5th September 1998 – the first day the very first iMac was available in the UK. I’m not sure anyone then would have imagined iMac would be a machine that would help save Apple’s fortunes (more on recent Mac successes, the original iMac launch keynote), but the £999 machine with […]
MEPs are having a whinge that a French rail strike is going to make it hard for them to get from Strasbourg when this week’s European Parliament plenary session ends. Struan Stevenson, a UK Tory, has complained that France doesn’t exactly make it easy for European Parliamentarians to get to […]
‘Well, he would say that wouldn’t he’ will surely be the reaction (if anyone does bother reacting) to Nick Clegg’s article in today’s Independent about the state of British democracy. But just read it. British politics is archaic, out of touch, and badly in need of reform (as I’ve previously […]
“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.” So said Aneurin Bevan. Presumably that quote is behind Labour’s current by-election campaign in Crewe & Nantwich. In response to the death of a tough and principled left winger, the party’s final […]
Welt am Sonntag reported yesterday that David Miliband might be a candidate for the EU Foreign Minister High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the foreign affairs position created by the Treaty of Lisbon. A FCO spokesperson has made a very bland statement that Miliband is […]
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 […]
When any part of Europe is hit by a natural disaster, the country where the disaster strikes can appeal to the EU for assistance – these solidarity arrangements were put in place after the 2002 central European floods. So when parts of the UK were flooded last year it seemed […]
Apparently the rules for what ingredients you’re allowed in bread are more precisely determined in French law than European law. As a result, a bakery in Barnsley is managing to sell baguettes to that very French institution – SNCF. I’ve tried to look into this is more depth, and via […]
So Labour took a beating in yesterday’s local elections; as I write the Mayor of London results are not public, but it looks bad for Ken. I’m not going to write anything here in the traditional vein – Labour on the ropes, bla, bla – but instead reflect on the […]
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 […]
Seems that my previous post about outgoing Italian PM Romano Prodi trying to stitch up the Italian Commission nomination was wide of the mark – it seems mortadella tried but was ultimately not successful (and he subsequently sounds bitter – as in this EUObserver article). So what happened, and is […]
Presumably a bit wounded by the defeat of the left in the recent Italian elections, and the fact that he had to see Berlusconi-ally Franco Frattini strutting his stuff as EU Justice & Home Affairs Commissioner for 2 years, Romano Prodi seems to playing one final card – to stitch […]
