Recent Posts

EU Politics

Taxing public servants (nationally and internationally)

Scandal! Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, pays no tax! How can this be when she’s lecturing more Greeks to pay tax!?! Story from The Guardian here. Sony Kapoor, so often the voice of reason throughout the Eurozone crisis on Twitter, stated “IMF staff don’t, period!” prompting all kinds […]

EU Politics

Declan Ganley

I was in the audience for Declan Ganley’s presentation at RUSI in London yesterday. It was one of the most interesting and civilised debates about EU matters I have attended in London in recent times. If you’re interested to hear what Ganley said the full film is here: For people […]

Observations

Destination Copenhagen

So it turns out that this has been a significant week for me personally. Only three days after I took the decision to cease the pursuit of selection to become a MEP, a further decision taken by someone I don’t know and I’ve never met has had further important implications. My partner’s […]

EU Politics, UK Politics

This EU referendum malarky

Sometimes I am old fashioned. Despite all its flaws, I still see no better way of governing a country than representative democracy. Almost all of the advanced societies in the world use that system. These representative democracies of course need to evolve as times change, with periodic reassessments of the […]

EU Politics, UK Politics

I give up

I’m not sure how to write this blog entry, for it relates to something that has been on my mind for a long, long time. Yet, unlike most of the things have have been on my mind a while, it is the first time I have blogged directly about this […]

UK Politics

Labour, Ed Miliband, Progress and promises

I was at the Progress Conference yesterday and heard the Ed Miliband speech that’s the centre piece of Andrew Rawnsley’s Observer column today. It was the best speech I’ve heard Ed give  and he responded in the Q&A session with determination and some humour. It’s clear that Ed believes deeply in […]