House of Comments

11: In Defence of Labour

This week we were joined by former Lib Dem blogger – now Labour blogger – Darrell Goodliff, who writes the Moments of Clarity blog, and the perpetually irate Constantly Furious.

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We chatted about:

• Darrell’s recent conversion to the Labour Party, and why he’s swimming against the tide
• Paul Chambers, a man who made a possibly ill-advised joke on Twitter and found himself arrested and detain under terrorism laws
• Constantly Furious’s liver, and the Government’s plans for it
• The recent snow, and whether we’ve lost the ability to deal with problems ourselves instead of relying on state support
• The hostile takeover of Cadbury’s by Kraft, and whether taxpayer’s money should be funding the buyout.

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10: The Police State

In this week’s House of Comments Podcast, we’re joined by Lib Dem blogger and councillor Sara Bedford, and Allen Green, convenor of Westminster Skeptics and writer of the Jack of Kent blog.

Download the MP3 file, Subscribe using iTunes or listen using the player below.

We chatted about:

• Greg Stone’s resignation as a Lib Dem PPC after being ‘outed’ as the author of a number of lewd comments about ministers and other politicians made on the Guido Fawkes live chat last year. Is he paying too high a price for having made these comments anonymously?
• The banning of Muslim protest group Islam4UK in advance of their planned demonstration in Wootton Bassett has raised many eyebrows. Is it right to pre-emptively ban an organisation such as this – and could banning them just give them the publicity they desire?
• The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Britain’s police stop-and-search powers are illegal and constitute a breach of the right to privacy. Are the police becoming too powerful in this country?
• Last week’s ‘Snow Plot’ attempted coup was short and sweet – but will it cause lasting damage to the Labour Party, or do they appear more united behind Gordon Brown in its wake?
• Finally, Parliament has released a Flash-based computer game with the intention of giving 11-14 year olds a taste of life as an MP. Is this the right way to go about engaging the youth?

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Changing Address

We have, unfotunately, had to change our address to houseofcomments.com (previously houseofcomments.co.uk). If you’re reading this, of course, you’ve already discovered out new URL, so welcome back!

If you haven’t done already, you’ll need to resubscribe to the podcast. If you use iTunes, this could be as simple as just clicking this link. If that doesn’t work you can go to the ‘Advanced’ menu in iTunes, select ‘Subscribe to podcast’, and enter the address http://static.houseofcomments.com/podcast.xml. The new feed has already been submitted to the iTunes podcast directory, so hopefully we’ll soon have a new page in the podcast directory.

UPDATE: The new iTunes page is here – subscribe now!

If you’ve subscribed to the new feed, you’ll get an EXCLUSIVE message from Stuart confirming your subscription and revealing next week’s guests on the show. So, look forward to that, won’t you!

If you want to know why we’ve had to do this, Stuart’s written a reasonably detailed explanation on his blog.

Apologies for the inconvenience, and thanks very much for listening to the podcast! We’ll see you next week

09: The Changing Climates

In the first HoC podcast of 2010, Chris Mounsey from Devil’s Kitchen and Will Straw from Left Foot Forward join regulars Mark Thompson and Stuart Sharpe to talk about politics, the blogosphere, and the events of the last week.

Download the MP3 file, Subscribe using iTunes or listen using the player below.

We discussed:

• The #KerryOut campaign to try and oust Labour MP Kerry McCarthy from her Bristol East seat at the next election. Is this a positive sign of the power of online grassroots action or a puerile spat between Twittering egos? Or a bit of both?
• Climate change continues to provoke controversy in the blogosphere. Chris and Will (who regularly blog on the subject themselves) discuss the issues from different sides of the argument and in the process go for the world acronym quoting record!
• Following the attempted bombing of a US bound flight on Christmas Day, it has been announced that full body scanners will be introduced at airports. We discuss the implications for privacy and civil liberties. Also, will they even work and could the money be better spent elsewhere?
• And in a related discussion can racial or other sorts of profiling to screen bombers work?

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