Just back from my 2nd appearance on 18 Doughty Street’s Vox Politics and End of the Day programmes. Iain Dale was hosting this time – first time I’ve met him and he’s very friendly and personable for a Tory. There was a civilised and quite interesting debate about the 15 […]
17th September 2006. Not a vital day in UK politics, but crucial for Sweden. It was the day of the Swedish general election when the Social Democrats lost control of the Riksdagen after 12 years in power. I was at Norra Latin in Stockholm for the election ‘party’ of the […]
Bit slow to post it here, but I’m on Vox Politix on 18 Doughty Street tonight at 22:00 BST, together with Sean Fear, a regular pundit on PoliticalBetting.com, writer of the Dave’s Part blog, Dave Osler, and former Paddy Ashdown Spin Doctor Jo Phillips. Good to know I have some […]
The Party of European Socialists has been highlighting childcare issues over the last week, encouraging its member parties and PES Activists to get together, discuss the issue, and highlight where there are problems. They have also published some interesting research about the matter, looking at how the availability of childcare […]
Following hot on the heels of Oliver Kamm’s criticism of blogging and democracy (see this post), there’s a heated debate going on about Tim O’Reilly’s ideas for a broad code of conduct for bloggers – and it’s even considered important enough to be a main story at The Guardian’s website. […]
This blog is syndicated at the JEF-related online magazine Taurillon, and from time to time some interesting articles appear there. Today I happened to come across Paolo Vacca’s appeal for a Core Europe. For anyone who has ever been to a JEF or UEF event, such an appeal from Paolo […]
I came across Oliver Kamm’s article ‘A Parody of Democracy‘ in which the author tries to make the case that political blogs poison debate, rather than enhance it. Kamm is obviously sufficiently keen to avoid debate that it’s not actually possible to comment on his own ‘blog‘. The essence of […]
A long weekend, no travel to faraway places, so what better than the take Victor the Streetcar (yes, their cars do have names) and head off to the South Coast – Eastbourne for some inline skating, Bexhill for a potter along the promenade, and Hastings for a wander around The […]
I’m sat typing at the table in the window in my small flat in Walworth. A small vase of daffodils stands on the table and the April sun is shining on the cars parked in the road outside. It’s Easter Sunday, the middle of a long weekend, and I should […]
The UK press has been up in arms with reports that Gordon Brown has ‘backed down’ and the Tories are having a rant about the rebate bombshell. The whole thing makes really sickening reading. See The Guardian and BBC. A bunch of nationalistic and mis-informed Tory bloggers have been having […]
The New Statesman is running its New Media Awards again this year, and I’ve just been casting my eye over the list of nominees in the Elected Representative category. What a terrible collection! There are some better efforts at interactivity on some of these websites (there are a few ‘blogs’ […]
I’ve had a go at Poland’s approach to the EU here previously and – as before – it cannot be defended. The dual majority system for Council voting, as proposed by the European Constitution, is the way to go to streamline decision making. However, thanks to some very geeky calculations, […]
