Wednesday last week I headed off to Wembley Conference Centre to sit the ‘pre-selection’ tests to become an EU civil servant – the dreaded concours. I’ve written a bit about it on the blog before. True to form, the tests contained some downright ludicrous questions. This was the best among […]
John Reid used to have a reputation as Tony Blair’s firefighter. The person to send into a government department to sort it out. Then after the 2005 election, the macho Scot was given the macho job in government – Minister of Defence. The change in the UK’s geopolitical standpoint over […]
I probably should not have another rant on this blog about incompetent computer users, but I’m afraid I cannot resist it. Simply put, I have been writing little here over the last few days because I have – as ever – been spending far too many waking hours fixing damned […]
David Miliband MP, Minister of Communities and Local Government, has recently launched this blog on the website of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The first impression is a bit off-putting: the colour scheme is a very pastel shade of purple. The second impression – when you start to […]
Right then. The sits is still on the same server, but some of the problems I have been having with the blog now seem to have disappeared. Can’t last! Anyway, there will for sure be plenty of posts here in the next few days while I make up for lost […]
The only thing about the French attitude to competition to appear in this blog in recent times has been the discussion of the GDF/Suez merger in the energy sector, a merger that has largely been seen as a case of economic patriotism. So it was with some scepticism that I […]
The blog has been quiet over the last few days as – once more – I have been trying to nurture a webserver back to life. I don’t know where the thing even is exactly – it’s somewhere in Germany in a 1&1 service centre, and I don’t know if […]
Polly Toynbee is on about Sweden again in her column in The Guardian today – read it here. The column is not her best argued effort, but this did make me smile: No, Brown will not turn Swedish in one spasm. It took the Social Democrats nearly 70 unbroken years […]
I went along to the 2nd annual UACES lecture this evening, with Lord Chris Haskins, Chair of the European Movement. The title of the lecture was “CAP Reform: A Watershed for the European Union?” and details of the lecture can be found here.
No, despite the title I have not suddenly become a eurosceptic wanting to walk over the EU. This is far more literal. On the way to Stockwell underground station today – the first time I have walked that way for more than a week – I came across the most […]
I don’t want to write much about the death of Milosevic here as plenty of valuable analysis has taken place elsewhere – it is clear to me that the man was evil, and sadly he will not face justice. I do however want to comment on the rumours that have […]
I have today come across this excellent multi-author blog about demography – Demography Matters. For anyone that is concerned about the ageing populations in Europe, what to do about birth rates, family stuctures etc., this should be a worthwhile read. After having studied demography with Prof. David Coleman at Oxford […]
