I’ve just beens sent this link to a website entitled Icelanders are NOT terrorists. The Icelander who informed me is a friend and political contact – Eirikur Bergmann Einarsson – who has been mounting a one man defence of his country in the UK press. So what do I make […]
Back in the summer it was a fun idea from Ariane Sherine in The Guardian, a Photoshop mockup, and a Pledgebank page. Then just before the pledge expired it started to get a bit big, with Matthew Parris writing about the effort to get ads on the buses in his […]
I thought the hearing with Baroness Ashton in the INTA Committee in the European Parliament would make some sparks fly. I was wrong. Ashton took the sensible, yet rather dull, approach of being pleasant and kind to the EP, and going out of the way to say that she would […]
So you want to watch the Baroness Ashton hearing in the EP? Good luck! Well, if you have any sort of non-standard computer that is. I could not manage to make the streaming work on Firefox or Safari on a Mac (both cut out continually), or even with Firefox or […]
The Socialist Group in the European Parliament have just published a press release in which Group Leader Martin Schulz is critical of the games being played by right wingers before Baroness Ashton’s hearing later this evening. Tricks are undoubtedly being played but, Martin, it takes one to know one I […]
Have a read of this article from BBC News Online. On the basis of one reading of it can any reader have the faintest idea what is actually going on? The headline – Vote splits Czechs over EU role – is very wide of the mark. It’s actually that Mirek […]
Via Talking About the EU – this is a great pic. It’s the leaders preparing for the family photograph at the Paris Eurogroup meeting that Brown also attended, but what else were they looking for? While the UK PM might partially help European countries find their way out of the […]
There are few times when politics in the EU can be fun. 23 languages and tiresome procedures mean there’s very little spectacle. Monday evening will be one of the rare exceptions. Designate European Commissioner for Trade Baroness Ashton will be facing more than 2 hours of questions in the International […]
It’s the first rule of EU negotiations: present a united front in Brussels and then, even if things don’t go your way, you can retreat to your national capital and say “OK, at least we fought for X, Y or Z”. Not so for Poland at this week’s European Council […]
Gawain at England Expects has an interesting article this evening that alleges that the contract for MyParl.eu has been cancelled. Lest we forget, this is the EU-funded project being run by Euractiv and Mostra that aimed to create a sort of social network of national parliamentarians and MEPs, and drew […]
I would like to welcome another T Harris to the British political blogosphere. Yes, everyone knows about Tom Harris MP, but from today Lord Toby Harris’s blog is live. Toby was Labour leader on Haringey Borough Council for more than 20 years, a member of the London Assembly for one […]
I don’t know enough about economics to comment on practicalities of the current economic turmoil, but I want to instead reflect on the way the media – especially in the UK and USA – needs to change its vocabulary when reporting on what is going on. Take today’s BBC News […]
