House of Comments

07: “Sympathy for Malcolm Tucker”

Tom Harris MP and Charlotte Gore join regulars Mark Thompson and Stuart Sharpe to talk about politics, the blogosphere, and the events of the last week.

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Show Notes:

• A new poll put Labour on 30%. How much does Prime Minister’s Question Time affect polling?
• Are so-called ‘planted questions’ at PMQs really planted, or is it just a case of MPs helping out their own party?
• We want to know what it is about the internet that makes people unpleasant to each other? Charlotte has recently been taking some abuse in her blog’s comments after writing a post taking Rod Liddle to task over his opinions on crime and race.
• Charlotte has stopped blogging under a Lib Dem banner. Is non-partisan blogging the future, or is it too hard to get started?
• The Government are considering offering a referendum on electoral reform. Mark and Tom discussed whether it is necessary, and whether is it being done for the right reasons.
• ‘Class warfare’ still hasn’t gone away – is it an effective strategy for Labour, or does it ‘smack of desperation’?
• And Finally… With the latest series of BBC political comedy The Thick of It drawing to a close, we asked Tom how accurate Armando Iannucci’s portrayal of the inner workings of government really is. [Caution: May Contain Mild Spoilers]

Enjoy the show, and we’ll see you again next week.

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05: Hung Parliaments, Cyberlockers, Sawn-Off Shotguns and Blog Regulation

Charlotte Gore and Constantly Furious join us this week on the House of Comments Podcast to talk about some of the UK political blogosphere’s biggest stories over the past week.

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We chatted about the possibility of a hung parliament, in light of a poll with the Tory lead down to only 6%, and ask what that could mean for the Lib Dems.

Lord Mandelson’s ‘Three Strikes’ policy for cutting off illegal file-sharers and cracking down on ‘cyberlockers’ is still making waves, as is the manner in which he has used statutory instruments to push the legislation through. What problem is he trying to solve, and will his plans do anything to solve it?

Paul Clarke handed in a shotgun at his local police station and now faces a possible 5 year jail sentence. Constantly Furious was pretty angry about this, whilst Jack of Kent had the most detailed account of the story.

The new Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Baroness Buscombe, has been quoted as saying she’s interested in regulating the blogosphere, a prospect many bloggers are not happy about. We blow her a collective raspberry.

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