It's been a week since I joined the social networking site, Facebook and I now have 86 'friends' from Britain, Australia, America, Norway and Canada and the ConservativeHome group has 322 members. More important than that - I'm joining all sorts of interesting little groups...
One group, for example, is petitioning Downing Street to have a ship (in our rapidly diminishing Royal Navy) named "HMS Iron Lady". The petitioner notes that: "The
US have honoured Sir Winston Churchill, who stood up against the
tyranny of fascism, through naming one of its vessels "USS Winston
Churchill"; we should accord a similar honour to a woman who struggled
against the tyranny of dictatorship. The Royal Navy is currently
commissioning Type 45 Destroyers. One such ship could be named "HMS
Iron Lady" in reference to Baroness Thatcher, echoing the designation
of the vessel "HMS Iron Duke", named in honour of the Duke of
Wellington, who also stood firm against a tyrant." Regular CH readers will know that I'm not keen on supporting Downing Street petitions but if you must... click here.
Stephen Haraldsen has set up a group to campaign to stop the use of 'Shadow' as a prefix for LibDem frontbenchers. "Stop getting above your stations," he writes. "It's Spokesman, not Shadow Minister, that's the Conservative MPs." My guess, Stephen, is that with LibDems it's actually spokesperson or, even more politically correctly, spokesperkin.
More than 100 Facebookers have joined an appreciation society for The Telegraph's Jonathan Isaby. Mr Isaby, himself, notes that David Burrowes MP is using his Facebook account to hunt for a name for his next and sixth child. Mark Steyn would be very proud of David's commitment to tackle Europe's demographic timebomb.
You should be warned that joining Facebook is very bad for productivity in the office but click here if you want to join Facebook and the ConservativeHome group.
One group, for example, is petitioning Downing Street to have a ship (in our rapidly diminishing Royal Navy) named "HMS Iron Lady". The petitioner notes that: "The
US have honoured Sir Winston Churchill, who stood up against the
tyranny of fascism, through naming one of its vessels "USS Winston
Churchill"; we should accord a similar honour to a woman who struggled
against the tyranny of dictatorship. The Royal Navy is currently
commissioning Type 45 Destroyers. One such ship could be named "HMS
Iron Lady" in reference to Baroness Thatcher, echoing the designation
of the vessel "HMS Iron Duke", named in honour of the Duke of
Wellington, who also stood firm against a tyrant." Regular CH readers will know that I'm not keen on supporting Downing Street petitions but if you must... click here.Stephen Haraldsen has set up a group to campaign to stop the use of 'Shadow' as a prefix for LibDem frontbenchers. "Stop getting above your stations," he writes. "It's Spokesman, not Shadow Minister, that's the Conservative MPs." My guess, Stephen, is that with LibDems it's actually spokesperson or, even more politically correctly, spokesperkin.
More than 100 Facebookers have joined an appreciation society for The Telegraph's Jonathan Isaby. Mr Isaby, himself, notes that David Burrowes MP is using his Facebook account to hunt for a name for his next and sixth child. Mark Steyn would be very proud of David's commitment to tackle Europe's demographic timebomb.You should be warned that joining Facebook is very bad for productivity in the office but click here if you want to join Facebook and the ConservativeHome group.
I too detest the idea of joining in with any petitions to 10 Downing Street, just so the Supreme Spammer in Chief can build a database of email addresses.
I would prefer a Royal Navy ship to be named HMS Margaret Thatcher rather than Iron Lady, I believe she deserves this little extra "dignity".
Posted by: Curly | April 13, 2007 at 18:42
Duke of Wellington, who also stood firm against a tyrant."
NO he didn't. He fought on the battlefield in India, Portugal, Spain, and Belgium and France....... before he became Prime Minister.
Is there an HMS Nelson in the Royal Navy ? An HMS Prince of Wales ?
Posted by: TomTom | April 13, 2007 at 19:45
HMS Nelson is the Portsmouth Naval Base and HMS Prince of Wales is - I believe - reserved for one of the two Carriers now being designed.
Posted by: John Coles | April 13, 2007 at 20:25
No doubt Tony's legacy will require a HMS Blair to commemorate all the good our PM has done for the armed forces...
Posted by: Jimbo | April 13, 2007 at 20:27
You should be warned that joining Facebook is very bad for productivity in the office...
... but no worse than discovering ConservativeHome.
Posted by: Mark Fulford | April 13, 2007 at 20:39
HMS Iron Lady, hear hear. In fact, let's have a whole fleet of them.
Posted by: Ash Faulkner | April 13, 2007 at 20:50
Absolutely love facebook - life is incomplete without it!
Posted by: Arleen Ouzounian | April 13, 2007 at 23:08
"You should be warned that joining Facebook is very bad for productivity in the office..."
Tell me about it! I tried giving it up for lent and failed catastrophically.
Although in the brief time that I managed to stay away a group was set up campaigning for my will power to break!
Posted by: Donata Huggins | April 14, 2007 at 03:20
Thanks Donata - I wish you had warned me before Sam and I started on this Facebook enterprise! :-)
Posted by: Editor | April 14, 2007 at 10:33
Donata - if I could become a non smoker you could have held out !
Posted by: Ted | April 14, 2007 at 10:46