Truro Lib Dem MP Matthew Taylor, once the youngest MP, is standing down to spend more time with his family. Full story on the BBC site and on Guardian Unlimited.

Stephen Tall, in his latest vidcast, ponders whether newspapers are dying a death, which has spurred me to finally recount the end of my long dalliance with theguardian.

I used to buy theguardian every day. I started five or six years ago, if I recall, and the paper provided something to read at lunchtime when I was away from a PC. When I started commuting a couple of years ago, I began buying a newspaper at the station and reading it on the train, filling half an hour with the day’s news (and the sudoku). On the way home, I’d read the rest and do the kakuro or the crossword. The print copy was preferable to the online version: you could write answers into the puzzles, see the cartoons, and it didn’t involve having a computer with internet access on the train. For all these reasons, I couldn’t see myself giving the paper up.

A couple of months ago, I became an ex-Guardian reader. Initially, I wanted to save cash and to divert my daily hour on the train to a couple of books. I never felt the urge to read the paper online – the website isn’t anywhere near as easy to navigate as the print version and I’ll automatically go to the BBC if I want news at a computer. There were still interesting stories carried, but big stories would be picked up by the BBC website – or by bloggers.

And this is where the big change occurred. Now I spend my commute catching up with blogs via my mobile phone. Nearly all of them load quite happily in Opera Mini (theguardian doesn’t – the long sidebar gets in the way, as do the ads). I can access Bloglines and check the feeds I’m subscribed to, and LibDem Blogs carried the latest posts from LibDems bloggers, at least one of whom will pick up on any worthy news stories. I can also check my email and go to the BBC mobile site for news and sport.

In the past, I couldn’t see myself reading the papers on the train on a handheld electronic widget, and yet this is almost what’s happened – but without reading the newspapers part. I no longer have to worry about turning the pages without hitting the person sitting next to me. The only cost is having to charge my phone battery more often as GPRS runs it down quite quickly, and the only occasional problem is passing through an area with no signal. I don’t feel I’m missing out, and I can even post comments to other blogs on the move. Hurrah for the twenty-first century.

The lead story in today’s theguardian reports that the Government is planning to introduce relatively low limits defining what is considered “possession” of illegal drugs and what is “intent to supply”.

I’m not a lawyer so was a little confused when the article said

When the ACMD’s technical committee considered the issue in April, it was pointed out that even Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, had misunderstood the proposals: “Many people still think that the provisions are about setting levels that are reasonable for personal us,e and that if they are caught with amounts below the thresholds they will not be arrested for possession with intent to supply. The reality is contrary to this.”

but didn’t clarify the matter. I’m not sure whether the courts will be required to find someone guilty of dealing if the drugs they are caught with are more than the limit or whether it is simply a guideline to prosecutors, although it sounds like the latter.

Either way, it’s a recipe for wasting police time, CPS time and judicial time prosecuting for dealing people who have drugs for personal use – time that could be spent pursuing, you know, actual drug dealers. It sounds like a backdoor route to banging up more people for possession, by treating them as dealers even if they’re not. In an ideal world, sentencing guidelines shouldn’t depend on the prison population, but joined-up government means this has to be taken into account to: sending more people to prison for drug posession isn’t going to help the overcrowding crisis.

I don’t know about this sort of thing, of course, but a limit of “enough cannabis for 10-20 joints” sounds rather small; is anyone with a couple of packets of fags automatically selling on the black market? This doesn’t tally with the view of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs who know a thing or two about this issue.

The proposed thresholds are so low that the advisory committee, which discussed the issue on May 25, is believed to have warned the Home Office that they would cause policing problems. The committee suggested the cannabis threshold should be set at 28g, or 1oz. The experts also told ministers that the five tablet limit for ecstasy was low – given that they can be bought for 50p each in some areas, and some users take up to 10 in one session.

In other drugs news, the police have smashed a cocaine ring in Kent – and, unlike the Forest Gate raid, it seems they actually found something. Good for them. What caught my eye was that the bust was called Operation Alpington and is a spin-off from Operation Anuric. I’ve often idly wondered where such operations get their names. Alpington appears to be a village in Norfolk; anuric means unable to urinate. Is that a side effect of cocaine then?

I have no interest in fashion, as anyone who’s seen me would be able to testify. But nestled away in theguardian‘s G2 supplement each Monday is “Ask Hadley”, which I read every week. She will ease your fashion pain, apparently, but I read it ‘cos it’s funny. Not highbrow humour, but suitably silly and, despite my having no concept of taupe or chiffon, I’m entertained by it. Plus, it’s opposite Doonesbury and the Kakuro so it takes no effort to find it each week. Here’s yesterday’s column.