The biggest story of the week must be the uprising in Tunisia.

News of this popular revolution is rippling across the region, inspiring others elsewhere (I hope) to topple the corrupt and authoritarian regimes that curse the Islamic world.

There are 47 Muslim majority nations yet only two are “free” according to Freedom House, an organisation which annually monitors, by country, the extent of the freedoms enjoyed.

In the 2010 list, Indonesia and Mali are deemed to be “free” with 18 countries partly free.

No fewer than 27 are listed as “not free”.

These are: Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Syria, Kazakhstan, Tunisia (but things are changing) Guinea, Somalia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Libya, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Chad, Mauritania, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Brunei.

Quite a few are courted by western democracies and sustained by Western capital.

Nothing new there.

Coulson

The News of the World phone-tapping saga is the big, big story that won’t go away.

First, Assistant Editor, Ian Edmondson, the news editor, gets suspended. 

And now Ken Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, orders a review of the material held by the Met.

I give Andy Coulson six months at Number 10.

Max.

A new House of Commons

Ottawa’s historic Parliament building is showing her age and Canadian MPs are moving out of the House of Commons into a temporary Chamber, off campus so to speak, in 2018.

Westminster, too, is falling down and major work is being done even as I tap this out.

A few years ago, the option of moving the MPs out of the Palace of Westminster to let the builders in was floated as a possibility.

At the time, it was argued this would save money. The work would be completed earlier than would be the case if MPs and staff were simply moved around the building, keeping one step ahead of the stonemasons and the carpenters.

Shock! Horror! The very idea!

I think we should take a leaf out of the Canadian book and move Parliament to, say, York for a year or two.

And why not?

Attachments:

2010Sub-CategoryScores-Website.xls

[Freedom category by country]

49 Kb