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.

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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02: Nick Griffin, Sex Trafficking and All Women Shortlists

This week on The House of Comments Podcast, we’re joined by leading Lib Dem blogger Alix Mortimer, and Will Straw, founding editor of the Left Foot Forward blog.

To have new episodes download directly into iTunes, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Music Store.

Things we talked about include:

• BNP leader Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time this week. How did he come off? Is there any truth in his assertion that the BBC rigged the show against him? Do we even care?!
• A number of blog posts this week, including Unity’s at Liberal Conspiracy and Dr Belinda Brooks Gordon’s guest post on Charlotte Gore’s blog, have taken the Home Office to task about their statistics on sex trafficking. Do the figures add up – and if they don’t is there anything we can do about it?
• Britain has hit its sixth consecutive quarter of negative economic growth, making this recession the longest in recorded history. What are the economic and political implications of this?
• The Conservatives are ‘considering’ using all-women shortlists to boost the number of potential female Conservative MPs. Are they necessary, and if so – why? Also, why is the blogosphere so male-dominated?

You can download the MP3 here, subscribe using iTunes, or listen using the player below.

Hope you enjoy, and thanks for listening to the House of Comments podcast.

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