Back in 2013 when we naively thought social media could be a force for political good, Andy Carvin wrote a book called Distant Witness, which was about his experiences covering and understanding political upheaval from the other side of the world, and using social media (especially Twitter) to do so. The […]
Germany’s proportional election system (Mixed-member system), six parties represented in the Bundestag (CDU/CSU, SPD, AfD, FDP, Die Linke, Grüne) of which five could possibly participate in a government (only AfD would not), and no party likely to receive more than a third of the votes at the 26th September Bundestag […]
Yesterday the European Parliament Conference of Presidents agreed that two Committees – INTA and AFET – would vote on the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) this week, but that any decision as to when the plenary of the European Parliament would vote on it was deferred. The decision was […]
A Twitter thread by Jeff Jarvis caught my eye yesterday. “I far prefer blogs to email newsletters & podcasts” Jeff wrote, and I agree with him. I mused about why this was over my morning espresso. I pondered further during a cable internet outage at lunchtime. And now, when I […]
Days before the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) finally emerged on Christmas Eve, the European Parliament had already expressed its concern at the process, and refused to be bounced into last minute ratification as the House of Commons was. Chair of the EPP Group Manfred Weber wrote this at […]
The elevation of David Frost to Cabinet, and him largely replacing Michael Gove as the UK Government’s coordinator of all things Brexit, understandably generated considerable debate. Jill Rutter penned a piece for UK in a Changing Europe about what we do and do not know about the UK Government’s new […]
Does Keir Starmer think Ministers should act legally? We don’t really know. Apparently the public do not think politicians should ask for other politicians’ heads during a health crisis, so that’s Labour’s line: Sir Keir Starmer says he will not be calling for Matt Hancock to resign over the unlawful […]
For years on this blog I have painstakingly been documenting the Brexit saga – in more than 50 diagrams and more than 200 blog posts. I don’t know if anyone can really have described themselves as a Brexit expert back at the time of the referendum, but over the past […]
One of the consequences of leaving it so late – 24 December 2020 – to agree The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) was that ratification could not be completed before the Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2021. The European Parliament stated it would not have the time […]
Slam dunk. Lambast Michael Gove with a hasty tweet hammered out while drinking my morning coffee. Push the emotional buttons of both Remain people and Scottish pro-Indy people in one go. *So* much to unpick in a 10 word tweet! 1️⃣ So Michael, you now agree there is a hefty […]
A question has been on my mind for some time: when is the UK Government going to really begin to do the hard implementation work that is inevitable as a consequence of having signed the Northern Ireland Protocol and the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA)? The answer, I think, […]
Ah. Here we ago again. “Leak reveals Labour plan to focus on flag and patriotism to win back voters“. And the reactions are pretty predictable too – Clive Lewis MP expresses caution, Ian Dunt tries to separate patriotism from nationalism, Sunder Katwala puts up pictures of Labour leaders with union […]
