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 […]
It’s election campaign time in Poland this month. Donald Tusk, leader of the main opposition party, has been campaigning in London; the estimated 1 million Poles living in the UK is undoubtedly fertile ground for support for his party. Yet on my travels this weekend to Belgium the sheer scale […]
Ever since the negotiations started before the summer I’ve been no fan of the UK’s position regarding the EU Reform Treaty, with the government trying to argue that the Treaty is different from the European Constitution hence meaning no referendum is needed on the text. I’ve posted about the argument […]
The last few weeks have not really been a high point for the blog – basically silence! It’s not that I’ve stopped thinking or reflecting. It’s more that I have not found enough time to sit down and put a few thoughts together. I’m still in London for the moment, […]
“The European Parliament is trying to decide how numbers of MEPs will be allocated between different Member States in the future. The Severin-Lamassoure idea is there should be 750 MEPs, with 6 per Member State, and a maximum of 96 for the largest country. Seats for the countries in between […]
I’m glad to see that the Miliblog is now back online, only this time as a group blog together with Minister for Europe Jim Murphy, and 4 FCO civil servants too. I hope he manages to surpass his posts about burping cows on the old Defra blog… More generally it’s […]
The Finns are not always known for their humour, but JEF-Finland has managed to make a funny set of movies busting the myths about the EU. They are posted on the Kurkkudirektiivi (trans: Cucumber Directives) website. Apparently the Finns put some sort of tar(?) in their food, and the EU […]
It sounds like a nice line to take – the EU should stop its institutional navel gazing and get on with delivering results, looking outwards to deal with the threats in the world. Those were the words of David Miliband in his speech to the Labour Party Conference this week, […]
I’ve been a bit slow on the uptake writing this as I’ve been away in Belgium for the last 5 days. Contrary to what I had so much hoped Miranda Grell was found guilty of 2 charges of claiming a Lib Dem opponent was a paedophile in a court ruling […]
I’ve always had some strange admiration for Victorian Britain. The sheer yet elegant scale of many of the machines needed thanks to nothing more advanced than coal power. So as today was London Open House day I thought it would be worth my while to pay a visit to a […]
