It's hard to maintain levels of literacy and articulation in this modern world of ours. Literally everything is being slang-warped and abbreviated, to the point where Westmonster fears an entire new generation of whippersnappers will grow up to carry out their wedding vows in Textspeak and deliver funeral eulogies… read more…

Newsnight is doing a major series on the "white working class", which is presumably going to say some interesting stuff about the decline of manufacturing and the generational skills gap. Presumably. Not that you'd know it from the BBC's website, which just seems determined to point out that white working… read more…

We're not going to fisk the entire Home Office ID cards statement (go to No2ID, they'll do a better job that us). But there is some weird stuff in official news statement. Take the first para: The delivery of the national identity scheme gathered momentum today as plans were laid… read more…

Wot's an ID card? Later today, we'll find out, but Auntie has some hints: The cards will be compulsory for foreign nationals and those working airside in Britain's airports, such as baggage handlers and cabin crew. The rollout to students, is, according to BBC political reporter Norman Smith, part of… read more…

Got some bad numbers? No problem. Bury them in some good ones! Liam Byrne (whom Austin Mitchell yesterday accused of shafting our Anzac wartime allies) plays a blinder with the release of some 2007 immigration numbers today. There are 20 paragraphs in the Home Office release. The first 15 are… read more…

Immigration = unalloyed economic good, right? Wrong, says Adair Turner: In a paper entitled Do We Need More Immigrants And Babies?, he rejects arguments that without immigrants Britain would face a shortage of workers as mostly "economically illiterate". A stable population is more favourable to well-being, he says. Of course,… read more…

The Mail's working up a head of righteous anger over the news that MigrationWatch, the self-appointed immigration watchdog, has caught out immigration minister Liam Byrne, who claimed that 52% of immigration came from outside the EU. MigrationWatch says this number includes - wait for it - people returning from the… read more…

Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and a man whose gigantic intellect gives him an appropriate air of otherworldliness, has put his Anglican size 9s where the communion wafer goes with some thoughts on how elements of Sharia law should be incorporated into British law: In an exclusive interview with… read more…

It seems to us the question that needs asking over the bugging farrago is this: why did the Metropolitan Police feel the need to listen in on conversations between Sadiq Khan and his constituent Babar Ahmad? Could it have had anything to do with the Met's concerns that Khan wanted… read more…

Call us cynical (actually, call us love gods, but cynical love gods), but isn't it a little odd that Cammers gives an interview to the Sun this morning recommending more stop-and-search powers, on the day that Jacqui Smith is likely to do the same, and a day after Ronnie Flanagan… read more…