for breeding and spawning fish and crustaceans. Reefs also serve a valuable carbon dioxide absorbing function both [...]

How to complain about problems with your gas, electricity, water, telephone, council tax, broadband and similar bills and bank charges

How should you complain about problems with your gas, electricity, telephone service, council tax, broadband and other services?
I rarely complain. Mostly I am too busy and cannot be bothered. If I get upset about some poor service or a billing error or whatever, I try to get it sorted but the laws of negative returns often [...]

Gordon Brown calls for global institutions to do his job

Gordon Brown has been arguing the case for reform at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He says we need greater globalisation and new global institutions to cope with global capital movement. He says that the present economic problems of credit stem from “under pricing of risk” which no one spotted due to lack of [...]

Holding terror suspects without charge is locking up democracy, freedom and justice

On the 28th October 1940 Italy invaded Greece. The invasion inspired my father Nicolas Kyriakides to join the Cyprus Regiment of the British Army in Alexandria; he, along with other Cypriots, was promised that if Cypriots joined the Army after the defeat of the Axis forces Britain would grant Cyrus independence. A higher proportion of Cypriots [...]

Peter Hain quits

I predicted last week (17th January) that Gordon Brown’s vote of confidence in Peter Hain did not bode well for Hain’s prospects of keeping his job. He has now quit the cabinet to clear his name.

EU renewable energy targets - renewable heat is part of the solution, not the problem, dummy!

The European Union will legally require each country in the Union to meet a certain fixed percentage of its energy by renewables by 2020 if plans announced yesterday are approved, as they are likely to be. In the case of the United Kingdom that fixed percentage is 15%. The United Kingdom has got off very lightly; [...]

Northern Rock and Iraq - using the same argument to deflect examination

Alistair Darling has got us in a big mess. Somehow, we all have invested over £2,000 each in the Northern Rock Bank, without knowing it. Mr Darling together with Gordon Brown decided to bail out the failed bank with a defective business plan. It was such a shame that the government appointed regulators operating under [...]