Things have moved on a bit in the argument about EU money to the UK to help regions hit by floods last summer, the subject of this post. NEW – Helga Truepel MEP is now on the warpath on this one, having written a press release on the issue (EN...
UK Politics
Selection processes are nearing completion to determine the party lists for the June 2009 European Parliament election in the UK. For Labour (more here) and the Conservatives, whose internal party procedures prioritise sitting MEPs, it’s already possible to name more than half of the MEPs that are due to be...
Spain appoints its first female Defense Minister, part of Zapatero’s cabinet that’s gender balanced. Time has an article about her (via Liberal Conspiracy), and women in politics in Spain – it’s not easy going, but it must be an optimistic time to be a woman politician in Spain. The Sun,...
I must say I wasn’t a fan of Kate Hoey when I lived in her Vauxhall constituency a few years ago (mainly because she’s eurosceptic), and it seems that since her stint as a Junior Minister ended in 2001 she’s ended up becoming madder and madder. She’s a Labour MP...
I’ve been thinking about the degree of party-politicisation of the UK civil service for some time and have come to a rather unusual conclusion: the UK needs party-political State Secretaries (equivalents of Secrétaires d’État in France, Staatssekretäre in Germany, Statssekreterare in Sweden). A State Secretary would have a role equivalent...
How should PR professionals use the web? That’s one of the issues I read up on in order to better advise political clients with regard to the websites I produce as a freelancer. My main starting point in the UK has been Daljit Bhurji’s blog (many moons ago Daljit and...
Have a read of this brilliant article in today’s Guardian about a new cultural initiative involving Gordon Brown and Carla Bruni. I sort of wish Brown would do something so daring… Pity it’s not on the Number 10 website. I also realise that I may have inadvertently written an April...
My visits to London give me a short, sharp dose of news in the UK – and what a dose over the last few days. I saw part of a remarkable interview on Newsnight last night (available on the BBC website here – link top right) with Jeremy Paxman interviewing...
It’s always good to have played a small part in a victorious political campaign, and so it has proven with the website Chuka4Streatham; that was my limited contribution to Chuka Umunna’s successful bid to be selected as successor to Keith Hill as Labour candidate in Streatham. Details of the vote...
Can someone please explain to me what’s going on with the Labour Party’s branding strategy, or the lack of it? I’ve already posted about Labour’s logo problem (i.e. what is the logo presently) but now the party also has 3 different slogans on the go – the Blair-era new Labour...
Ken Livingstone’s new website for his campaign to be re-elected as Mayor of London has been launched today, and I’m happy and relieved to see that it’s a major step forward as Boris was ahead in the online race for a while. The site is very Ken-orientated and is low...
So Mohammed Al Fayed has had his say at the Diana inquest and he stands by his opinion that the car crash was organised by the UK intelligence services at the request of Prince Philip. All kinds of people are part of the stitch up: Tony Blair, Mi5, Mi6, the...