Cover Page, 01 October 2020, Issue 249 Welcome to our latest edition. We hope you enjoy its articles and features. We’d like to introduce new writers, so if you’d be interested in contributing to the Shaw Sheet on either an occasional or regular basis, please contact the editors at johnW@shawsheet.com for the writers’ guidelines.
01 October 2020 An Appointment The Supreme Court riddles. By John Watson Will he, won’t he? Will she, won’t she? Will they, won’t they? The subjects of these riddles are Donald Trump, Amy Coney Barrett and the US Senate respectively. It is the second of them, however, which is the most interesting. Amy Coney Barrett
01 October 2020 Compromise For Now Freedom still at risk. By Lynda Goetz Early on Wednesday morning, I wrote to my MP asking him to vote against government powers under the Coronavirus Act being extended. Given my feelings on the subject (expressed here a few weeks ago – Don’t Plan Christmas), I should have done
01 October 2020 The Liberal Democrat Phoenix Remains moribund… for now. By Richard Pooley After three weeks on my own, putting order back into the house and garden my wife and I have in south-west France, today is day 9 of my 14-day quarantine back in the UK. I was célibataire there and Madame has
1 October 2020 Good Sport! But best ever? by Frank O’Nomics “The best in history”. So said the winner of the recent Santander triathlon, Javier Gomez Noya. The chances are that most will not remember the winner’s name in the fullness of time, but the athlete who came third is likely to become synonymous with
1 October 2020 Diary of a Corbynista Cash for Access Rides Again by Don Urquhart 23 September Apart from 18 MPs, the PLP voted with the government to permit British soldiers to torture people without fear of prosecution. It appears to be demanded by the new leadership’s espousal of what he calls patriotism. 24 September
01 October 2020 A Licence to Kill? The CHIS Bill. By Neil Tidmarsh There have been a number of inflamed headlines about threats to our liberty this week. The front page of The Times on Tuesday yelled about “Big Brother Covid Fines” (the new offences and penalties are “prompting comparisons with George Orwell’s 1984”). Tory
1 October 2020 View from the Cotswolds Big Beasts in short supply: Send in the clowns By Paul Branch Circuses ain’t what they used to be. Time was they had real, live, roaring wild animals doing their stuff – lions, tigers, elephants, the whole works, with horses and performing dogs and seals, plus all the
01 October 2020 Life in an Uncertain Environment Political Parties (2) by Vic Leader I hadn’t intended to extend the subject of Political Parties, yet I said too little last time. Where do Manifestos come from? Being, until fairly recently, totally apolitical (in the party sense), little of my life has been spent pondering this
1 October 2020 Lies, Damned Lies and Coronavirus How many positive cases are there? by David Chilvers This week, we investigate the number of positive COVID-19 cases as estimated from two key sources: The number reported each day on the Governments’ Coronavirus website The number estimated from the ONS Weekly Infection Survey The latter survey
