No geek
is an island

For those interested in such things, here are the writs for July’s two parliamentary by-elections as they were moved yesterday morning. The description of Tony Blair’s departure from Parliament is a particular highlight.

1 Ealing Southall Writ,—Ordered, That the Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown, to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough Constituency of Ealing Southall in the room of Piara Singh Khabra Esquire, deceased.—(Jacqui Smith.)

2 Sedgefield Writ,—Ordered, That the Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown, to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the County Constituency of Sedgefield in the room of the Right honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, who since his election for the said County Constituency has accepted the Office of Steward or Bailiff of Her Majesty’s Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham, in the county of Buckingham. —(Jacqui Smith.)

These were also presumably Jacqui Smith’s last parliamentary acts as Chief Whip becoming Home Secretary.

…so we need as many Liberal Democrats as possible to come and help in Ealing Southall and Sedgefield.

Here’s a video on the subject from the party’s Chief Executive, Lord Rennard:

…is Liberal Mafia. Somewhat bonkers (without being Bonkers) but in an amusing way.

Obviously as a loyal party employee I don’t endorse any irreverent content there may be about Liberal Democrats.

Came across this online the other day (either via Facebook or another blog), but now it comes to link back appreciatively, I can’t remember where. Sorry.

Anyway, here’s the link. It’s Science and Faith represented as flowcharts.

As if to help Ming show how close Labour and the Tories are, Quentin Davies MP (who’s always struck me as a proper old Tory) has defected from the Conservatives to Labour. It’s in the BBC news ticker - will link to the story when it appears.

Update: Here it is.

The MP for Grantham and Stamford, made his decision public in a letter to Conservative leader David Cameron.

He wrote that under Mr Cameron the party “appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything”.
…
“It has no bedrock. It exists on shifting sands. A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda.”

Last night, I went to the recording of a new radio sitcom called Hut 33 at the recently refurbished (and very art deco) Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House. Despite having been in the audience for a few TV shows, it was my first time at a radio recording.

The show itself was pretty good, in a fairly run-of-the-mill Radio 4 sitcom kind of way. It’s set in a codebreaking hut in Bletchley Park in 1941 - with hilarious consequences. They recorded two episodes yesterday, the first of which is being broadcast this morning at 11.30am on Radio 4. It’s worth a listen if you fancy a mid-morning chuckle.

It’s got a pretty cast, including:

• Robert Bathurst, mostly of Cold Feet and My Dad’s the Prime Minister fame although I know him from Joking Apart and recently saw him on stage in Whipping it Up (he is very tall)
• Tom Goodman-Hill off of the sketch show Spoons and the film Festival
• Olivia Colman off of pretty much every comedy going at the moment, and in particular Peep Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look/Sound, Green Wing and Confetti
• Lill Roughley off of Victoria Wood
• and Fergus Craig of comedy duo Colin & Fergus who I’ve failed to see every year at the Edinburgh Fringe

If you miss today’s broadcast, you can almost certainly Listen Again (or, rather, for the first time) on the BBC Radio 4 website.