SUGGESTATION

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0642976020080407?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

I’m not Clinton’s biggest fan, being an Obama man myself (much to my dear girlfriend’s chagrin!), but I’ll have to give her props for this.

Taking a firm stance against China’s human rights abuses, a stance that Gordon Brown seems lately incapable of, does nothing but improve Clinton’s credibility as a strong leader. It is obviously easier to make throwaway remarks about what political leaders should do, but increased pressure can only be a good thing.

I find it a great shame two of the three main political parties, and the majority of the mainstream media in the UK, have found themselves unwilling to take a stronger stance.

The Olympic torch is due to arrive in San Fransisco on wednesday - I hope that US citizens give it at least as good a welcome as it has had here and in France!

Update: (via Liberal Conspiracy) Apparently Obama has now done the same. Took you long enough!

HSBC have recently announced that they’ve managed to lose a CD containing the personal details of 370,000 customers in the UK. Whoops.

This comes as the last of a long line of embarrassing losses of personal information across government and private sector industries, and will do nothing for the uneasiness with which many view the prospect of increased personal data being held as part of the proposed national identity scheme.

Well, here goes.

I’ve been putting this off for a long time. I registered this domain back in January 2006, installed Wordpress and had the clear intention of maintaining a political comment blog. I’d been inspired by the blogs of some very talented writers (see the blogroll), and goshdarnit, I had things to say.

So why the wait?

Well, I ain’t a good writer. My better half seems to think I’m intelligent, but we both know I’m of the ’stream-of-consciousness’ variety. I’ve been somewhat content thus far to let the good bloggers I’ve read put forward opinions that I largely agree with, in a much more coherent and thorough manner than I could hope to achieve. However, a few issues.

On the odd occasion when I’ve felt I’ve absolutely positively had to write something about an issue, I’ve done it on someone else’s blog. Comments are great, but it can go too far. Secondly, I’ve learned a whole heap about British politics in the last four or five years (from a scarily unknowledgeable start), but I have a long way to go. Many aspects still elude me - it appears I’m going to have to swallow the philosophy section of my nearest library, and many things, particularly about the political blogosphere, enrage me.

So without further ado, I give you a brand new, shiny blog. In the spirit of recent developments, here’s my statporn. Woot. I should leave a few browser windows autorefreshing over the weekend to spank up my ‘visits’.

And with that, I’m off for the weekend. Alas, no internet access from there. Still, I’ve a tenner on the horses for tomorrow - who knows, I may get lucky!