The extraordinary resignation of Boris Johnson's deputy mayor Ray Lewis saw me called in to BBC London on Friday night to take part in a discussion on the Tessa Dunlop show that involved London Assembly members and callers from around the capital.

It was two hours of lively debate as we all tried to take stock of the fact that Johnson, elected just two months ago on 1 [...]

Let me take a few minutes to put the boot into the Cheery Digest. A confirmed miserablist, I'm clearly not the target audience for this sort of thing.

Nor have I any idea who is behind this blog so why not read this and draw your own conclusions...

NEWS: Why we love the Queen ...

There's no two ways about it, our dear old Queen has a twinkle [...]

I commend to you the blog of Tory MP and friend of the Fundies (that's Christian Fundamentalists in case you didn't know) Nadine Dorries.

Have a good read and then contrast and compare the way her party leader, Lexus Dave Cameron, tries to pass himself off. You now know the form: no more laughing at the poor. No more scapegoating the single mothers. The caring wrinkling of the brow [...]

I fear I may have offended the amiable Stanley Johnson - father of London's new mayor. Stanley - a one-time Tory MEP and their enthusiastic if unsuccessful candidate for Teignbridge at the last general election - has expressed a desire to succeed his Bozza as MP for the über-safe Tory seat of Henley.

The news prompted me to fire off a rather cheeky email to Pa Johnson who [...]

One politician who simply defies the description 'grey' is Lembit Öpik. The ebullient MP for Montgomeryshire first caught the collective media eye when he plummeted to earth.

He broke his back in the 1998 paragliding accident but, fortunately, recovered.

Other than that, Öpik is mainly known for two things - one, paradoxically, is his fascination with asteroids hitting the earth. The other is his unfeasibly eye-catching love life.

Earlier this [...]

The count down is well underway to the London mayoral election on 1 May. This is the closest contest yet and there's a very real danger of a Tory win.

As always with elections, turnout is key and in the hope of boosting interest in the 2008 contest we've been looking at some of the issues we feel are important - transport, crime, housing and so on.

But what do [...]

The news that the government has allocated £1 million in funding to keep Rape Crisis centres open in England and Wales is a very welcome success for newstatesman.com's Rape Crisis Campaign.

For many years, Rape Crisis has defied chronic under-funding to provide important support to victims of sexual violence. As Dr. Nicole Westmarland, Chair of Rape Crisis for England and Wales, tells newstatesman.com, Tuesday's announcement by women's minister Harriet [...]

What do you think of Miss World? Is it a bit of a joke? A relic from the sexist past? Or something that enforces a negative stereotype of women? With contestants due to don their bikinis in China this weekend we asked Bea Campbell and Ruth Lea to debate Miss World. Have a read and then why not add your thoughts?

This week we've also had an article on [...]

One of our star turns on newstatesman.com is Victoria Brignell who writes on living life as a 'wheelchair rider' in her regular monthly slot Crip's Column.

This week she turned her wry gaze on the often vexed issue of language. Just how should we talk about disability. It's a useful - if inconclusive - insight into what labels are acceptable. As you would expect, I hope, there isn't unanimity [...]

A few weeks ago I may have modestly mentioned being nominated for the British Society of Magazine Editor's web editor of the year award.

Well this week my wife, self, magazine deputy editor Sue Matthias and our web developer Dan Coppock trooped along to the Park Lane Hilton to see the gongs doled out.

As it happens we were pipped at the post by the editor of Empire's website [...]