Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

I wouldn't call Magnus Linklater a fan of the SNP, but even he seems to sense that the political mood of Scotland is changing and that we may well be witnessing the end of an era at Westminster. I believe this to be true and if the Westminster Parliament does not reinvent itself after the May 2015 general election, I suspect Scotland will vote to become an independent country within the next ten years. Triumphalist thousands wake up to their nationalist calling Delegates during the SNP conference at the SECC in Glasgow - PA:Press Association By Magnus Linklater - The Times One should never judge the national mood from a party conference. They are exercises in self-congratulation that exist in a bubble of their own making and are a false barometer of public opinion. This one may be different. For one thing the SNP conference in Glasgow was, by a mile, the biggest that Scotland has ever seen. Never has the SNP witnessed crowds like it. The SECC can house 3,000 del...

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), is one of the few people left unimpressed at Jeremy Paxman's performance as inquisitor-in-chief at the recent party leaders debate. In particular, Johnson wished to know more about Labour's tax and spending plans and who Ed Miliband is going to 'clobber' if he were to become Prime Minister after the general election on 7 May.     The fight for equal pay has been about tackling inequality, of course, and that was the intention behind the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement introduced by the Scottish employers and trade unions all of 16 years ago. Yet the employers and trade unions failed to deliver on their promises for the low paid while middle earning teachers in Scotland benefited from a landmark 'McCrone' pay agreement which increased pay in the teaching profession by an eye watering 23.5% in the year 2000. To govern is to choose, so they say.    We need to know who Ed...

Daniel Finkelstein made me laugh with this honest and amusing tale of how he lost three stone in 37 weeks, but the Times columnist also made a very valid point that the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories that you eat.    There are no short cuts which is why gastric bands on the NHS should be banned, if you ask me.   Fat boy slim(mer) –– How I lost three stone in 37 weeks Daniel Finkelstein before and after his diet Chris McAndrew, John Angerson By  Daniel Finkelstein  - The Times How Daniel Finkelstein lost three stone in 37 weeks. (Clue: he ate less. A lot less) I need you to help solve a mystery. When people say that they forgot to have lunch, how does that happen? I have lived for 19,167 days and I have never, not once, forgotten to have lunch. The number of lunches I have had will be bouncing around the 19,162 mark. And the missing ones, well, I am sure there was a reason, but I can tell you that the omission wasn’t the resul...

The Guido Fawkes web site has come up with another great scoop which suggests that Labour MP Toby Perkins has become the 'incredible shrinking man' or that Ed Miliband has been staging some of his photo calls.  Now that is funny and deserves to be on prime time TV because it's revealing about the way  that politicians behave when they think no one is looking.  MILIMETRES: MYSTERY OF MIRACULOUSLY MASSIVE MILIBAND As Guido revealed this mornin g, Labour MPs were invited to Miliband’s office last week for photos with their leader. One of the few to take up this vote-repelling offer was loyal Toby Perkins: Though something is not quite right here. Toby Perkins is 6 foot 6 inches, yet Miliband appears to be almost the same height as him. Other photos of the pair more accurately reflect their height difference: Is Miliband standing on something? No, say his people, boldly: “Ed is over 6 foot and he isn’t standing on a box.” Yet they went very quiet ...

The Independent reports that the authorities in Saudi Arabia have been forced to respond to criticism of its treatment of Raif Badawi who has essentially been convicted of a 'thought crime' for daring to question aspects of the Islamic religion. Now this has been dressed up as 'apostasy' as if the mere used of the word apostasy shuts down all further debate - it's like something out of a Monty Python sketch in which the Spanish Inquisition declare that it's blasphemous to even talk about blasphemy. So I take my hat off to the German vice-chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, for raising the issue with the Saudis because this is not an attack on the country's sovereignty but simply part of an ongoing debate about applying religious laws from the Dark Ages many hundreds of years later in the 21st century.   For example, why should Saudi women be prevented from driving a car yet be trusted to operate a dishwasher of washing machine since none of these modern mach...

Here's an interesting report from MediaZona via The Guardian which tells the story of strange and unexplained deaths in Russian police custody. Now it's not a highly political story, in the party sense at least, just a call for public authorities to be held to account yet it's not something you would expect to here about on Russia Today   which is keen to report on controversial issues all across the globe - except in Russia. Under suspicion: death in a Siberian cell After their experiences at the hands of Russian authorities, punk activists Pussy Riot set up a news organisation to investigate the police and prison system. Here MediaZona shines a light on unexplained deaths in custody in a remote region The Trans Siberian train station in Chita. Photograph: Alamy By Nikita Sologub for MediaZona - The Guardian The town of Shilka lies on the banks of a river in the forest steppe of the Zabaikalsky Krai, a remote region of Russia on the border with Mongolia. Shilka is...

In this opinion piece for The Times David Aaronovitch describes Boris Johnson as having a 'lightness of being' and by seeming not to act as a normal politician, there's no doubt that the London Mayor cuts through the widespread anti-politics mood of the nation. Depending what happens at the general election Boris could have all to play for after May 7th 2015, but it's interesting that, for the moment at least, many of the the most successful politicians are distancing themselves from their parties. Nigel Farage is still relatively popular despite the almost daily gaffes of his fellow Ukippers and David Cameron regularly outpolls the Conservative Party; only Ed Miliband seems to less popular than the party he leads. Perhaps the only exception is in Scotland where the SNP have been in power since 2007, yet still manage to confound their political rivals by donning the clothes of an opposition party when it comes to dealing with the Westminster Parliament. ...

The A4ES blog site crashed through another big barrier the other day and has now recorded 1.5 million visitors. Intriguingly this happened on the same day that North Lanarkshire Council finally agreed to face up to its obligations over equal pay.    Which is very appropriate, don't you think? Red Letter Days (26 March 2014) I came across this post from the blog site while looking for something else, but it's interesting to note that the first 500,000 visitors to the A4ES blog site took five years - whereas the next 500,000 took less than six months. As of March 2014 the number of visitors to the blog site is 1.03 million - and counting. Red Letter Day (27 March 2012) Today is a Red Letter Day. Because later today sometime the number of visitors to the blog site will crash through the 500,000 barrier. Now I don't know if I'll still be writing the blog site long enough to reach another big milestone of let's say 1 ...