Gordon Brown has today launched a very thinly veiled attack on the European Commission’s trade deal with China on textiles in an article in the FT – summary here. His basic stance is towards those that have appealed for quotas is tough – protectionism is not going to save inefficient...
A really ingenious suggestion at bowblog has made me think once more about cost-offsetting and climate change. The idea would be to put a small levy on purchases made using eBay to account for the distance that goods would have to be shipped. Read the post here. It has made...
There’s a very lucid and internally coherent column in today’s Guardian from Larry Elliott entitled Edwardian Summer, drawing parallels between today’s economic stuggles (oil prices, flexiblility, worker backlash etc.) and the period pre-1914, the first era of globalisation. You have to take what Elliott says with a pinch of salt...
Apparently we should not use the term couch potato [Wikipedia definition] any more as this is giving the humble potato a bad image, according to the British Potato Council. Read more here. They are apparently mounting protests outside the offices of Oxford University Press – printers of the Oxford English...
So is this the price we have to pay to keep the European Constitution alive: to slow down the pace of enlargement, as suggested by Austrian Prime Minister Wolfgang Schüssel in today’s FAZ, reported by EUObserver? I suppose that such comments from a centre-right leader of a country in which...
Every country has its bizarre political traditions. The UK has more in the House of Commons than most countries have in total. But Sweden must have one of the sweetest and very old-fashioned political traditions – Goran Persson’s annual speeches at the Folkets Park in Björkvik, in the countryside somewhere...
My previous experience of football outside the UK has been quite grand. While on my travels I have watched Inter vs. Helsingborg FF at the San Siro in 2000, and FC Barcelona vs. Club Brugge at the Nou Camp in 2003 (both Champions League). In the last fortnight, I have...
Each and every one of us has to cross the bridge at some point. From the security in the relative innocence of youth, we traverse to arrive in the hard world of adult life and realise all of what we have been ‘building’ for years actually counts for very little....
I am on my way out of London for a fortnight. I have been looking forward to this escape so much, and my determination to get away has been hugely amplified by the total mess that is Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3 on a Friday afternoon. It is beyond me how...
I wrote about my first experiences of the NHS in Lambeth / Clapham in a post a little while ago. Referral to the minor surgery clinic in Grantham Road, Stockwell, took a little more than a week to sort out, and getting the appointment made was very swift.
Following on from my other post about getting on planes… What are we supposed to do about other problems that afflict flying, namely luggage allocations, overweight passengers, and duty free?
It’s quite a horrid place at the best of times, but travel on the London Underground has become really more fraught than ever now. This article from BBC News Online is an excellent summary of how people are feeling, and how odd the situation can become. I have a particular...