daveydave

He won then, convincingly. As a UK citizen I obviously had no say in the election itself, but I'm delighted Barack Obama won. While I don't believe an administration under a President McCain would have been anywhere near as damaging as the last two terms under Bush, I can't quite align myself with Republican policies. They represent the extreme of the selfish, me-first capitalism that I find so distasteful. Barack is a fine speaker and is backed up by a fine speech-writing team. His victory speech in the early hours of Wednesday morning was as masterful as it was moving. I have watched it several times. I sincerely hope that he can deliver on that which he has promised so eloquently and which is so desperately needed. A quick word on John McCain. I don't subscribe to his polices nor do I feel particularly comfortable with his choice of running mate, but his final speech of the campaign conceding defeat to Obama showed him to be a decent and honourable man. It is a real ...

My posts tend to ramble (especially anything remotely political) so I'm going to try and keep this one short. I like the House of Lords, I like the fact they are unelected and therefore (put simplistically) beyond the reach of the party whips. I believe they perform an invaluable job in keeping a check on Government legislation - they are highly qualified and experienced experts in their respective fields. They are not career politicians. I do not support the Government's proposals for an elected upper house and I doubt I ever will. I do not believe that the job the Lords have done so well (e.g. amendments to the Identity Cards Bill, throwing out 42 days, etc...) can be achieved as effectively with elected politicians under the rule of the whip's office. By all means modify: reduce the size of the house, change how they are appointed, look at the legitimacy of appointed Government ministers in the Lords. But don't replace it with an entirely partisan body full of polit...

Haymarket Bus Station is located at the north end of Newcastle-upon-Tyne city centre. It is a very busy station serving Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland and it is very badly run. I've used this place for years and never cease to be amazed at how shockingly bad the organisation is, and watching one girl miss her bus this evening has prompted me to vent. First, a little more background. The roads around Newcastle are not the best and they get busy. Once the clocks have changed and late Autumn arrives they get busier. If there is even the slightest hint of rain, they get busier still. Result: buses run late. So to this evening. The X1 was due to leave for Blyth at 17:25. It arrived in good time to deposit its passengers and meet that departure time. However Stand T, where it was supposed to park up, was occupied by the X4 that was running late. The X1 parks up at Stand S prompting the queue of people waiting at Stand T to push their way through crowds and round barriers to...