There are so many grossly biased sources of "facts". It is perhaps little surprise that some Americans have such a distorted view of the world - and of Washington itself - when they rely almost exclusively on Fox News. Similarly, here in Britain, many people rely on the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Sun to explain events.
Left wing sources of 'information' may be unreliable too. So where can we go to get quality, non-partisan, information?
The House of Commons Library is one place. It doesn't serve the government of the day - and provides information to users across the political spectrum.
"The Library provides an impartial and confidential information and research service for individual Members and their staff." But many of its publications are available to the public - for free - on the internet. I've used them for many years - and many of my students (in law and politics) have been introduced to them - and value this free source of excellent material.
There are "Briefing Papers" on all manner of subjects. Currently 5730 papers are available online (that number will probably have changed by the time I finish writing this post). They provide "in-depth and impartial analysis on every major piece of primary legislation and on other topics of public and parliamentary concern. Regular statistics papers are also published."
Do have a look at the range of material available at http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/.
Research briefings can be downloaded as pdfs - and can be saved to read on a tablet on the train, or read on your PC. Do resist the temptation to print out these briefings - your supplies of paper and ink will be used up quickly (I speak with experience here).
When you are fighting disinformation - and we meet it every day on the doorsteps - we can make our arguments based on the facts. We can challenge the assertions of those with a political axe to grind.
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