Harry's Place

Despite government claims that their Private Finance Initiative programme is closely monitored, a study by a think-tank traditionally close to the Prime Minister has found that, out of 378 PFI projects completed by central and local government, only 23 had been given any independent evaluation by official audit bodies.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) [...]

I have often wondered how full-time professional journalists managed to earn a living from weblogs - today one of the top US-based bloggers Andrew Sullivan explains it all — they don’t.
Sullivan produces a high-quality site full of his well-written and articulate conservative views, a far cry from the rabid warblogs I have complained about elsewhere, [...]

Roy Hattersley presents a stirring defence of Gordon Brown in a piece which shows him at his sarky best. Dismissing the whispering campaigns suggesting Brown could be on his way, Hattersley says:
“In fact, Gordon Brown will remain in office until, having succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister, he decides that the time has come [...]

So who is to blame for the state of the Conservative Party? Michael Heseltine has returned to the political scene with a bang this morning in an interview with the Independent.
Heseltine astutely observes that the party is suffering not only from a dud leadership under IDS but also from an extremist membership that could block [...]

Guardian-bashing is probably the second favourite pastime of the right-wing American bloggers (Fisking being the undisputed number one) and so I suspect we are in for some fun now that one of the paper’s most left-wing columnists Gary Younge is to become the New York correspondent.
Younge looked set to become a politician at one time [...]

I’ve put up a few more links over on the right-hand side and on request from a couple of people, including ‘Hawkgirl’ I have now included a comments box under each post - feel free to make us of it and plug your blog if you want - I have been doing so shamelessly. Longer [...]

“I find it easier to be optimistic about the futures of Iraq and Pakistan than, say, Holland or Denmark,” is the latest informed opinion I have come across via North America’s right-wing blogland.
These aren’t the words of one of some redneck with a laptop however but the introduction to an article by Mark Steyn, a [...]

The US right-wing ‘war-bloggers’ are working themselves up into a frenzy at the moment and I am pretty sure they have all pre-typed their “yeah hah!” post ready to upload the moment CNN shows the first of the “fireworks show” over Baghdad (followed no doubt by a boring bragging competition on who had the first [...]

Dull, Brussels based newspaper European Voice has announced a surprise winner of the European Politician of the Year award

According to the Associated Press workers at the United States’ only unionised peep show walked the picket line, arguing that a contract offer by management at the Lusty Lady is too skimpy.
Wearing pink T-shirts that read “Bad girls like good contracts,” dancers banged on pots yesterday and chanted, “Two, four, six, eight, pay me more [...]