There is no proof that Bashar al-Assad's regime is using its heavy weapons to bombard Homs, the Russian Foreign Minister is said to have declared yesterday. Sergei Lavrov's comments on the besieged city came during a telephone conversation with the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, as the Syrian opposition reported dozens more dead and injured.

Early last year I briefly reported on the shocking comments about the alleged rape of a child made by one of its Glasgow councillors, William O’Rourke. The case has now finally worked its way through the system and he has been banned from holding public office: A Glasgow Labour councillor has been banned from holding

There has been plenty of commentary about concerning Charles Dickens, as it is the 200th year of his birth. Here is an entry, written back in 2006 at The Freeman, about him, which looks pretty interesting, and some of the comments (not all of which are very praiseworthy) are worth reading. I never really quite got into reading Dickens. At school, I had to study such books as Oliver Twist and David...

From his blog comments: And there is not a hint of inflation, at all From the BBC: Inflation fell sharply in December on the back of lower fuel and clothing prices. Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation in the UK fell to 4.2% in December, down from 4.8% in November, according to the Office for National

The Attorney General defends contempt of court laws after deciding not to prosecute Joey Barton for Twitter comments on the John Terry case.

The Daisey thing has got picked up by The Guardian and I’m mentioned in it. It’s really rather fun in the comments: we’ve even got someone flat out insisting that UK GDP per capita in 1600, or Chinese in 1978, could not possibly be only $950 a year because it’s impossible to survive on £2

The blog gasdrillinginbalcombe is providing a forum for discussion of Cuadrilla's proposal to see whether exploring in Balcombe for shale oil might be worth while. This post doesn't aim to add to that discussion, which follows a meeting at which a senior Cuadrilla  man was ambushed. Rather, I do recommend signing up for email notifications of comments. There's a lively debate g...

Cathy Jamieson MP, Labour’s Shadow Treasury Minister, said in response to the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ comments on the Government’s child benefit changes today:

Douglas Alexander MP, Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary, responding to David Cameron's comments at the EU summit, said:

The MP for the City, Mark Field, wonders on a Conservative Home blog entry whether or not the eventual success of the campaign to get Stephen Hester to return his bonus is something of a pyrrhic victory. Mr. Field makes many apposite comments, not least his dislike of the unpleasant campaign of denigration waged against Mr. Hester. There was a lynch-mob mentality to it, and the ensuing media discu...