Recent Posts

Pants
EU Politics

Italian politics: pants, udeur and bandanas

Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell drew a whole series of images of John Major during the 1990s with underpants over his other clothes. In one particular cartoon Major – presumably after recycling some dead policy – puts the pants in the dirty washing only for him to don the same pair […]

Blair ears
UK Politics

Let’s all have a whinge at Blair

As ever Tony Blair is a character who manages to anger and inspire in equal measure. For some reason over the last few days, a good fortnight after his appearance at the UMP Congress, there has been more press coverage of whether or not Blair will be a candidate for […]

Zapatero
EU Politics

Spain and the EU: what’s missing?

Plenty of EU leaders breathed a sigh of relief when José María Aznar was ousted as Prime Minister of Spain in April 2004. The Blair-Berlusconi-Aznar triumvirate was broken and as Spanish troops left Iraq by June 2004 it looked like a new era of Spain-EU relations would be ushered in. […]

EP building
EU Politics

Hannan’s words: the seeds of further division?

Eurosceptic Tory-boy Daniel Hannan caused uproar in the European Parliament this week by comparing the procedural powers granted to the EP’s President to the way powers had been granted to Hitler (FT, PA). According to Euractiv his words were “It is only my affection for you that prevents me from […]

Citizen Coin
EU Politics

Citizen Coin

2009 marks 10 years of the Eurozone – it’s time for a bit of a celebration. So the European Commission has come up with the idea of minting some celebratory coins. So how should the design be chosen? Commission DG for Economic & Financial Affairs has launched an online poll […]

Fat stomach
UK Politics

Obesity in Sweden and the UK

I stumbled across this story in The Local story that charts a rise of obesity among young men in Sweden – as high as 1 in 20, or 5%. Apparently it’s putting pressure on Swedish healthcare. Well, compare that to the NHS stats – see this link, and then look […]

Social Network logos
Technology

Social networks profilerate – where do I start?

Facebook, Linked In, Xing, Ecademy… I’m starting to get swamped by different social networking systems. What, if any, is the point of adding people as friends / contacts in more than one of these systems? Plus for Linked In, Xing and Ecademy you have to even pay cash to get […]

Thomas Bodström
EU Politics

Time to sort out the separation of powers in Sweden

Thomas Bodström was Justice Minister in the Swedish government of the Social Democrats until 2006, and was well known for his high profile efforts to tighten rape laws in Sweden. So who is it now, still a MP, who is the plaintiff’s attorney (mÃ¥lsägarbiträde) in the high profile rape case […]

David Hanson MP screenshot
Technology

MPs, MEPs, candidates… A quick plug

Another day, another political website – today the website for David Hanson MP went live. Of particular note is the fact that this site is the first I’ve launched on a Green Web Host server powered by green electricity – although I must say I’m not entirely convinced by their […]