aneurin's New Writeups

Glasgow North-East by-election (event)

2009-11-19T16:34:42Z

The Glasgow North-East by-election was held on the 12th November 2009 as a result of the resignation of Michael Martin and his elevation to the House of Lords.

The constituency was described by UKPolling as a "grim slice of north-east Glasgow, scarred by gangs, deprivation and hard drugs" that included "some of the most degraded, deprived and crime-ridden parts of the UK" including the "heroin-ravaged Possilpark", and was therefore naturally considered the safest Labour seat in Glasgow. The seat had only been in being since 2005, when the old Glasgow Springburn constituency was expanded to include the most deprived parts of the old Glasgow Maryhill seat. Indeed the constituency of Glasgow North-East had never previously been the subject of an open contest, since Michael Martin had stood in both the 2001 and 2005 General Elections as the 'Speaker Seeking Re-Election' rather than under the banner of the Labour Party, and so neither the Conservatives nor Liberal Democrats had put forward…

Suzy Lamplugh (person)

2009-10-31T16:36:41Z

Susannah or Suzy Lamplugh was twenty-five years old when she went missing on the 28th July 1986 and was never seen again. She was officially declared dead in 1994, and her disappearance and presumed murder is one of Britain's most high-profile unsolved cases.

Suzy Lamplugh was employed by Sturgis Estate Agents, and according to her office diary for the 28th July 1986 she had an appointment with a Mr. Kipper at 12.45 pm to show an empty property at 37 Shorrolds Road in Fulham, London. That was the last anyone saw of her. Her Ford Fiesta was later found unlocked about a mile away outside another property on the estate agent's books in Stevenage Road. Her purse was found in the car, although the car keys were nowhere to be seen.

It transpired that a 'Mr Kipper' had simply telephoned the agency to make an appointment to view the £130,000 property and had given a false address and thus could not be traced. One witness remembered seeing Miss…

Bouvet Island (place)

2009-10-26T15:14:32Z

Formerly known as Circumcision Island, and a few other names as well, Bouvet Island is a glacier covered lump of volcanic rock found in the South Atlantic Ocean at 54º 26' South, 3º 24' East. It is around 6 miles (9.5 km) long and 4 miles (7 km) wide, and covers an area of 19 square miles (49 km2). It is often regarded as the most remote island on the planet, being that it is a long way from anywhere, particularly as the anywhere in question is Antarctica, which lies some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to the south, whilst the nearest inhabited land is Tristan da Cunha, which is about 1,400 miles (2,300 km) away, and the closest approximation to civilisation would be South Africa some 1,900 miles (3,000 km) to the north.

Nothing grows on the island apart from a few lichens, mosses and the odd fungus, although it is regarded as an important wildlife habitat being the home to colonies of the southern elephant seal and the Antarctic fur seal and numerous Adelie, chinstrap and macaroni penguins.…

Back in the Duck House (event)

2009-10-21T11:17:51Z

By the beginning of October 2009 it seemed that everybody in Britain had forgotten about the MPs' Expense Scandal, after a summer in which the parties had been engaged in a Public Spending Row, at the end of which Prime Minister Gordon Brown had finally been obliged to admit, that yes, his Government would indeed be obliged to cut public spending despite previous statements to the contrary. However, it was over the weekend of the 10th-llth October 2009, that the media suddenly rediscovered its enthusiasm for such matters as duck houses and phantom mortgages, as the issue of MPs expenses once again dominated the front pages of the nation's newspapers.

This development harked back to the decision announced by the Members Estimate Committee (MEC) on the 1st July 2009 that it was commissioning an independent review of all claims made by Members of Parliament for the Additional Costs Allowance during the financial years 2004/05 to 2007/08. (It later decided to include the financial year…

Piers Merchant (person)

2009-10-08T15:00:01Z

British Conservative politician
Born 1951 Died 2009

Piers Merchant was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central (1983-1987) and Beckenham (1992-1997) until he was obliged to resign in October 1997 following a 'sex scandal'.

Piers Rolf Garfield Merchant was born on the 2nd January 1951, the son of a schoolmaster named Garfield Frederick Merchant and his wife Audrey Mary Rolfe-Martin. Educated at Nottingham High School, he attended the University of Durham where he read Law and Politics, followed by a master's degree in Political Philosophy. After leaving university in 1973, he joined The Journal in Newcastle as a reporter and spent the next nine years working his way up through the ranks to become News Editor in 1980. Some two years later in 1982 he left to become the editor of Conservative Newsline where he remained until 1984.

Naturally, as the…

Labour's Lost It (event)

2009-10-05T11:26:42Z

'Labour's Lost It' was the headline that appeared in The Sun newspaper on the 30th September 2009, as it announced that it was abandoning its support for the governing Labour Party and was now endorsing the Conservative Party. In the context of British politics this was seen as a decision that bestowed the kiss of death on Gordon Brown's government.

A short history of the Sun

When The Sun began life on the 15th September 1964 it was notionally an independent paper, despite the fact that it was owned by the Mirror Group and designed as a replacement for the decidedly pro-Labour Daily Herald. Nevertheless the newspaper generally leaned towards Labour even after it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch and relaunched as a tabloid. Under Murdoch's ownership, The Sun was transformed into the nation's best selling newspaper (current sales three million plus) and quite overshadowed its old Daily Mirror stable mate.

…