House of Comments

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.

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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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