I’ve moved from a global city, well renowned for its sights and economy (London), to a rather grey provincial capital where the EU institutions are based (Brussels). But I love it. Most people I speak to in London just cannot understand it. Why would I want to leave London behind? […]
Just a quick plug for the ‘Who’s Your Candidate?’ campaign 2009 being run by the Danish pro-EU / centre-left organisation Nyt Europa. While the changes to how the European Commission President is elected in the Reform Treaty are rather cosmetic, it’s nevertheless right to push MEPs and European Political Parties […]
I’ve been meaning to write a post about the Reform Treaty and the Common Agricultural Policy for a while, but Richard Corbett MEP has beaten me to it. Richard has also written more on the Compass website. However I think it is worth looking at the issue of the Common […]
Today would have been Election Day. As October is now behind us it would be pleasant to be able to draw a line under what has been an awful month for Labour. Yet try as I might, I find it hard to be upbeat looking forward. First we had all […]
What do you do when an Uzbek businessman with a questionable background (Alisher Usmanov) wants to take over a UK football club (Arsenal)? Well, as a start you put together an opposition alliance comprising a dissident former British Ambassador to Tashkent, a few hundred bloggers, and a UKIP MEP in […]
I’ve come to the conclusion that life in the big city – London – is really not for me. I’m currently splitting my time between London and Brussels, doing my website work in Belgium yet coming to the UK to visit clients and run training courses. I’ve not felt so […]
Discussions in the Conservative Party about the creation of an English Grand Committee have been causing a bit of a stir in the last few days. As I’ve argued before, these sorts of issues need to be ironed out, but letting the Speaker of the House of Commons decide what […]
Friends of the Earth Europe have released a cartoon animation about how Exxon Mobil continues to fund climate change deniers, and how its advertising campaign is misleading regarding it’s environmental behaviour. As well as the concern about climate change there’s another issue below the surface that is alluded to in […]
Seemingly there’s no limit to the efforts to which ‘Lib Dems are always the nice guys‘ Andy Mayer will go to draw attention to Miranda Grell’s appeal over her conviction for electoral offences – he’s listed his own blog using Google Adwords when someone searches for Miranda in Google. Quite […]
It seems to be increasingly rare that I turn up to debates and lectures these days and emerge saying to myself that I really hard learned something new and interesting. Perhaps the circles in which I work are too narrow. Yet this week I’ve been privileged to hear two excellent […]
If you just ask for ‘a coffee’ in a different European cities, what do you get? In Brussels the answer is simple – a long-ish espresso type coffee, with a slightly burnt edge, normally served with a biscuit (perhaps a Speculoos), a couple of sugars, and some cream. In France […]
I can’t do the complex topic of the British Constitution justice in a swift Sunday night blog post, but plenty of concerns about British constitutional structures have been playing on my mind since the Brown ‘non-election’ furore on 6th October, and ongoing fights about the EU Reform Treaty. In short […]
