In the Marriage Equality referendum, the No side got 37.93 per cent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-fourth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_(Marriage_Equality)_Bill_2015); the Conservative Party got 36.9 per cent in the 2015 general election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2015#Results), and won more than half the seats in the House of Commons.

The EU dropping regulations on powerful endocrine-disrupting chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility, under pressure from US TTIP negotiators, is reported here (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/22/eu-dropped-pesticide-laws-due-to-us-pressure-over-ttip-documents-reveal).

The use of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) by tobacco giant Philip Morris to resist plain cigarette packaging in Australia is documented here (http://www.ag.gov.au/tobaccoplainpackaging) and here (http://www.mccabecentre.org/focus-areas/tobacco/philip-morris-asia-challenge).

Jillian van Turnhout (http://www.jillianvanturnhout.ie/), one of the Taoiseach's 11 nominees to Seanad Éireann tweets here (https://twitter.com/JillianvT).

'Grandad' publishes his curmudgeonly blogs on Head Rambles (http://headrambles.com/). Evidence that advertising is successfully used to fool customers about the health benefit of many foods is here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8421326.stm).