Jon Worth's Euroblog

24.10.2006 UK Politics

UK restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian workers, but how will it work?

The fact that the UK is going to restrict rights of Romanian and Bulgarian citizens to enter the UK has been dripping out through leaks and statements for a couple of months now. I first blogged about it on 31st

Charlie McCreevy (copyright European Commission Audiovisual Library)

24.10.2006 EU Politics

McCreevy the lad

I’ve not been especially kind to some of the EU’s ‘leaders‘ in this blog in recent times, and here’s another one for the series – European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, Charlie McCreevy. This is a quote from

24.10.2006 Technology

BusinessWeek on political blogging

BusinessWeek has an interesting (although somewhat short) overview of the political impact of blogging in this week’s edition – read it online here. Starting with a critique of webcameron, David Cameron’s video podcast / blog site, it goes on to

21.10.2006 UK Politics

So it’s OK to steal Council plants?

Sometimes you come across things in London that are utterly ludicrous. Today I noticed the sign pictured – that some person Walworth has installed a CCTV system to protect their plants on the street from theft. Now, either the plants

19.10.2006 Observations

Joys of Brighton

I’m spending 36 hours in Brighton at a conference, hence why no profound analysis of EU politics has been posted here today! 🙂 In short, it’s annoying to be away from home, from Helena, and staying in a grim hotel

18.10.2006 Technology

Google is fab (or mad)

Thanks to a new plugin – Slimstat – I’ve installed for my blog, I now have a whole wealth of data on how visitors are managing to find my blog. Some of the findings are really bizarre, but quite cool

18.10.2006 EU Politics

EU at 50 – no parties, a bizarre logo, but decent Open Source software

With the EU still stuck in a deep period of reflection (hibernation?) I suppose it was no surprise that the celebrations to mark 50 years since the Treaty of Rome have been scaled back a lot. Plans for contests and

17.10.2006 EU Politics

BeMEP, or maybe not

I’ve been sent the link to BeMEP.eu, and online game where you can play at being a Member of the European Parliament. It’s backed by – among others – the Konrad Adenauer foundation. But the problem is this: how does

16.10.2006 EU Politics

2 Swedish Ministers resign – and the government is just 10 days old!

It all looked so pleasant for The Moderates in Sweden a few weeks ago – Reinfeldt had led the party to a historically high share of the vote, and he would be Prime Minister. Yet just over a week after

15.10.2006 Technology

Google tourism: visit South Wales

I’ve been browsing around a bit with Google Earth over the last couple of days, including looking at the mad and bizarre website Googlesightseeing – well worth a few minutes if you have never seen it. So what can I

15.10.2006 UK Politics

Mysteries of canals and Swedish superstores in South Wales

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

13.10.2006 EU Politics

PES – showing signs of European party cohesion

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