On 30 April 2011, I wrote “This is the first time I’ve ever written about politics on this blog, and I hope it will be the last”. A bit less than six years later, I’ve written (sort of against my will) 76 more politics posts. This page is an attempt to get them into some kind of order, listed chronologically by order of first appearance.
Voting Reform
- Voting reform in the UK
- British readers: vote on AV tomorrow!
- Stop voting for lizards; start voting for people.
- The British public has spoken!
American politics (general)
- Step up to the plate, Mister President
- Dear America: you are insane
- Passing laws and adding BIB-1 diagnostics
Technology issues (copyright etc.)
- Well, that about wraps it up for copyright
- Oppose SOPA, PIPA and the RWA
- Who needs access? You need access!
- Help the USA into the 21st century (even if you’re not American)
- What should I be using for email?
- The EU’s proposed “link tax”: a modest proposal
Civil liberties
- The freedom to post pictures of burning poppies
- Snowden-haters are on the wrong side of history
- My reservation about Joining Up Your Information
- A response from Joining Up Your Information; and my reply
- ** Reminder ** Biometrics Registration
British politics (general)
- A brief comment on Margaret Thatcher
- Welcome to Britain, where you’re legally innocent until suspected
- Liberal Democrat manifesto on policing and security service powers
- A final thought on the election (i.e. last on before the 2015 election)
- Announcement regarding changes to church policy (satire)
- A meta-comment on voting in the election
- Election results #1: why did the Conservatives win?
- Election results #2: why did the SNP take nearly every seat in Scotland?
- Election results #3: why did Labour lose?
- Election results #4: why were the Liberal Democrats wiped out?
- Election results #5: why UKIP won 12% of the vote but only one seat
- What the 2015 budget means for me, and why it’s vile
- What does Jeremy Corbyn’s win mean for UK politics? (Well, that one turned out to be wildly over-optimistic.)
- Tim Farron, Lib Dems and the Political Centre Ground
- Letter to my MP: Please vote AGAINST Osborne’s cuts to working tax credits
- Osborne’s spending review
- Understanding Tony Blair, as explained by Tony Blair
- Brief thoughts on the budget
- A short open letter to Stephen Crabb, the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
- Why do I bother writing to my MP?
- Please consider writing to your MP about child refugees
- Dear Lord, no!
- The only thing I have to say about Thursday’s election
- Have you voted yet? Vote!
- Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the statues?!
- We’re getting bored of all the corruption
- “A little sound common sense often goes further with an audience of American working-men than much high-flown argument”
Miscellaneous
Responses to calls for comment
- My response to the Privacy and Security inquiry
- My comments on the Government’s BBC consultation
- My comments on the Government’s call for evidence on Freedom Of Information
- My, and my wife’s, submissions on the NHS Agenda
Political philosophy
(These are the posts that I’m happiest with, and that are least tied to their time.)
- Very basic politics #1: three ways to deal with the deficit
- Very basic politics #2: what is government spending for?
- Very basic politics #3: where has all the money gone?
- Where does the political centre lie?
- Very basic politics #4: how do we measure the strength of the economy?
- Austerity for the rich
- Is the stock market zero-sum?
- How to measure the strength of the economy, redux
- Why I’m jealous of my eldest son
- What is a government actually for?
- On using nuclear deterrents
- Very basic politics #5: why the rich tend to get richer
- The fundamental problem of politics
Brexit
- Let’s Take Back Control! We Want Our Country Back!
- Why am I on the same side as Cameron and Osborne?
- Addressing the real “Project Fear”: eight things that terrify the Leavers, but shouldn’t
- My last word on the European referendum (Ha!)
- What happens now we’ve decided to Brexit?
- I do not accept the Brexit referendum result
- The first of two reasons I am very sad about the Brexit vote: direct consequences
- I’m giving up politics (Ha! Ha!)
- What is the Conservative Party actually for?
- Two messages to Theresa May
- Why is Theresa May doing this?
- Normalising anger and violence as part of the political discourse
- Why is Jeremy Corbyn doing this?
- I liked democracy. Let’s bring it back.
- The utter capitulation of Corbyn’s Labour
- What drives political decisions in the UK?
- Sixty-one words on the Article 50 triggering
- Quick thoughts on the future, if any, of the United Kingdom
- The sad tale of Uriah Kemp
- The Brexit deal that Theresa May should be aiming for
- The Brexit deal that Theresa May already has
- Would Leave-voters accept this compromise on freedom of movement?
- Europhobia
- A short and simple question for Brexiters
- There’s ignorance; and then there’s wilful ignorance
- Letter to my MP asking him to back a #PeoplesVote
- Follow-up letter to my MP repeating my request that he back a #PeoplesVote
- Third try: writing to my MP about Brexit
- My MP wrote to me about Brexit: here’s my reply
- “Why’s it taking so long? We should just leave!”
- Asking Mark Harper to back the Wilson/Kyle proposal
- Here’s what post-truth politics looks like
- Who should you vote for in the European elections?
- The two big things we learned from the European election
- Labour must dump Jeremy Corbyn or lose all their Remainers
- Writing to my MP about no-deal Brexit and suspending Parliament
- Dear Mark Harper … (on the illegal prorogation)
- Dear Mark Harper: scrutinise the deal
- My MP seems to be running ELIZA code from the 1960s
- How to vote in the forthcoming election
- C. S. Lewis on the 2019 general election
- What now?
- Turns out that Brexit means Brexit. Who knew?
The Trumpocalypse
- Trump and Hillary, they’re as bad as each other
- American presidents through the ages
- They walk among us (I’m not proud of this one; but I wrote it, and I won’t rewrite my on history.)
- What Trump did right
- The Trump administration: much, much worse than we thought
- Good news on Trump: the American press is not taking this lying down
- Spot the difference: Neville Chamberlain/Theresa May edition
- Just to be clear: this is not a left/right, Democrat/Republican issue
- A careful and objective investigation into whether Trump is literally a psychopath
- Why Trump matters to me: I love America
The Reinvigorated Programmer 