It seems to have been a fortnight for battering the church and questioning its role in society. From the ruling about council prayers in Bideford to the latest survey sponsored by Richard Dawkins claiming that those who think of themselves as Christian show very low levels of Christian behaviour and practice. All this seems to have come to a head with Baroness Warsi's comments that "militant secularism is taking hold of British society.

As a local gatekeeper to the Church of England's reputation I feel the pressure is mounting and fear that a rising political temperature could create much rancour between those with different ideologies and world views.

The Freedom of Information Act is once more under attack, and we should all be worried.

You will not be surprised to find that as a journalist whose patch includes covering public authorities I am well acquainted with the FOI act.

Just this Monday I revealed the £85m cost to the taxpayer of Merseytravel's move to Mann Island.

Up until this morning, the only time I'd heard of a "drunk tank" was in the Pogue's Christmas hit Fairytale of New York.

But then today Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to deploy these as part of the battle against binge drinking.

Alcohol abuse costs the NHS £2.7b per year, so the incentive to drive down this bill is obvious, but another American slice of slogan politics isn't the answer.

Liverpool council has tonight voted to ditch its council leader and have an elected mayor instead.

Sixty-two councillors voted in favour of the measure, three were against, and there were 12 abstentions in the vote held in the council chamber, my colleague David Bartlett reports.

That kind of result will please the government whose pet project this is. In deciding to ditch a referendum - which 10 other cities will hold in May - and go straight to a mayoral election, the city council has reportedly secured some £130 million in extra funding.

It's been interesting to observe this little democratic (or not as the Lib Dems would have it) experiment that my former home city is undertaking right now in deciding to go for a mayoral election on 3 May...

I was out for a drink recently when I became intrigued by a conversation just out of my view. The person speaking was loud - and rather full of himself in my opinion - and so caught my attention.

My ears pricked up like a bloodhound at a weekend of hunting near the playing fields of Eton at the words 'All these dolites (sic) driving around in their BMWs while I'm working...' .

I heard a murmur of approval at his indignancy and I wish with all my might I'd made the effort to get off my backside and check out who the orator actually was.

Call Me Dave's problems with women have been well documented, he not only patronises female MPs from the opposition but humiliates those on his own side of the house as well, whilst sporting a schoolboy snigger across his mush.

Bad enough you'd think.

But he's not stopping there - why would he? Dave seems to be moving on to having an "issue" with disabled people as well.
Putting his attack on the income of the disabled and their carers aside, this last week alone he's dropped a couple of heavy hints about his mind set concerning disability.

With his apology - "if it offends anyone" - for using a term judged to be racist, Liverpool striker Luis Suarez will be hoping a line has been drawn under one of the most controversial cases in English football history. And he won't be the only one.

This has been a very unsavoury affair for all involved in it and no one has emerged with much credit or without criticism. Much of the criticism has been leveled at Liverpool Football Club in the days since an FA-established independent regulatory commission published a 115-page report on its verdict in the case.

This report detailed how it had come to the conclusion that Suarez had used the word "negro" or "negros" seven times during a row with the Manchester United defender Patrice Evra. The basis for this conclusion was the unreliability of Suarez's evidence as opposed to Evra's.

Unsurprisingly the Commission for Assisted Dying report has created concern and controversy, not going far enough for some moving well beyond the pail for others. It is a difficult, moral, ethical and religious problem and one that we all have to grapple with. But it is easy to get into the theoretical and forget that beyond the politics are people struggling with circumstances that the majority of us cannot (and hopefully will never) comprehend.

Let's be straight. The Church of England's position is clear. A statement released this morning says "The present law strikes an excellent balance between safeguarding hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people and treating with fairness and compassion those few people who, acting out of selfless motives, have assisted a loved one to die." For now this is a good standpoint, particular given the concerns over the Commission's perceived bias, but the debate must continue.

Last night the FA announced it had reached a "conclusion" in the case of Luis Suarez and was fining the Liverpool striker £40,000 as well as banning him for eight games.

An Independent Regulatory Commission found that Suarez had used "insulting words" which included a reference to Manchester United full back Patrice Evra's colour.

There was little other detail other than that Liverpool had a right to appeal and 14 days in which to do so. The reasons or justification for this decision would be released in "due course" we were told.

Immediately all hell broke loose on Twitter with many Liverpool fans falling behind Suarez and crying injustice while Manchester United and other opposition supporters welcomed the ruling that, to them, clearly showed Suarez was a racist.

Well done today to Seema Malhotra, the new MP for the west London constituency of Feltham and Heston.

The former advisor to Harriet Harman was given the nod following the death of Labour Co-op MP Alan Keen, who held the seat from 1992 until his death last month.

But running right next to the result was the turnout figure of 28.8% - the lowest at a by-election for 11 years.