It was that great event in British political tradition today – the opening of Parliament and the Queen’s Speech. Surprise, surprise, the main focus was on law and order issues – full list of bills here. Clampdowns on this and that, and promises of more anti-terror legislation too. David Cameron […]
There is a bizarre late-night psychology to computer programming: you seem to be able to concentrate on it better the later it gets. Maybe because you slave away for hours and make no progress, promising yourself you might just go to bed after your next try at making some alteration. […]
The Court of Auditors did not agree to sign off the EU’s accounts for the 12th year running. Oh no, everyone screams, the EU is as corrupt as ever. Well, probably not actually. The House of Lords (who take a lot more care of EU matters than the House of […]
By chance I had half an hour to spare when returning to London from Oxford on Thursday. I left the coach at Marble Arch and wandered along Oxford Street. Much to my surprise, I found that there was no traffic along a whole section. This was actually because the Christmas […]
While walking along the streets of Walworth in South London you see plenty of interesting things. Yesterday some bizarre street signs caught my attention while walking with Helena to a friend’s party at Oval. First we came across a religious institution in a considerable state of disrepair, but with the […]
It’s quite rare, but from time to time you are thrown a somewhat bizarre idea that makes you think. This evening was one of those occasions. I was discussing politics with a university friend, Sarah Mulley, and discussion strayed onto the issue of reform of the House of Lords. I […]
Just a short post – I’ve been working from early until very late for the last couple of days, so the blog has suffered a bit, and I’m feeling quite shattered. Things should return more or less to normal over the coming few days. The good news is that I […]
It’s never pleasant to be without electricity, and especially not if it is as a result of systemic failings or incompetence. This is what seems to have been the cause of yesterday’s blackout in parts of Germany and France – see EUObserver and the BBC for the details. While not […]
More than 400,000 people from the new member states have moved to live and work in the UK since 2004. As EU citizens they are eligible to vote in the local, regional and European elections. Yet with the London Mayor elections on the horizon, what efforts can be made to […]
Odds and ends have been leaking out about Margaret Beckett preventing Geoff Hoon answering Parliamentary Questions on Europe on Tuesday this week – it even ended up at PMQs yesterday (see this amusing account from The Guardian). Hoon has also been in hot water for stating his hope that we […]
The US mid terms are around the corner, and the UK media has been working itself into a bit of a frenzy about all of it – well, it’s one of the few elections elsewhere conducted in English and there’s all that old rubbish about the special relationship, and Iraq […]
OK, I’ve had a joke here in the past about the frustrations of the damp in the kitchen in my flat – we were growing mushrooms there a few weeks ago, thanks to a dripping pipe from the washing machine that the previous tenant had not noticed. But weeks have […]
