Cameron and Murdoch snuggle up

David Cameron employs Andrew Coulson as his Communications Director. Andrew Coulson carried the can for Rupert Murdoch over the 2006 phone hacking scandal. Rupert Murdoch announces that his mouthpieces will be supporting the Tories in the election campaign. These mouthpieces report little on the revival of the hacking scandal apart from tucked away confirmations that a worried looking senior policeman called Yates doesn’t see any reason to prosecute anyone. We are talking here about the Sun, the Wall Street Journal,Fox , for God’s sake, the London times aka The Thunderer and of course the News of the Screws.
For some reason, the man Murdoch is not in jail.

Everybody's second favourite cause

I went to a rally organised by the Electoral Reform Society. I was hoping to be inspired, but it was worthy rather than exciting. None of the speakers could convince me that proportional representation was a great cause for our age. I think it’s because the voting mechanism is just a means to an end. The people there were passionate about other causes and united by frustration at not being able to make progress with them. The Climate Changers, Youth Activists, Pensions Rightists are really more worried about their things, but I guess that proportional representation would be their second choice on a single transferable voting paper.

The Beetles are coming

Before I forget it I want to record what I learned today listening to the BBC’s Discovery program. It was about a plague of mountain pine beetles in British Columbia, which is largely due to climate change and a monoculture approach to forestry which has provided an abundance of congenial hosts. The beetles had previously been thinned out by the cold winters, which have recently been a couple of degrees higher. The long lodge pines have been reduced by 40%. Skillful control measures by local foresters have led the beetles to flee east into Alberta and they are en route to New Jersey.