A Change of Plan, How Exciting.

Today, a Monday, my father and I went food shopping when we normally go on a Tuesday. That's because we were worried that it might snow again and you'd be surprised how quickly British society collapses under a thin layer of snow. I don't know about you but this break from routine left me thrilled, exhilarated and possibly a little sarcastic.

As that's really not enough for a blogpost I may as well talk about Britain's latest spy scandal. Although the arrest was actually made in the evening of December 2nd on December 5th it emerged that a Parliamentary researcher for the Liberal Democrat MP, Mike Hancock had been arrested and is to be deported for spying for Russia. At the moment the only evidence seems to be that the researcher, Katia Zatulveter, is Russian and the MP she worked for sits on the all party defence committee. No criminal charges are expected because it will be near impossible to prove espionage because even MP's on the defence committee don't get access to secret information. Instead the case is to be heard by a secret immigration court which was set up to deal with terrorism suspects. So like the northwest terrorism arrests that were dealt with in the same manner this seems to be a set up for a number of purposes;

• Sabotage COP16. Talk of spies and espionage always increases the paranoia at summits and leads to distrust between delegates even if they come from the same nation. This makes hard work out of even the simplest of tasks.

• Discipline the LibDems. Seven months into Britain's coalition government some of the LibDems have still not accepted that their role in the coalition is simply to protect the Conservatives for public anger. Portraying them as treacherous communist sympathisers and a threat to national security should help to keep them in line.

• Increase Parliamentary security. This will obviously spread a bit of paranoia around British political circles and will make civil servants, MP's and their staff more cautious about who they share information with. If the purpose was to protect national security from foreign powers this would be a good idea. Unfortunately it's part of one of the more worrying aspects of Britain's new politics which is to disconnect the public from politics by reducing the amount of access the press have to government. The idea is to create a society where the public serve the government rather then one where the government serve the public. This is why the BBC news channel has gradually been reduced to the two people sitting behind a desk looking bored channel.

• Russia will be hosting the 2018 World Cup. Britain won't be.