Urg - It's that time again

Yes I have a hangover. How I still have a hangover at 16:45 is beyond me but then again my body seems to defy medical science when it comes to my hangovers. Anyway I will warn you - do not drink swedish mixed fruit 7% cider all night. Bad things will happen. You will not be a nice person. It should come with a massive warning on the label. So there.

And of course because it is that most ridiculous of holidays - New Year's Eve - I have to go out and get drunk to celebrate the date changing. I hate New Year's Eve. You never have fun, you never get a kiss at midnight and you always end up having to walk home. But I'm going out because as shit as a New Year's Eve night out is it's still better than sitting at home alone sulking. I think. So just a quick post to wish the world Happy change of date! Yay. How exciting. I'm getting older. Woopee bloody doo.

So tune in tomorrow when I am sure to have an even worse hangover. And will probably have broken all of my New Year's Resolutions which are as follows:

1. Be nicer to stupid people
2. Be less patronising to stupid people
3. Meet less stupid people
4. Lose weight
5. Do everything I can to get a Conservative Government elected as soon as possible
6. Do everything possible to resist the introduction of I.D. cards.
7. Don't drink Swedish 7% cider
8. Get better than my brother at Wii Sports
9. Get less hangovers
10. Blog about more interesting stuff than my hangovers.

Dog Fighting

I had a bit of a surprise today when reading about Lily Allen's dog. Firstly that I had any sympathy for Lily Allen - I thought I hated her but it seems the loss of her dog Maggie May has stirred a small amount of sympathy in me. Not much since it's a Bull terrier - not the most sympathetic of dog breeds - but still some. The dog was snatched from her friends van and this seems an awful way to lose a dog - dognapping.

But the other thing that surprised me was that this happens at all. My first thought was "who'd want to steal a dog?". I mean fair enough pretty much anything in this country that isn't screwed down will be stolen but still a dog? What would you do with it? Are there black market dogs out there? And it's not like Maggie May was a pure bred rare Tibetan Pekanise Shitzu or something like that. Generally criminals aren't going to want to steal something that they have to feed and look after and I'm pretty sure dog pelts aren't in great demand. So I did a little research.

The website Dog Lost has got a lot of publicity as Lily Allen is using it to try and find her dog. This site seems to be part of an excellent organisation giving people a national way to communicate that their dog is lost and people can try and help. I really do think this is a genuinely good and useful website.

However I was slightly bemused by Jane Hayes, the websites founder, comments on Lily Allen's dog theft incident. "We think there are gangs operating in east London stealing dogs for organised dog fights...We also think they are being sold in pubs by people looking for quick money for drugs...We get at least 100 reports a week of dogs lost, presumed stolen, and the site gets about 1.5 million hits a week"

Now unfortunately the BBC hasn't specified whether the 100 reports a week are in East London or nationally. I'm also sceptical about this term of lost presumed stolen. Now every time I lose my mobile phone in my bedroom or leave it at someone's house (oh ok fine - leave it in the pub when pissed) I usually instantly assume I've been pickpocketed or the like but always in fact it has turned out that I merely lost it. Not saying it's the same for dogs but I would have a lot more faith in figures on the number of confirmed dog stealings rather than presumed ones.

The trouble, according to Paw Trax, is that It is estimated that many thousands of dogs are stolen in the UK every year. However, we have been unable to find any formal or accurate statistics.

So there are no official stats on this issue at all. The general thought on the more calm websites I found was that there would only ever be three reasons for stealing a dog. 1) Animal Testing 2) Fur 3) Ransom

1) and 2) are highly highly unlikely to take place in this country.

1) Because the regulation is so strict on testing in this country that no animal is tested that they don't know who it is, where it came from and every single detail of it's life.

2) Because it's a perfectly legal trade in this country so there is no need to steal dogs for it. (Unless of course you are Cruella de Vil)

3) Is a possibility but unlikely in Lily Allen's case due to the breed of dog and the total lack of a ransom demand.

So back to the point (I did have one) - when I first read this article I had terrible images of East End druggies trawling the streets looking for dogs to sell for drugs and them selling them to crime lords running big dog fights. I'm not saying this never happens but thankfully it seems not as often as I first thought! So always remember boys and girls - don't let the media make you jump to conclusions - do a little thinking and reading for yourself once in a while!

R.I.P James Brown

I am very well fed after some great christmas cooking by my mum. Got some half decent pressies as well and best of all I got a guitar!!!! Yayayayayayay! Now I just need to learn to play it. I can play the bass so it can't be that much harder?

Still quite quiet on the politics front but very sad new about the passing of the godfather of soul, James Brown on Christmas Dayat the age of 73. He will be sorely missed and my brother will force me to listen to James Brown's funky christmas album even more often.

Happy Christmas!

I'm up to my elbows in wrapping paper and pressies today. Large Irish Catholic family leads to very large Christmas so I shall be too busy to blog (probably) until after Boxing Day.

So I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah or enjoys whatever traditional ritual they celebrate in the middle of the darkest time of the year to bring a little light, love and happiness back into our lives!

No News is not Neccesarily Good News

There is absolutely nothing in the news I feel like writing about today. Sorry let me rephrase that, there is nothing in the political news I feel like writing about today. Fishing deals not really my area of expertise or anything I'm interested in. Also I'm tired, hungover and grumpy so I don't feel like writing anything at all anyway. And I have to go finish my Christmas shopping on Oxford Street which will be hell.

So my round up of the news today -

Richard Hammond has given his first TV interview since his terrible crash and you can see him on Jonathan Ross's show tonight. I can't because I have to go to a stupid party tonight so I will have to tape it.

J.K. Rowling has announced the final Harry Potter book will be called "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" - sounds great - get on with the writing the thing you silly moo!

Scientists predict a flu epidemic could kill 62million people globally. Frankly I've heard this warning for many years now - I really hope someone is in a lab somewhere working out how to stop a global flu epidemic rather than just predicting how many people one will kill.

And finally Europe's largest dinosaur has been discovered in Spain, "Turiasaurus" a cute little herbivore. Well not little, 30-37 metres long and weighing nearly 50 tonnes.



I hope to be in a more christmassy mood tomorrow!

Lemsip in more cheeky trouble

Well well well. I wasn't going to mention poor old Lembit Opik and the new lady in his life because frankly if a mad MP wants to go out with a mad pop star that's fine. But now it seems the Lib Dems are pretty worried Lemsip may have had words with Liam Byrne - Minister for Immigration and Nationality. This would of course be a pretty bad abuse of his position. However it seems all he claims to have done was ask what the best course of action for getting help was and Liam Byrne, quite rightly said, get her to contact her local MP.

Now this doesn't really worry me. As a former caseworker for an MP I am very aware that many people find the immigration system highly frustrating and unhelpful and people will ask anywhere and everywhere for help. Invariably the best solution is to get your local MP to help. What really worries me is that Lemsip didn't already know that! Why on earth would any MP have to ask the immigration minister what to do when someone needed help with their immigration situation? Maybe immigration isn't as rife in Montgomeryshire as it is in other parts of the country but from my experience every MP has to deal with the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in some for another now and then.

This means we're in another "either they are lying or they are stupid situation". Either Mr Opik's conversation was a little more detailed than "what shall I do?" "go to her local MP" or he is such an incompetent constituency MP he has no idea what the standard procedure is. Either way poor old Lemsip is having a tough Christmas!

CF Xmas Party

Well I'm not hungover shockingly enough. I got a little merry at one point last night but I was a good and sensible girl so I headed home when the bar shut at 11:30. Unfortunately my level headed sensibleness didn't extend to not stopping at Burger King in Liverpool Street Station so there goes my diet - but anyway!

Yes the party was fabulous as they say. Minor hiccup at the beginning as it became clear that the bar hadn't really understood that CF wanted to reserve enough speace for 200 people. However it all worked out in the end. We just swamped the rest of the bar and most CF people seemed not to realise the place wasn't booked out by us. I did find myself explaining to a couple of scottish city gentleman who we were and they were very suprised in a good way!

There was also the rather bizarre appearance of a chap who was going around introducing himself as "the leading candidate for London Mayor" . In fact someone showed me his business card and on it it says "the leading candidate for London Mayor". Funnily enough I had never heard of him and I cannot remember his name today! I'm pretty sure I saw Guido taking his picture so presumably he has the inside scoop on this fascinating man.

Mark Clarke had amazingly provided a christmas card for every attendee which had his email address and mobile number inside it. I have my suspicions though that although this appears to be a wonderful way of helping CF members get in touch with Mark, it may just be an attempt on Mark's part to make sure as many pretty young ladies as possible have his phone number! Actually I must behave. I met Mark's charming mother last night and was very perturbed to find out she reads my blog which means I better behave myself.

But anyway it was a good night. Peterkin was drinking champagne out of a straw in the bottle so it must have been good! And the Blue Santa Hats bought by exec member Matthew Richardson went down a storm. Even the elusive Mr Fawkes wore one!

I.D. Cards Creeping Closer

Accrording to the BBC John Reid is soon to reveal the timetable for the introduction of I.D. cards alongside an action plan! Well whoopee doo. At least it has spurred me on to do some more reading about why the scheme is evil.

Aside from the huge cost to the citizens in terms not only of taxes paying for this useless scheme but also having to buy one of these evil cards. Aside from the fact that the government has possibly the worst track record ever when it comes to dealing with huge databases of peoples personal information - they always break down, are hacked or even sold to marketing companies. Aside from the massive civil liberties infringement of enforcing people to have these. I have just noticed in the small print that foreign nationals in this country, even EU citizens, will have to get an I.D. card if they are here for more than three months. Now I am fuming about this because I was kind of hoping that my Irish passport was going to get me out of all this. Now what instantly sprang to mind was the Common Travel Area, an idea my father explained to me when I was about 7 that you did not need a passport to get from Ireland to the UK and visa versa. Now my technical knowledge from when I was 7 needs updating so I have had a look at Wikipedia - the fountain of all knowledge - and looked it up. Now as I understand the Wikipedia article basically this Common Travel Area is not enshrined in law but exists because no law exists saying you have to produce a passport between the two countries, a loophole left after Home Rule was granted.

The Irish Centre for Migration Studies is quoted as saying UK subjects and Irish citizens have the right freely to travel between the two jurisdictions without having to carry a passport. For this very reason, it has never been viewed as practicable for Ireland to adopt the full Schengen arrangements in the absence of a British decision to do likewise, as the logical outcome would be the imposition of border controls between the UK and Ireland. In the case of the North/South land frontier this would be virtually unworkable, while enormous inconvenience would undoubtedly be caused to people in two societies which, in trading and labour market terms, are still highly integrated.

So are the Irish living in the UK going to be forced to have i.d. cards? Yes
Are the British going to be able to move to Ireland and escape the mass civil liberties plot? Yes
And is travel between the UK and Ireland about to become a lot more messy and difficult? Yes.

It's all one gigantic nightmare. The best we can hope for is a snap election under Brown followed by a Conservative victory to see this whole sorry scheme abandoned as it should be.

(expect hangover tomorrow - CF Xmas Party tonight)

Battersea Campaigning

So on Saturday after having collected my Wii I fought every natural instinct in my body to go and play it and instead went to Battersea to help deliver some leaflets on the CF Campaign Day. I was very impressed with how many people were there to deliver and that Matthew Richardson had got everyone (except mini-Becks himself Alex Williams) to wear a Blue Santa Hat! Howeveer as I realised I should take a picture of all these people they were suddenly all despatched to give out leaflets. I do however have a nice picture for you of the candidate herself, Jane Ellison, in her blue hat!


Well done Matthew and Mark for getting such a good turn out and apparently 10,000 leaflets delivered! Even Mr Peterkin did his bit and as you can see from this photo that I took at 11:30am he was raring to go!

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Round Up

Yes I know this is meant to be a political blog but it's my blog and I have to say a few words about the mastery that is the Nintendo Wii. Saturday morning I collected it and the whole weekend has been spent giving it some intense playing - multiplayer and many games - to check out if it really lives up to the hype.

OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD

It's wonderful!!!!!!!!

Let me take you through the games I've played so far.

Wii Sports - Brilliant fun for all the family. I even had my mum playing bowling this morning and she has never picked up a computer game in her life. Now she wants me to get more controllers for Christmas day! These games are so easy anyone can pick them up but they are so well designed that the play is absolutely addictive. Also the stuff about people breaking things and getting black eyes etc. Well the only way I can see this happening is if you're an idiot who cannot hold onto a controller or you are very very drunk. (cue me touching wood that this doesn't happen to me in the next week and I look very stupid)

Wii Play - Not great but not bad. It comes with a free controller - better to see it as buying a controller that comes with a free game. However the cow racing is really fun. I wouldn't go out of your way to buy this but if you are buying an extra controller you might as well but this. It is worth the extra fiver.

Rayman Raving Rabbids - I haven't bought this but my brother did and I've played through a load of story mode already. The dancing stuff is great but all the other random games are genius. Especially the end of level house of the dead style shooting levels. Those big bunnies are scary. Pretty sure I'm going to ask Father Christmas for this!

Zelda Twilight Princess - So I have left the best for last. For anyone not familiar with the Zelda series of games - Shame on You! But anyway - these games have existed since the dawn of computing time. November 1987, Nintendo launched "The Legend of Zelda" on their NES Console. Every Zelda game since has been good and it is one of the major draws to Nintendo. People will buy a console just to play the new Zelda game. "Ocarina of Time" did wonders for the sale of N64s (not that Goldeneye was doing it any harm but hey!) But I digress. Zelda was what I was most excited about and it does not disapoint. It's just great. I don't want to put spoilers up so I won't but the gameplay is intuitive and the new style controllers work surprisingly well. Especially as when you're set upon unexpectedly flailing your arms works very well and since this tends to be my reaction anyway my gameplay has improved enormously.

So yes. The Wii is magnificent - it lives up to the hype and I am very happy. Now back to the real business of politics! The serious matter that it is!

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Normal Service will resume on Monday but for now - Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Burying Bad News

Thank you "The West Wing" for teaching every political hack this side of the Atlantic the phrase "Taking out the Trash Day" - the concept being that an administration will release all it's bad news in one day so that the the media will not be able to cover all the stories in depth. Especially when there's a serial killer going around strangling prostitutes.

Yesterday was a pretty impressive payload so it's hard to know where to start. Well the issue that matters to your average punter the most is probably Post Office closures. The government is basically closing down every Post Office except the ones in the Houses of Parliament and getting your friendly local WH Smith to run them because at the moment they are losing too much money. I had some personal involvement in the early stages of these moves when they announced this was going to happen to the huge, and very frequently used, Hammersmith Broadway Post Office. The Post Office refused to release figures as to what sort of a loss they were running at or to discuss alternative solutions. Clearly the Post Office is in some sort of financial problem and I do not think the government needs to bail them out but surely there must be some other option than "it's losing money so we better shut the whole network down". If we're not allowed to do it with the NHS I don't see why the Post Office is any different. It's an essential service that people need access to.

The political hacks will be most interested in TB (our Prime Minister) being interviewed by the police. He was not interviewed under caution and both Charles Kennedy and Michael Howard (the other party leaders during the time of investigation) have been interviewed as well. However as my friend Mr Peterkin said "Lets be quite clear - the Prime Minister is "helping police with their enquiries". It is absolutely laughable for Labour to be spinning the line that the fact that he hasn't been read his rights is some sort of triumph. This is quite unprecedented."

Then there are other complex issues beyond my little brain. I'll admit. I know next to nothing about this SFO enquiry the Attorney general is dropping into BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia. I'm assuming the SFO was meant to be investigating some alleged dodgy dealing between Saudi Arabia and BAE Systems. Even without knowing anything about this it seems like a pretty bad idea to be dropping the investigation.

Also yesterday there was the decision from the High Court on the Charle De Menezes case. The family had been trying to get a policeman charged with something but the High Court has ruled in favour of the earlier decision to bring no charges against any of the police. Personally I agree with the decision. However I didn't know about this until I did some real scouring of the BBC News website.

It seems out major media outlets - or what I saw of the 6pm, 7pm and 10pm news yesterday - were interested in two stories yesterday.

1) Woman dies ten years ago - enquiry rules no foul play
2) Series of women die in Ipswich - police have no new leads.

Let us hope the glorious revolution of the internet will redress the balance eventually. So comrades continue to bring the truth to the masses. News International certainly won't do.

Diana Death A Tragic Accident

The final word on the subject then. The question now? Will the Daily Express continue to put her on the cover every monday?

No long post today. Too much work and have developed a worrying addiction to Girls Aloud and somehow something kinda oooooh is hardly conducive to intelligent blog posts.

EU Translations

Too tired to post today. I have literally been working all day. I can barey lift my fingers to type now, my eyes sting from looking at the harsh light of the computer screen, my back muscles ache from being curved over the commputer at this unhealthy angle all day. But anyway. Stil no Wii. Update on Friday from HMV. However I also have to wait for a BT engineer on Friday so sods law dictates they will ring me at 9am to say it's ready to collect and I then have to wait until 5pm for the BT engineer. Grrrrrr

The news is pretty depressing today anyway but I did notice the BBC website has a little bit asking whether translation services are a waste of public money. It's an interesting question. I can see the need for the DSS (or whatever it's called - I'm tired ok) and the NHS having translators available and obviously how many and what languages should be dictated by the local community but the thing I have always found rather wasteful is the translation of documents. This isn't so much a problem in this country *cough* Wales / NUS *cough* but instead in the EU. The EU spends a phenomenal amount of money every year - not to mention time - translating everything into all the official languages of the EU (even Irish!). Now I can see that it is helpful but is it entirely necessary? Couldn't they all be translated into say four or five very widely spoken languages such as French, Spanish, German, English and Russian then only translate it into the other 5 squillion (oh ok 20 odd) languages when it's requested by the MEP's of that country.

Just a thought. But then again I am sleep deprived.

Night night

Fixed Dates for Elections?

The BBC today is reporting that David Cameron is preparing for the possibility of a General Election in 2007. Well yes. He's probably also preparing for the possibility of a General Election in 2008, 2009 and 2010. It is of course a huge possibility that Gordon Brown (or ok in the 1% chance that he isn't the next leader of the Labour Party, whoever it is) will call a snap election as soon as he becomes PM.

Aside from the obvious political benefits - bump in polls because of new leader and the disappearance of TB from the scene - it in many ways would be the right thing to do. The British public did not vote for Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. In fact they were assured that Blair would see out his third term to it's end. Frankly the British public really deserve to show how they feel about Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. We are essentially having our PM chosen by the Labour party rather than through any sort of democratic process. So calling an election to put legitimacy on his premiership would be the morally right thing to do in my opinion. (although personally I hope he doesn't - not for any political reasons just that campaigning is so bloody exhausting, after 2005 GE and the locals in London last year I really need a year off!)

However the wider issue here is why do we not have fixed terms? I remember in my A-Level politics arguing that our system was good because if a major issue came up and the government was called into question then a general election could be called without having to wait four years. I have to say I completely disagree with my 17 year old self now.

I really feel it's time for the UK to introduce fixed terms. At the moment the government of the day has all the advantages. It is always said that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them - well this is even more true when the government gets to choose when the election is fought. It gives them a huge advantage which is ridiculous because as a general rule governments already have the advantage at any election. Fixed four year elections would take that away and mean that it didn't matter if the government were in a sticky situation. They'd still have to fight an election and couldn't just call an early one when things were going rather well.

Another massive implication is it would really help parties with their funding. If they knew when they were going to fight elections then fundraising could be organised in a much more sensible way. Unexpected elections lead to cutting corners in fundraising accountability and clarity. If elections were at fixed point in time then political parties would be in a much better position to plan financially. (I do question if Brown could afford to call a snap election at the moment with Labour party finances as they are!)

So I am now firmly behind putting a bit of structure into the British electoral system. We do it for all our other elections so why not?

On a slightly more controversial note I would consider going further and introducing term limits for Prime Ministers. It is quite illiberal to say that that even if the public want to, they shouldn't be allowed to vote for them for another term. I do see that which is why I'm only considering it as a good idea at the moment. But in my lifetime there have only been three Prime Ministers. I'm 24. Most of the criticisms of Thatcher in her later years are now starting to ring true of TB. Losing touch with the people, losing touch with reality, surrounded by yes men, unable to take criticism and having lost touch with the battles of the day. I think that essentially if anyone has that much power for that long, frankly they're going to go a bit loopy. It cannot be healthy for anyone, in mind, body or soul, to be Prime Minister for a very extended period of time. So I am almost ready to say it would be a good idea to limit PM's to three terms.

So thoughts?

GMCF Christmas

It has been a very long weekend. Friday I headed off to Manchester with the lovely Mr Walker in order to attend the annual festivities of the Greater Manchester Conservative Future Christmas Dinner. It was wonderful. Firstly the chef at the Circus Casino had produced some pretty wonderful food, secondly everyone was in very high spirits. I shan't comment on the content of anybody's speech since we all promised Mark Clarke it was Chatham House rule but I will pay credit to the behaviour shown by the ladies at the other table in the dining room for putting up with the noise and Andre offering them a date with Andy Peterkin on the basis that "he may be obnoxious but he is very rich"

So anyway - I only got back late last night and I have to do some actual work today rather than just sitting around whining about the lack of any available Wii's to buy in this country. Right now I'm contemplating getting half an hours sleep extra before getting up. So I'll have to think of something to blog about later and I hope to find the cable that links my camera to my laptop so I can put up some piccies from Manchester!

Until then congratulations to Zara Phillips on winning Sports Personality of the Year. No-one saw that coming and I have yet again lost more money to Betfair. Will nothing good happen to me this week???

Posting Every Day

I was doing so well at the posting every day thing but it's now 45 minutes past midnight and I have drink taken so posting is not a good idea. I'm spending all weekend in Manchester and I have no Wii so there may well be not posts until Monday, until then I wish you Merry Christmas MEP style ( make sure you have your sound on)

Merry Christmas

Tinkering with A-Levels

I was just having a read through the changes to the A-Level system that the Government is apparently introducing in 2010. These proposals must have passed me by at the time but thanks to the BBCs handy Q&A page I now have a full grasp of the issues!

There are basically three changes that have been announced - A-Level questions will be made "harder" with an A* grade introduced, students will have to produce a "dissertation" style essay and each local authority has to provide at least one International Baccalaureate centre.

The example the BBC gives of what a "harder" A-Level question is compared to the old ones is "Why did the War start" rather than "Give three causes of the war". I can see the argument here. By A-Level standard there should be less of the leading questions. Students should be able to demonstrate knowledge of the subject without having to be lead like a horse to water. This should prepare them for University in a more effective manner as well, something A-Levels do not do too well at the moment. You cannot make exams harder and keep the same grading system because then an A pre- changes would be worth less than an A post changes. Worryingly though they don't seem to have made clear whether A* will be available in the AS exams. Frankly I don't think they should but more of that later.

The dissertation idea is clearly just more coursework. I always grudgingly accept coursework as a good thing. I know it was immensely helpful for many people I studied with. It is always going to be the way though that some students are better at exams and some better at coursework. I was always much better at exams so I hated coursework but hey - as long as there is some balance.

Finally the IB centres. I think this is a fantastic development in terms of getting more of our students attending universities from a much wider pool. IB does what it says on the tin. It's an internationally recognised standard and to study in Europe or the States it is a much more effective way of getting accepted. Allowing more students access to the programs in other countries is a good thing. On top of that many students will just find the IB more suited to their skills than the A-Level system and more students, rather than just the children of the very rich, will be able to take the course.

But the thing is I don't really feel any of these measures, marvellous as they are, are going to effect the trend of very high pass rates going up every year.

First of all I should make clear that I took a few more A-Levels after I left University so I have taken them under the old system and the current system so my thoughts on this are based purely on my first hand experience of both.

The thing a lot of people don't realise about the current system is that you get to retake the exams a lot. By splitting the A-Levels into AS and A2 it means that over the two years you get a huge number of opportunities to improve your grade. There are two sittings of exams every year, January and June. Say you are in the standard two year sixth form you can take your AS exams as early as the January of the first year, then retake them in June. You do not have to "cash in" your grades for sometime so you can keep taking the easier AS level exams through your second year until you get an A basically. The same is true to an extent of the A2 level but obviously the material is harder for these and you won't be likely to achieve a good grade early on them but it is still possible. This really does make a huge difference compared to the old system where you worked for two years, took your exams and that was it - retaking would mean taking another year off.

Now clearly not every school / sixth form college has the resources to constantly prep and enter students into two sets of exams a year and push them that hard. This practice of getting the students to take the exams as many times as possible and getting them to wait as long as possible before cashing in the best grades is going to push up the grade average but the students most likely to benefit from it are going to be those paying for their education - bringing a horrible level of inequality into the system.

Now I don't think the cashing in system is necessarily a bad thing. It means the entirety of your two years work doesn't come down to one day. But I do find it interesting as I've never heard it mentioned as a cause for rising pass rates when my own personal experience showed it to be a direct cause for many people getting better grades than they would have done under the old system. It is tough for students in this country as every year they get told their grades are worth less than the year before. It really isn't the case that A-Levels are a piece of piss these days, it's that teachers are getting better at training students how to pass them. A little shake up every few years does no harmin evening the playing field but we should be encouraging children in this country to do better - not contantly belittling their achievements.

Very very sad news

My local HMV don't have enough Nintendo Wii Consoles to give me one on Friday even though I am preorder no. 21!!!!

However my new console geek friend from the Lib Dems has shown me the best cartoon ever to console me! (Are console and console spelt the same? Weird never noticed that before - I'm being consoled over my lack of console!)

It Could Be Youuuuuu

I got an interesting letter yesterday:

Dear Member

I would like to invite you to become one of the first members of the brand new Conservative Weekly Draw. It is our very own Conservative National Lottery!

The Conservative Party needs to widen its source of income and not rely like the Labour Party upon a few millionaires or its Trade Union backers. We have therefore introduced this new scheme in order to involve more members and help raise much needed funds to help unlock the door to Number 10 Downing Street.

Each weekly entry in The Conservative Weekly Draw costs just £1 and every week we will be giving away a weekly jackpot of £1,000 - and 20 'Tenners' as 2nd Prizes! And by regularly participating in the Weekly Draw, you will automatically be entered into our Quaterly £5,000 Super Draws!! All winners will be automatically notified by post and winners cheques will be enclosed.

May I therefore invite you to become a member of the Weekly Draw by completing the Direct Debit Entry Form below and returning it in the FREEPOST envelope provided to the above address. You can of course pay by cheque or credt/debit card - and you may take out as many entries as you wish in this important fund raising activity!

David Cameron and his team are relying on your support - we must raise the funds to defeat Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. I look forward to hearing from you.

Francis Maude MP Chairman of the Conservatie Party

Frankly (not to sound too Boris) I think this is a bloody good idea. Parties need to look at ways of maximising small donations from members and this is a fantastic way to go about it. I have already posted off my Direct Debit for two lottery tickets a week. A good regular way of supporting the party with the added bonus that you never know it could be you!

(I really miss the giant hand from the National Lottery adverts! Bring it back!)

Cameron - One Year On

So the Sunday papers were filled with stories about Cameron's Conservatives this weekend as it is one year on from his victory in the leadership election. It feels like a lot less to me but then again that's just because a year in politics flies by like you wouldn't believe. This time last year we were planning the CF Xmas Party and knew that whoever won, Davis or Cameron, would be coming to it and we were all dead excited (actually that's a bit of a lie - we were a little more preoccupied with half the exec trying to have me removed from my deputy chairman position through a vote of no-confidence but anyway that's ancient history!)

But anyway - as someone who voted for David Davis how do I feel a year on about the boy wonder that is David Cameron?

Well I am very satisfied frankly. The boy done good. Possibly the main reason I voted for Davis over Cameron was my fear about a one term MP with no leadership experience. I thought he was going to fluff PMQ's on day one and we would be a laughing stock for ever more. Not so. DC has proved on many occasions that he is more than a match for Tony Blair at the dispatch box, something we have a grand tradition of in the Tory party and I'm glad to see him keeping it up.

The Conservative Party is more popular now than it was a year ago. There is no doubt about it. Polls aside I always like to judge this on the "pub" factor i.e. the attitude people take towards me when I'm down the pub and someone brings a friend along and I tell the new person that I'm a Tory. The attitudes are definitely improving and almost no-one brings out garlic and a crucifix anymore. David Cameron has made people willing to listen to what the Conservative Party has to say which is a huge advance when you consider those horrific stats in April '05 about voters supporting our policies until they found out they were Tory policies. The first step before policy had to be getting people to listen. They weren't before, they are now. People want to know what the Tory party has to say.

So that brings us to the current situation where the standing joke about Tories is "policy not included". I think DC (I should point out I only call him that because I'm a lazy typer - not because I know the man personally or am trying to sound like one of the "in" crowd) has been right to hold off on policy. As I say there was no point declaring our policy on issues when no-one was listening to us. The public at this very moment are ripe to hear what the Tories will do once they are in power. However as I understand it, the policy groups were set up with 18 months as their deadline for reporting so presumably it will be another six months before we get to the nitty gritty of policy. Maybe six months is too long. Most people have forgotten about the 18 month policy groups and releasing policy in six months time will look like bowing to pressure from the media etc. Almost as if we have been dragged kicking and screaming and forced to give a policy. People are ready to listen now and I have enough faith in DC to believe that he has some real substance and an exciting agenda that will win the next General Election. The issue raising has been a great project for the last 12 months. Now we need to talk about how to solve these issues with some real traditional Tory policies - less government interferane, more power to local communities and more opportunity for the least well off in society.

I'm looking forward to what happens next. 8/10 so far DC - keep up the good work!