The original blog: commentary about everything except transport
What do you do when one of the fundamental things you’ve believed in for years, have spent ages working towards, is actually not anywhere near as desirable as you previously thought? That’s basically the predicament I find myself in these
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“If last week was the week of Cameron’s walk out, this week has been the week of recriminations, with newspaper column inches full of talk of Nick Clegg involved in spats with Tories and France. While in some way it
Continue reading “If you are in favour of the UK remaining a Member State of the European Union, this week’s summit was a disaster. If you want Britain to leave the EU there are some reasons to rejoice. It’s that simple. The
Continue reading “No-one can have expected the fissure in the UK’s relationship with the EU to come so soon, but the stormy discussions at the European Council in Brussels last night confirm a parting of ways that has probably been inevitable. The
Continue reading “7000 attendees, more than 500 delegates, dozens of well known German and European politicians, and one notable elderly man in a wheelchair – Helmut Schmidt. Today is the start of the SPD Partietag in Berlin (live news in German here),
Continue reading “This week I was invited to speak at Exeter University Debating Society, opposing the motion “This house believes Britain is better off out of the European Union.” I had agreed to participate before knowing the identity of the two speakers
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Political leaders in the EU are incapable of leading us out of the current multiple crises we face. I think that’s generally understood. But what we’ve been incapable of explaining is why is leadership in such a bad way? Where is
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It sounded a bit far-fetched – that the UK wants to set higher standards for its banks than the EU would allow. But these are Cameron’s words in his statement on Monday [from Hansard here]: To those who say that
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Take a deep breath. Step aside from your preconceptions about the UK and the EU, and your views on David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sakozy. I’m trying to do that when writing this blog entry. Follow the steps of
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There’s too much still to digest in the fall-out from yesterday’s summit for me to write a full blog entry on it all, but there is one technical point on which David Cameron is wrong. As if he didn’t already
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Anyone would think – from reading the stories today on The Guardian’s website – that the UK is shaping up for some major fight with the European Union over treaty reform prior to this week’s summit. There are two problems
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I suppose if you run Liberal Conspiracy you’re grateful for pieces from MPs and have to accept them. Today – via this tweet from Sunny Hundal – I read “We need to re-assess our approach to Europe” by Helen Goodman
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