I can't check in for forty minutes and I'm bored. Ideas, anyone? # Back in Blighty # By the time I'm home, thanks to the knock-on effects of delays in Kyiv, I will have been travelling for 12 hours. # Can I FOI Network Rail? # This train cannot get me home soon enough. # [...]

While Jan Moir has been issuing her homophobic drivel and being roundly castigated by the internet, another story in the news of quite astounding bigotry caught my eye. In Tangipahoa Country, Louisiana, a justice of the peace, Keith Bardwell, refuses to give marriage licenses for mixed-race couples. Yes, you read that correctly. The story first [...]

I am told that bus ridership using PAYG Oyster in 2007/8 was 344,979,000. If you will allow me to assume bus ridership has remained level and remains level after the price increase for that segment from £1 to £1.20, it raises around £69m. That happens to be about the cost of scrapping the WEZ. Before [...]

A little while back, I wrote a piece arguing for a ‘Guardian London’ supplement to the Guardian, similar to Guardian America or Comment is Free, both here and at Liberal Conspiracy. Whether or not the Guardian read, let alone paid any attention to, my thoughts, I am very glad to see this: Guardian Local planned [...]

Carter-Ruck, acting on behalf of Trafigura, sought to restrict a liberty hard-won by John Wilkes – reporting what happens in Parliament. The details are here, but revolve around an injunction stopping publication of a written question in parliament in the Guardian. From the Order Book, q 61. “To ask the Secretary of State for Justice [...]

Seems that the Socialists have won in Greece # My take on Blair as EU President: I prefer Parliamentary to Presidential systems and so don't want anyone to be EU President. # I'm in – RT @carmenego: Blogging: Mass (homeopathic) Suicide! http://bit.ly/raDKE # RT @benfolley @RichardWatts01 Cutting SureStart to pay for big tax cut for [...]

I’ve spent the past few days in Kyiv, Ukraine. One way and another, I’m travelling quite a lot at the moment, but all I tend to see is the inside of hotels and conference centres, so I was determined to do a tour of Kyiv. Unfortunately, by the time the allotted day came round, I [...]

I’ve been trying to work out why the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Obama. Prima facie, it appears a strange decision. The citation makes it clear that the award was made in expectation of future achievements – “democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.” That is a precedent. Recent laureates – Martti Ahtisaari, [...]

I’m currently in Kyiv, Ukraine, for the 55th Atlantic Treaty Association General Assembly. Of that, more another time, but I thought I’d mention that I was elected as one of the vice-presidents of the ATA. Kyiv is a lovely city – easy to walk around with plenty to see and do. If you’ll excuse me, [...]

Jonathan Djanogly, MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. Dear Mr Djanogly, Re: Conduct of Mr Patrick Mercer As you will be aware, there was a story in the press earlier this year about a hit-list of prominent British Jews, including Lord Sugar. The Sun has since admitted it was false, apologised and withdrawn the [...]