I just emailed my MP the following letter:

Dear David Lepper,

I would just like to thank you for signing Auston Mitchell's Early Day Motion 1155 Photography In Public Areas. I have been increasingly concerned with reports of police action against innocent photographers, including most recently a man assaulted by several security guards in Stoke (http://www.flickr.com/photos/happyaslarry/2420960125/). I'm sure you appreciate Brighton's reputation as an artistic city and your support for this motion shows your continued support for the photography community in Brighton.

Yours sincerely, David Pashley

If your MP hasn't signed this EDM, I recommend you contact them to urge them to sign it and if they have, contact them again to thank them.

Breaking news on BBC New24. Just confirmed in the last few minutes. Very few details.... Last night, Tony Blair converted to Catholism

Why is this news? Who cares? Why is the BBC treating this like it's the biggest news item of the year? Why have they rolled out Anne Widdecomme to do a phone interview? His wife is a catholic, his children are catholic, it's been on the cards for a while. He isn't in power any more. It remains to be seen if he has any relevance any more. So why does it matter what denomination he is.

Andrew, yet at the other end of spectrum, given that America is constitutionally secular, they have "in God we trust" on their currency and don't trust atheists. Their "Pledge of Allegiance" was changed in 1954 by Dwight D. Eisenhower to include "under God". This pretty means I'm unable to visit the country. I think that's worse than trying not to offend anyone, no matter how misguided.

I can't believe in this day and age that OPSI (formerly HMSO) still don't have copies of UK acts of parliament before 1988 online. According to their website:

Q. Why do you only display legislation back to 1988?

A. The website was launched in 1996. Initially, legislation was only available from that year. In 2000 we took the decision to include older legislation for which we had electronic files. These files only dated back to 1988. Prior to this, legislation is only available in its original print format.

I don't think it's acceptable to say "Oh it's a bit of work to make them available." If Project Gutenberg can make 17,000 out of copyright works available, I fail to see why the government, who have resources at their disposal, can't make the text of approximately 3000 acts from the last 100 years available. This makes several key acts which govern us today unavailable to the UK public, including the Telecommunications Act 1984, Sale of Goods Act 1979, Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 and Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.

On a similar note, they have only just started making PDF files avilable for download (since October 2005). They don't appear to be planning on making existing documents available in PDF. Again, I don't think it would be too hard to make all their content availble in alternative formats.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20409-1686151,00.html

“But there will be huge civil liberties questions because you will have to accept that people will see you walking round semi-naked.”

Mr Stringer said there were various techniques for protecting people’s privacy.

“We can solve the modesty issue by overlaying the body with graphics except for the area which causes concern.

“The computer can also be set only to show those people who are carrying something suspicious.”

Eh?

Michael Howard would pull out of the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees. Fucker.