I read that News International is to give the family of Milly Dowler £3m, of which £1m will go to charities. I wondered how this sum was arrived at. There are a few cases on breach of privacy, but none with such high awards. Even damages for wrongful death or severe disablement do not reach that level. …
Following on Lord Tyler’s exchanges with Zoe Williams in the Guardian, I have to confess to being increasingly alienated by mass e-mails and letters about the Health and Social Care Bill. We have always had mass mailings from union members and religious organisations on certain issues but I first noticed I was receiving large numbers…
Astute followers of The Guardian may have noticed that I have a response piece in the paper today, as a retort to Zoe Williams’ article of 13th October about the role of 38 Degrees – the campaign organisation – in debate on the Health and Social Care Bill. I have already received one or two…
The House of Lords Science & Technology Select Committee inquiry into the activities of Chief Scientific Advisers (CSAs), which will shortly begin deliberations. In preparation for this the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), which quite rightly advocates for better scientific advice to inform policy making, have examined the current state of play for existing…
“Not what the doctor ordered” – this was one idea for the title of the report which the Committee that I chair has just published. In the end, we decided on ‘Safety First’, not least because health professionals extend beyond doctors. The title encapsulates the issues that we uncovered in our inquiry, which took place…
There was a sad example of poor quality journalism in the London Evening Standard yesterday. Written by Craig Woodhouse the headline is ‘Skiving’ MPs want another holiday’. There are a lot of things you can say about MP’s! not least about the failure to have a proper expenses system and some appalling examples of abuse.…
When I was a member of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Renewal Bill, we occasionally had problems maintaining a quorum. Under the rules for a quorum, three MPs had to be present; this in some meetings proved difficult to maintain. When there was just three in attendance and one rose to leave (it was…
A Government nowadays usually comprises over 120 ministers, with twenty to thirty drawn from the House of Lords. The figure includes whips, who in the House of Lords fufil additional functions to those carried out by whips in the House of Commons. In the Commons, whips are usually seen but not heard. In the Lords,…
Alastair Campbell had a general rule that if a Minister was still the centre of a media feeding frenzy for more than a week then inevitably they would go. So it has been for Liam Fox. I was not surprised. At first I thought he would get through but the constant drip feed of new angles on the…
