CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FILM ON YOUTUBE This video of Green AM Jenny Jones having a go at Boris Johnson is worth watching, not least because of Boris losing his rag and refusing to answer the AM’s questions (and also denying snorting the particulates off the roads). The essence...
Whenever anyone mentions class in British politics I immediately recoil. It comes from times in Labour politics where, being the son of 2 teachers and with a degree from Oxford, people view me with suspicion. Judge me for what I say and do, not what my background is, damn it,...
“It’s hard to imagine how, had they won in 2010, a Labour government would be facing the EU’s current economic and political woes. Labour’s words about the European Union were always softer and more favourable than the Tories’, but Blair’s commitment to put Britain at the heart of Europe always...
For the last couple of days I’ve been trying to get my head around the proposal from the government to elect Policing and Crime Commissioners. This Guardian piece got me interested in the issue but offered more questions than answers, while a good discussion at Toby Harris’s blog spurred me on. The...
I had an interesting discussion this morning in Oslo with an old friend (Hallstein Bjercke) and his colleague at IKT Norge, Torgeir Waterhouse. IKT is the trade association for the Norwegian IT sector, and Hallstein and Torgeir work on IT and tech policy questions with Norwegian politicians on a daily basis....
In a variety of different ways I’ve been working with politicians on the net for more than a decade now. At one level it’s fine work – everyone knows the future is going to be online, right? It’s cheaper to communicate online than it is through traditional media, so the...
An election was called 2 days ago in Denmark (there’s a Wikipedia page about it here), and the vote will take place in 18 days, on 15th September. Yet even as a politics nerd in the UK, you would be forgiven for not knowing it was even happening. There is...
I’ve organised my fair share of Facebook campaigns over the years – some with tremendous success and others that went nowhere. I’ve also spoken to people who have run major Facebook activities in the past, people like Anton Abele whose Stop Street Violence campaign became front page news in Sweden....
“A moralising article from Tony Blair is enough to make anyone choke over their Sunday morning cornflakes, and his opinion piece in today’s Observer is no exception. It’s here if you feel like a browse. One line from Blair’s piece, even quoted in the front page article about it, struck...
I’ve been watching today’s debate in the House of Commons about the response to riots across the UK. Others are better placed to analyse the substance of the security or policing response but I will focus on just one point: how MPs and the Prime Minister have been referring to...
David Cameron has announced that there are plans to be able to deploy water cannon ‘within 24 hours’ according to The Guardian. Why the time frame I wonder? They are going to ship in some water cannon trucks from Belgium or Germany? Whichever way, the use of water cannon is...
Summer is silly season in politics, and I’m doing my best to prove this blog isn’t immune to that, with the second odd David Miliband story in two days. Yesterday’s was about Syria and politics and today’s is about… falafel. I was in Amman, Jordan last week, and one of...