"...this morning we had Alastair Campbell sort of breaking down on Andrew Marr. It was a complete act. It was a sort of pram-rattle ejection moment. ...Campbell didn’t have to come onto Sunday AM and he was selling a novel, so if he got pushed on Iraq, it’s his own stupid fault."

"On Monday I saw, for the first time, the Bishops in action in the House of Lords. I had the vague impression that they were, unknowingly, sort of measuring themselves up for their own parliamentary coffin. They were behaving a bit like bovver boys. The whole debate was a farce."

"...if anyone says this is a victory for the churches or a big defeat for the government or the cause of equality then they didn’t listen to this debate. It was about drafting and what wording in the bill will maintain the status quo – on that both sides were in violent agreement. Unless of course someone was telling porkies…"

The Tories want to overturn centuries of the British legal tradition of fairplay because there's an election coming up.

(Attempted) fisking of Lembit's column piece on Irisgate: "What Lembit’s Robinson piece underlines is how he talks down to people in his regular column. It really is quite frightening. I mean, come on, Lembit really can’t be that stupid, can he? I refuse the countenance the idea."

On the ridicule aimed at Iris Robinson: "there seems to be more satisfaction for the soul to be sympathetic to someone, even if (and perhaps because) they haven’t come across as particularly sympathetic to others in the past. – Occupying a sort of moral higher ground, if you like. Carrying on and on with schadenfreude tends to sully or debase the humanity of the person dishing it out"

Excellent, witty post

Caron gives both barrels to Irfan Ahmed, after he said: "Many women don’t have a clue about politics so they need someone to make their decisions for them and for that reason its OK for the man to decide who the women votes or is it? I don’t see anything wrong with a man making the decision in the household to who everyone votes but then that is just me."

A searingly honest and dignified personal account from Stephen Glenn.

Republication of lengthy comment by Ian Kearns, Deputy chair of the Commission, on LDV/James Graham's: "Opinion: Is Lord Ashdown the IT idustry's patsy?"