It occurs to me that there is something lacking from the current campaign for the Scottish Independence Referendum. Where are those Scottish members of the Westminster Parliament, who surely would be amongst the most central characters in this historic vote? Scotland is represented in Westminster by 59 MP’s, who will all become redundant if a...
DWP plans to ditch ridiculed jobs website Universal Jobmatch set to be jettisoned after it was found to be carrying a series of fake, repeat or fraudulent jobs ads The government has drawn up plans to scrap its official jobs website, Universal Jobmatch, after recognising it is too expensive and that its purpose is undermined...
Freedom’s just another word for “nothing left to lose”. The word Freedom is bandied around a lot these days, and not just by Mel Gibson in historically inaccurate movies, or politicians invoking it ironically, whilst invading other countries. Consider the song title though. We are indeed most free to take any course of action, when...
IPSA was setup to ensure that MPs couldn’t vote on their own salaries. Yet If MPs then decide not to accept the raise in salary awarded to their jobs, wouldn’t that be them yet again voting on their salaries? Wouldn’t this also be viewed as blatant electioneering, which would inevitably result in continual undercutting each...
Job board owners of the UK, how fantastic and spectacular a job board could you build for £17m? You might say “that’s crazy money. You could build a world beating job board for half that. You could even purchase any one of the technically brilliant, but commercially failing established recruitment web sites in the UK...
Can someone please explain to me why it is generally accepted as a good thing to deny prisoners the right to vote in public elections? What precisely does David Cameron think he will achieve, other than pandering to public outraged sentiment, and tabloid faux disgust, by stating that his government will NEVER allow prisoners to...
Stop reading this immediately, if you get bored rigid with people talking about losing weight. I am about to write several paragraphs on the subject. I have long believed that most people are exactly the weight they want to be. Becoming overweight, and maintaining it requires considerable effort. I speak as someone who was becoming...
Why do I get so excited when Andy Murray wins at tennis? An accident of birth means that he was born less than 20 miles from me, so does his success somehow validate me, and other Scots? I may actually have more in common with other sportsmen and women, but location of origin is usually...
A ship at sea relies upon 3 things: propulsion, steering and navigation. Without any one of these it will never reach its destination, cannot avoid immediate obstacles or can only go where the currents dictate, and eventually run aground. These three components are also vital to any individual’s career. Propulsion, or power. Even the very...
Given my experience with the NORAs, I am intrigued by awards events. Add to that my fascination with stand-up comedy, and the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards 2012 event, at the Edinburgh Festival, was a date I couldn’t afford to miss. I know the organiser, John Fleming, fairly tenuously via Facebook, so offered to...
