Ground Rules

Welcome to my blog. This is a place for me to post my opinions and thoughts, and to invite feedback from anyone who happens to be interested.

I do not intend to cause offence; I will try and explain my views clearly and rationally. In return, I would like anyone who comments to do the same. All comments are moderated; if I edit or redact part of a comment before letting it through, I will clearly indicate the change. I will also clearly indicate any changes made to blog posts after I publish them.

I am English, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, white, male, middle-class and university-educated; I try to see other points of view, but you may have to explain things that you would expect to be obvious. If it looks like I don't get it because I've not been there, tell me what I'm missing.

If you think I'm wrong on an objective fact, please provide references to back your point of view up. Web references are best, as I can check them at the computer, but I can always go and look in the local library for a book if needed. In particular, if you are claiming that something is illegal in the UK, please cite an act that I can look up on the Statute Law website; similarly, if you are claiming that an organisation prohibits or permits something, please give me something that I can use to go and check exactly what they claim.

For example, if you wish to claim that Ofcom (a UK regulatory body) requires telephone providers to route 112 to the emergency services, saying "Ofcom requires them to route 112 to the 999 call centre" isn't helpful. Saying "Ofcom's general condition 4 requires them to route 112 to the 999 call centre" allows me to check what the regulation actually is, and is therefore a better way of saying it. There are bonus points if you provide a link to your reference on the web, so that I can easily find it - in this example, something like "Ofcom's general condition 4 requires...".

I hope to learn from this experience, and I hope you enjoy reading my blog.