It has emerged that Al Qa'eda are struggling for support in Iraq because of some bad political decisions, such as banning women from buying cucumbers.

It sounds pretty funny really, but it transpires that cucumbers look like penises, so it is not appropriate for women to buy them. They can just stare at them in the market instead. But there is hope; they are allowed to buy tomatoes. Isn't that nice, eh?

The official reason is that cucumbers have been deemed a male vegetable, whereas tomatoes have been deemed a female fruit.

Quite clearly, there is a French connection. Think about it: il est le légume et la tomate. Given that the French have been accused in the Rwandan genocide (something I plan to come back to), I'm seeing a pattern here. We should be told.

I have, of late, been fairly on-the-mark with my political predictions. When many people predicted, at the start of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, that Labour could hold the seat, I scoffed at the thought. As the campaign continued, and Labour members realised that winning was not the most likely of possibilities, I predicted a 6,000 majority for the Conservatives. People scoffed. "You're just being pessimistic. It can't be that bad." It wasn't - it was worse.

When David Davies resigned his seat in Haltemprice and Howden, people jumped up to attack Davies as opportunistic, trying to undermine David Cameron, trying to grab attention. They didn't take him seriously. They thought David Davies could be cast as a loony. I saw a man who was standing by his convictions, and those alone. A man who wasn't going to get rolled over. I saw Labour's refusal to stand as a big mistake. I still think it was a big mistake, albeit one that hasn't hurt them as much as it could have - but it will continue to hover in the background.

I knew, in all probability, that Boris Johnson would win the London mayoral elections, although I tried my best to ignore it and convince myself that Ken Livingstone could, like he had many times before, defied the Labour Party - and its electoral fortunes - and snatch victory. But even for Red Ken, that was always going to be one step too far.

In Henley, everyone knew it would be bad. Hardly a "natural" Labour area - but something I'll come back to. The point here, is that these things were all bad for the Labour Party.

But Glasgow East was different. No-one predicted Glasgow East would go. No Labour people predicted it. No SNP people really seemed to truly believe it would happen, but were certainly confident they would get close. Me? I thought they'd get within, depending upon turnout, of course, 2,000 - 3,000 votes of winning. So, on the election night, I went to bed. There was, after all, nothing interesting to watch or listen to.

Quite some misjugement. The SNP may not have won with a large majority, but they didn't need to. Winning by one vote was enough. It was more than enough. Winning this seat is quite some achievement. The last time the Labour Party didn't win this seat was in the 1945 General Election. Except that doesn't really count. Why? Well, it was won by the Independent Labour Party, which broke away from the Labour Party in 1932. The winner of that seat was someone who originally stood for the Labour Party, broke away with the ILP and then rejoined at the end of the 1940s. Basically, the Labour Party, in their history, with the exception of this rather misleasding exception, have never lost this seat. The SNP have never recorded more than 20% of the vote in the area of Glasgow East.

On Thursday, that was thrown out of the window. Gordon Brown can grit his teeth and say that it was down to Scottish issues, like the lack of a Labour leader in Scotland, but everyone knows that is rubbish. The voters of Glasgow East don't care about that. It's not even as if the candidate wasn't known in the area. The Labour Party needs to stop blaming every loss on exceptional circumstances.

This does not, of course, mean to say that the SNP will hold this seat at the next election. Given the size of their majority, that is highly unlikely. However, as they have shown in Hamilton and Govan before, once they win a seat, they don't give it up easily. They are an electoral force with exceptional sticking power.

The Labour Party cannot claim to be the party of the poor. The Labour Party is not the party of the poor. It should not be the party of the poor. It may make me sound like a one-nation Tory, but I don't really care. Labour go on about the many not the few, but at the same time, talk about "natural" Labour areas. This is not how it should be, and especially now. The problem with relying on your "natural" vote is that when that vote shifts somewhere else, you're in big trouble.

The best thing the Labour Party can do right now is listen to the unions. They need the money the unions are offering, but in order to do so, they need to agree to a number of the unions' demands. And quite frankly, when one of them is universal free school meals, they may find that they find some much-needed support.

People aren't just going against Labour because of difficult economic circumstances. It's not just Scottish issues. It's not just a resurgent Conservative Party. It's not just because Labour have been in power for so long. It's not just because they don't like Gordon Brown. It's because they just don't see Gordon Brown, or the Labour Party, taking the country forward.

If, however, they see real ideas, like free school meals, or the People's Rail, then maybe, just maybe, they might change. People don't vote out parties simply because they get old and boring. They vote them out because they think they're old and boring because they run out of real ideas and start spewing out rubbish, like hospital stab visits.

The Labour Party should be thankful to Barack Obama. He has completely overshadowed the loss in Glasgow East. The Labour Party, outside of Scotland at least, will get away with this. Just like they did in Haltemprice and Howden, which didn't do enough to set the political world on fire (sadly). Just like in Henley, where they could say they never do well anyway. But there comes a time when people think they're not being taken seriously any more. I fear that Glasgow East is the sign of an electorate who think they're not being taken seriously - that their votes are "in the bag". Let this be a lesson - they're not.

Many of you will be aware that I do some work for the Baptist Union of Scotland with regards to their youth website, and occasionally their main website too. However, I am working on their Step Out mission teams over the summer.

About 50 people take part in Step Out mission teams over the summer, but there are 5 of us who are on the team for the whole summer. On the far left at the front of picture is Laura Hart, with Cindy Nelson in the middle and Rachel Findlay on the far right. There is, for the observant, myself at the back on the right, and on the left at the back, Jillian Annan, and both of us were on the summer team last year.

However, unlike last year, where the summer team were together all summer, we are split up this year. In fact, I am not on the same team as Jillian at all this year! This week, Jillian and Laura were working with children in Alva, whilst the other three of us were in Thurso, where Rachel is from, working with both children and youth. The week has gone very well, with 15 children choosing to become Christians during the week in Thurso. I even got a wonderful photograph of the sun setting over Thurso and Scrabster on Tuesday, for your enjoyment.

That is, quite frankly, a wonderful picture. Oh, and don't you just think that the first photograph looks like a Christmas card picture?

Not a long post, this. I just wanted to alert people to the release of Sassenach CMS 0.9.

This is a first release and is not recommended for use on production websites right now as it's not quite polished. Treat it more as an evaluatory release.

For more information, please take a look at the Sassenach CMS website and Launchpad project pages.

Try it out and let me know what you think, and make sure you read the advice at the bottom before downloading. It's important! Also, please note that there is no documentation with this release, so feel free to ask me questions, and I'll do my best to answer them. I don't have a contact form for nothing, you know!

I am very blessed in living in Sheffield. Although there are other places I would rather live if I were choosing where to live, Sheffield is still a lovely, beautiful place. It is also next to the site of Britain's first national park, the Peak District. It is a wonderful place, stretching most of the way between Sheffield in South Yorkshire and Manchester in Lancashire, taking in parts of Derbyshire and incorporating the Derbyshire Dales too. If you go a little further north, there's the Yorkshire Moors, the Lake District to the west and the North Yorkshire Moors to the east. It is a beautiful place and one that I really should take more time to explore.

Yesterday I went with a few other people from my University for an evening barbeque on the Longshaw Estate, near Grindleford in Derbyshire. It was rather cold when the sun wasn't out, but thankfully the sun was out most of the time we were there. It's wonderful to be able to go out and to just enjoy places without having to worry about writing 20,000 words of research, of the five exams you have to take the next week, or the essay that you understand absolutely nothing about, or the group presentation that your group are showing no interest in. No, I can just relax - for now.

Yesterday was an interesting and great day for Formula 1. Sadly, I missed the race, but it is worthy of writing about here anyway.

Yesterday was the Canadian Grand Prix. The Canadian Grand Prix is well known for being unpredictable and full of incident, and this year was no different. Last year, the race was won by Lewis Hamilton, with his first Grand Prix victory. This year would feature another first-time winner, but with a little more drama along the way. Usually, the drama is to be found in the picture above - the exit to the main straight, known as "Champions' Wall", because it is famous for taking out so many previous champions who have brushed the wall in the past. Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve have all crashed there, and Fernando Alonso has crashed at another corner before now, so it is a track that has pedigree.

However, yesterday was not a day for incident at Champions' Wall. Yesterday, all the main action was in the pit lane. The safety car was called out following an incident on the track - not unusual in Canada - and so most of the leaders came into the pits for a fresh set of rubber and for tyres. Lewis Hamilton did have a sizeable lead before the safety car came out, but it was wiped out as they pitted. Hamilton pitted from first, Kubica from second and Raikkonen from third. Kubica exited his pit box marginally ahead of Raikkonen, but the red light was on in the pit lane, so he had to stop and wait. So did Raikkonen. The two sat at the end of the pit lane, waiting. Hamilton, meanwhile, took on enough fuel to finish the race, and so exited his pit box last. He didn't see the red light. He didn't stop. As he approached the end of the pit lane, he suddenly faced two stationary cars. He darted left, trying to avoid them, but couldn't, and ploughed straight into the back of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari. He looked like a bit of a prat, and he probably felt it too, since he'd just taken himself and Kimi Raikkonen out of the race. Crashing out on track is one thing, crashing in the pit lane - that's another.

So, with Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen both out of the race, the Grand Prix was now wide open, and potentially, the championship too. Felipe Massa in the sister Ferrari and Heikki Kovalainen in the sister McLaren were both down the field, so the BMW-Sauber of Nivk Heidfeld led the race, having not come into the pits for fuel. Once the safety car came in, however, Kubica set a searing pace, was allowed to pass Heidfeld and then made the gap he needed in order to make the extra pit stop he needed to make in order to beat his team mate, meaning the BMW-Sauber team came home with their first, Kubica's first win, and the first win for a Polish driver in Formula 1.

With that win, Robert Kubica also became the leader of the Formula 1 world championship. This is quite a feat. There is no doubt that the BMW-Sauber car is not quite as fast as the Ferrari or the McLaren. It isn't far behind, but it is just that little bit slower. However, at the hands of Robert Kubica this year, the BMW-Sauber car has been scintillating to watch. He has consistently been at the front and was close to winning in Monaco. His pace has been absolutely stunning this year, but more than that, he has been consistent and error-free. I'm sure the errors will come, and there is very little pressure on him, but his form has been great to see nevertheless. Massa made mistakes in Australia, Malaysia and Monaco; Raikkonen made a serious error in Monaco; Hamilton in Canada; Kovalainen has just plain had wretched luck, and been slightly off-pace at a couple of tracks. Kubica, however, has been superb. He is a future champion in the making. I just hope he stays with BMW-Sauber and provides them with their first world champion - that is, if his consistency doosn't bring it to him this year. I don't believe it will, as I think the Ferrari will prove too strong over the course of the season, but if he does win it, it will be thoroughly deserved and hard-earned.