News of the World on the late Fiona Jones, former Labour MP for Newark

Hat-tip to Chris Paul - Labour of Love, who reports that the News of the World have covered the death of the former Labour MP, Fiona Jones, as only they can. There is a video and salacious details. It is not for the faint-hearted.

Their headline is "Blair babe drinks herself to death". Chris Paul comments:

But the saddest story of the day is of former Labour MP Fiona Jones who has died of hard drinking. This was triggered by both a degenerate drinking culture at the Palace of Westminister and by the campaign to oust her based on allegations of over-spending in her election campaign. Of which Fiona was quickly cleared on appeal.

Yes, very sad. I feel extremely sorry for her family, having to put up with this sort of thing.

Cameron angers Operation Black Vote

Pendennis in the Observer reports that David Cameron has got himself into a bit of a pickle on candidate diversity. First, there were the usual Cameron-esque "Trust me, I'm a liberal" pronouncements and the introduction of the "A List".

We have had all that "I'm a Observer reader at heart" nonsense for a long time from David Cameron, on various issues. I have long thought that there would be a day of reckoning on many of his statements, when the true Tory party bit back.

This has now happened with candidate diversity. The "A List" has been cancelled, causing such euphoria in the true right-wing Tory party (as opposed to the left-of-centre Tory party that Cameron is trying to make us believe exists) that Iain Dale excitedly conflated the sayings of John Junor with those of Bill McClaren and announced that there would be "dancing in the streets of Auchtermuchty" about the announcement.

However, there were some people who thought Cameron was genuine about candidate diversity. Operation Black Vote, for one, as Pendennis reports:

'David Cameron has lacked courage in maintaining his progressive stance. There is now no mechanism to ensure that the imbalance of black MPs is challenged,' says OBV's director, Simon Woolley. 'He was seen as someone who could transform the Conservatives into an inclusive party but he has capitulated to the right-wing rump that does not want their party to be truly inclusive. I think that this has left a cloud over Cameron's leadership.'

Boundary changes: LibDem No change, Tories +12, Labour -7

The BBC reports that Rallings and Thrasher from the University of Plymouth have calculated the winners and losers in the current round of boundary changes.

Cornish captain saves England!

It was with considerable excitement that I settled down to watch the rugby this afternoon. Strangely enough, it wasn't Jonny Wilkinson's return that was exciting me the most.

It was the sight of Cornishman Phil Vickery running on as England Captain. In fact, if I might wax lyrically for a little bit, Phil Vickery is not only a Cornishman, but it is not hugely inaccurate to call him a "Bude Boy", like me. However, purists might point out that he is in fact a "Kilkhampton Boy" but the distinction involves only a couple of miles and a rather large hill from which, incidentally you can see Brown Willy on a clear day (cut the ***p - Ed).

As I settled down, I couldn't help remembering another fine Cornishman, Derek Prout. He was a Rugby veteran and my cousin. He tragically passed away a couple of years ago. I am very proud to see that the British University Sports Association are holding their annual Rugby Sevens event in his honour this year. As you get older, you are conscious that you are enjoying things that those who have passed away would have enjoyed, if they were still here. This was one of those occasions. Derek would have certainly been brimming with pride to see a Cornishman captaining England!

The BBC turned into the Jonny Wilkinson appreciation society for a couple of hours. When the team were lining up for the national anthem, we got a minute of Jonnyboy staring ahead and a quick flash of the rest of the fellows in the team!

Incidentally, why do we sing "God Save the Queen" when Scotland sing "Flower of Scotland"? It seems very strangely lop-sided, like as if we are a loyal enclave and Scotland aren't. "God Save the Queen" is the national anthem of the whole UK, not just a bit of it. I would have thought it would be more appropriate for us to sing our own song in such circumstances.

Anyway, the BBC stopped short of having its own "Jonnycam" although I felt they might need a "CheckingJonnygetsupcam" to check that he was getting up OK after each ruck/maul.

He did have a bleeding mouth (he needed stitches at half time) and a bleeding ear.

But, what a heck of a match! Scotland put up a bold fight. But Jonny W's kicking was superb. Jason Robertson's two tries were brilliant. And Jonny's "try" and conversion were the icing on the cake.

They'll be dancing in the streets of Nuneaton tonight!

Molly Ivins - my kind of gal

It is strange to read an obituary of someone of whom you have never consciously heard, but immediately feel a great affinity with. That is how I felt when I read the obituary of the American journalist Molly Ivins:

America's funniest political columnist - and one of the staunchest and most sensible voices of what passes for the American left - she gave her audience everyday reasons to fight for issues of equality and peace, while ruthlessly deflating political pomposity and skewering hypocrisy. And all in a folksy Texas style that she could turn on and off at will. After Pat Buchanan's rabid speech at the 1992 Republican convention, it was Ivins who quipped, "It probably sounded better in its original German."

The sharp wit seemed to be on constant tap:

In 1982 she became a columnist on the Dallas Times-Herald. When she opined of one Texas legislator that, "If his IQ were any lower, they'd have to water him twice a day," a reader complained, "Molly Ivins can't say that, can she?" - which became the paper's catchphrase for marketing her, and the title of a collection of her journalism.

...And being a Texan, she concentrated quite a lot of her fire of "Dubya":

Ivins took a relatively benign approach to the first President Bush, finding his attempts at playing the Texan amusing - "real Texans do not use summer as a verb". After noting in 1999 that "If you think his daddy had trouble with 'the vision thing', wait'll you meet this one,"

There are also some very warm words about her from Simon Hoggart this morning, which confirms that we have lost a great woman.

Carbon off-setting = selling indulgences?

There was a classic letter in the Guardian yesterday:

Has anyone noticed the similarity between carbon offsetting (Report, January 27) and the medieval practice of selling indulgences - where a sinner would "offset" his wickedness with a paid-for prayer at a handy monastery. Perhaps Chaucer's Pardoner - a great sin-offset man if ever there was one - is alive and well and working for Bono?

Paul Dornan, London

Quality.

Is Iain Dale giving ostriches a bad name?

TheBBC reports that:

Global climate change is "very likely" to have a human cause, an influential group of scientists has concluded...The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said temperatures were probably going to increase by 1.8-4C (3.2-7.2F) by the end of the century. It also projected that sea levels were most likely to rise by 28-43cm, and global warming was likely to influence the intensity of tropical storms....

Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said the findings marked a historical landmark in the debate about whether humans were affecting the state of the atmosphere.

"It is an unequivocal series of evidence [showing that] fossil fuel burning and land use change are affecting the climate on our planet."

In a series of reports from the conference in Paris today, BBC reporters have emphasised that this report is extremely thorough and conservative, having been prepared over several years by hundreds of scientists from scores of countries. It has described this report as putting beyond all reasonable doubt the statement that global warming is caused by man's activity.

And yet, over at Iain Dale's Diary, on the same day as this significant report is published, he is carping on about the government sending a copy of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (incidentally a film much loved by Conservative councils, several of whom have organised special showings of it - e.g. at Newbury and Winchester) to all secondary schools.

Iain Dale describes An Inconvenient Truth as a "Propaganda film" and says that the government is seeking to "indoctrinate children" with it.

Fascinating.