After using their blog to make a call for potential Westminster candidates, Northern Ireland's Conservatives are now seeking to recruit a "Party Development Officer" to "oversee the development of the Party in Northern Ireland".

It seems like a small number of people trying to harness the internet to build an organisation almost from the ground up. So is this an indication of an organisation being put together artificially rather than organically, does it matter and are there lessons here for the more established (here) local parties?

The BBC will switch over their contact numbers from often expensive 0870 numbers to new 0370 numbers during this summer according to a response published in their list of "recent questions".

0370 calls cost no more than 01and [sic] 02 geographic landline numbers and are included in discount packages for both fixed-line and mobile phones.

All the BBC’s 0870 numbers will be phased out during the summer of 2008 and replaced with an equivalent 0370 range of numbers... Local radio 0845 numbers, which have a cheaper ‘local-rate’ charge, and freephone numbers (eg 0800 and 0500) will not be affected by this change.

Recent questions - Will the BBC stop using 0870 numbers?

One note: 0845 is not local! If they're used mainly for "local radio" then there should be no problem with true local (01/02) numbers.

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It's been a while (6 months, apparently) since I did a quote of the day but I've just been directed to Charlie Brooker's blog at the Guardian's Comment is Free and after reading a few paragraphs I knew I'd find a soundbite worth passing on to EU readers, so here goes.

"we're all led to believe we're somehow unique and important, that we have a destiny, that we matter in some way. But this doesn't add up. There are billions of us. An infinite swarm of haircuts and anuses, that's humankind for you. We can't all be "special". The vast majority of us are meaningless energy blips, and we'd do well to remember the fact. Maybe if we saw ourselves as merely part of the herd (which is, after all, what we are), we'd be more inclined to work together to solve the planet's problems."

Being slagged off is good for you

Big Brother looks set to get even bigger if officials have their way and Parliament approves the creation of a communications database containing records on all phone calls and internet activity in the United Kingdom.

Figures estimate the number of text messages sent in a year to be 57 billion and the number of emails sent in a day to be 3 billion. This in itself raises questions as to whether the government could feasibly pull off an IT project on this scale, in light of NHS IT systems for England that are now 4 years overdue.

Nevertheless, the bigger question is obviously whether we should trust the government with that much personal information. At the minute, phone companies have to keep logs for 12 months which allows the authorities access to specific records if/when there is justification. Under the new system the authorities would supposedly still have to go through the courts to get access, but this blogger can see the line between government agencies being blurred and/or diluted much more quickly than between a government agency and a phone company, leading to a culture where more casual use of the system is the norm.

Even if (and it's a big if) we trust the government not to abuse the power, do we really want all that information held in a single place by a government that has already lost details on:

• 3 million driving test candidates
• 25 million child benefit claimants (all families in the UK with a child under 16)
• 7,685 Northern Irish drivers
• 40,000 benefit claimants in Yorkshire

and god knows what else (that only took a few minutes on Google and it ignores some cases I found that only involved local government).

Of course there must be a good reason why the government would propose this sort of plan; they wouldn't do it for no reason. The assistant Information Commissioner explains:

We are not aware of any justification for the state to hold every UK citizen's phone and internet records. We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable.
Jonathan Bamford, Assistant Information Commissioner

So there you have it. I don't believe it'll ever see the light of day but the fact that officials are even contemplating it is slightly alarming.

I've been doing some student loan thinking recently, just to check where I am.

The interest rates, contrary to my belief up to now, is set on RPI inflation, not base rate. Thats not the government's rate of 3%, but the actual rate of 4.8%, which as you can see, is double what it was the year before, but half of what it was in 1990.

HMRC have a very useful page detailing how the repayments are made. Basically, you have 9% of everything above £1,250 a month taken from your pay packet. That means if you're earning £18,000 a year, as in the HMRC example you'll be paying back £22 a month.

My interest payments are currently running at more than twice that per month.

I'm a bit of a fan of the Gerry Anderson show on Radio Ulster. Hence, I'm also a big fan of On the Air. This weeks edition is absolutely hilarious. Take a look.

Have a read of Chekov's piece on the Bel Tel/MORI poll last week. The data set is fascinating. The voting intention figures are bunkem as usual (DUP 20%, UUP 14%, SDLP 13% SF 11% APNI 7%), but it's interesting that Reg, Michael and Margaret Ritchie are once again significently more popular than some of their DUP and SF colleagues, and once again come out in the top half.

I thought this picture was priceless in yesterdays Irish News.

A judge from the Republic has branded people from Tyrone as typically thick.

It would seem difficult to disagree with him were it not for the fact that it was his own justice administration making a fuck-up that put her there in the first place.

His comments came after a woman from Donaghmore was wrongly summonsed to court because her details matched those of another woman and, being from Northern Ireland, she didn't have any Euros on her to pay to have the case thrown out.

Edit: Apparently this is the same judge who responded to a defendant who gave his address as Londonderry by saying he "didn't want to see this rubbish coming before him again" and that as far as he was concerned it was "just Derry with a capital D."

People in glass houses, your honour.

The Conservatives are the last party I'd expect to be complaining about police heavy-handedness but apparently, following huge trouble in Manchester after the city was flooded with up to 100,000 Rangers fans descending on the city for the UEFA cup final, that's exactly what happened.

According to the BBC

The Scottish Conservatives said using riot police was an "overreaction".

The BBC have kindly also included a video that clearly shows there was a riot in progress. If using riot police in a riot is an 'overreaction', what exactly are riot police for?

I've heard some shite come from the local whingers about police "heavy-handedness", that's just par for the course here, but one would expect better from real politicians.