For some strange reason, Helena was keen to visit Newport, the town in South Wales where my parents still live and the place where I was brought up. So we set off yesterday and returned yesterday for a whistle-stop tour of all the sights – Tredegar House, the Transporter Bridge, […]
The Party of European Socialists voted yesterday to suspend its Slovak member party SMER due to their decision to enter a coalition with right wing and populist parties, a matter that I have previously written about here. News on the story from EUObserver and the PES Press Release give more […]
Greenpeace have launched a fab campaign to make Apple Computer go green – have a look at the brilliant campaign website. You can send Steve Jobs an e-mail, and they want people to make their own T-Shirts for the campaign and all kinds of cool stuff. So they will get […]
I spent an hour this evening at LSE listening to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano [Wikipedia] speak on the topic ‘Is there a future for European Integration?’, part of the LSE European lecture series [details]. The event got off to a bad start: a standing ovation for Napolitano in typical Italian […]
You never know what you are going to get when you move into a new flat. But mushrooms growing on the kitchen floor is not something I was expecting when I moved to my new place in Walworth. The mushroom pictured – about 3cm high – is actually under the […]
Commission Vice President Günter Verheugen has had a rant that too many senior officials in the European Commission are too powerful, and want to take decisions themselves rather than letting the Commissioners know what’s going on – see this article from EUObserver. Well, for anyone that’s ever had any dealings […]
After a quick cup of coffee to warm myself up, I headed back out of the plush surroundings of Claridge’s hotel and cycled back across London under the heavy autumn skies. I’m back in reality now. I have a few very complex questions flying around in my head: why was […]
I’m sat writing from the Edelman blogging event this morning with Iain Dale, Richard Edelman, Nick Reynolds (BBC), Kevin Anderson (Guardian), Peter Hirshberg as the speakers. Has not been a good start – it’s been pouring with rain and I was absolutely drenched on the way here. Not really the […]
I’ve just returned from an evening at the LSE debate entitled ‘The Global Age: Europe, India, China‘ – more here. The debate was all good stuff – Anthony Giddens and Will Hutton talking of the value of European integration, and how Europe’s problems were not thanks to globalisation. Yet apart […]
Leader of the House Jack Straw has waded into Britain’s debate about multi-culturalism over the last couple of days, stating that he asks Muslim women wearing a veil to remove it when he meets them at surgeries in his Blackburn constituency. Straw’s words – both in written form yesterday, and […]
I’m now the wrong side of 25, have moved into a new flat to live with my girlfriend, and we have settled into a very domestic kind of life. The highlight of the week has been… the arrival of a new espresso machine (Gaggia Classic) courtesy of Helena’s parents. Once […]
I am utterly perplexed as to why the issue of the redeployment of PC Alexander Omar Basha away from security duties at the Israeli Embassy in London has caused such a fuss – see this article from The Guardian that explains the matter. The official reason is that the Met […]
