The British Medical Association (BMA) is reportedly calling for an opt-out system for organ donation, meaning that it would become the norm to take the organs of a dead person to help someone in need unless they object. Quite frankly, that is the very least that should happen......

One of the perks of being an MP is access to a wonderful private library: the House of Commons Library. I guess it is kind of like the London Library, but open only to MPs and without the membership fee. Part of what the Library offers...

This afternoon, the Lords will vote on the proposed benefits cap of £26,000 per household per year. Many in my own party - the Liberal Democrats, including people like Paddy Ashdown - are expected to vote against the changes.

If, instead of being plain old Stuart Bonar I was swiftly...

At a Commons debate ahead of the European Council meeting, one Eurosceptic MP suggested that negotiating within the EU was like the deals that the British pre-war prime minister Neville Chamberlain did with Hitler.

The comment was, I would guess, deliberately and wilfully offensive. Ironically it set...

The big EU summit in Brussels reminds me that on Europe I often feel like Cassandra. I am sure that Britain's future is European. I am sure that in time we will join the euro (stop laughing). I am certain of these things, yet enunciating these kinds of views is...

Too many knowing commentators now assume that the Euro will fail. But not only will the euro survive its current difficulties, Britain will eventually join. We should not wait until the Euro has proved itself by surviving this test of fire, and join at some future moment of weakness. We...

The last government started buying up works of art in the style of the spoiled wife of some Russian oligarch desperate for her Mayfair mansion to rival the likes of the Louvre.

As the end of Labour's time in power approached, spending on the Government Art Collection really...

Young people are suffering. Youth unemployment is nearing a million. Young people cannot afford to buy or now even rent homes. This won't be helped by this week's news that last year house building was at its lowest level since records began,...

When the new e-petitions system went live all the talk was of the return of the death penalty. Those of us of a more liberal mindset braced ourselves for an outpouring of the most reactionary, kneejerk populism imaginable. But it hasn't come to pass. MPs are not having...

Britain's colossal National Debt looms large over the Labour conference in Liverpool, with the party seeking to harden its credibility on bringing the public finances under control.

As far as the Liberal Democrat and Conservative plan to cut the deficit goes, it's a cocktail of tax rises (like...

Coming to Liberal Democrat conference has changed over the years. It used to be the case that you were ignored. You'd spend your days earnestly debating policy motions and amendments then read precisely zilch about it in the next day's papers.

Then came the Coalition, and suddenly we got lots...

Earlier this year in the publicity surrounding Heston Blumenthal's new TV programme, Mission Impossible, where he sought to rejuvenate institutional menus - like BA's inflight catering and the food on offer at Alder Hey Children's Hospital - we learnt that the Royal Navy spends less feeding its submariners than the...