You don’t mess with Monica Macovei. I’ve met her, and she strikes me as one of the most strident and outspoken politicians to be found in the European Parliament, building upon a two year stint as Romania’s Minister of Justice
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More Eurostar security oddities
On Tuesday this week I was on Eurostar 9161, the 1952 departure from Bruxelles Midi to London St Pancras, with stops in Lille Europe, Calais Fréthun and Ebbsfleet. Shortly after departure from Lille the train manager made an announcement, telling
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LabourList | Labour needs a new leader for London to take the attack to Boris
“Mark Ferguson was quick off the mark with his post profiling candidates who could be in the running to be Labour’s candidate for Mayor in 2016. The problem is that before we ask who the candidate should be, we need
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Whatever your thoughts on House of Lords reform, ‘the economy is more important’ is a lousy excuse
There are all kinds of legitimate positions about reform of the House of Lords. All elected, all appointed, some combination of both, even the abolishment of the house altogether. But saying that the issue is not important is not a
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Rick Falkvinge and the Pirates
A few weeks ago at a meeting in London, one of the Labour Party’s best known bloggers literally snorted at me when I said that Labour had much to learn from the Pirate Party. But I’m undeterred by that, and
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techPresident | My Government’s Commitment to the Surveillance State – the UK Queen’s Speech
“The Queen’s Speech is closest the UK has to some kind of State of the Union address. In the speech, delivered by the Queen in all her archaic royal splendor, the government of the day sets out its legislative agenda
Continue readingWhat happened at last night’s Ecofin? A lesson for today’s re-publica debate
I’m at re-publica in Berlin, appearing at 1315 on a panel about the European public sphere online. You can follow the panel here (Stage 5). This morning we started debating these issues with a speech from Euroblogger Ronny Patz, whose
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Social Network friend/connection/follow criteria
My presence on various social networks was getting rather out of hand, so I’ve had to work out a rule of thumb as to who to add on each network. Here are my conclusions – comments most welcome! Facebook – I’ll
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Until we’ve exhausted the opportunities within the current system: no EU institutional reforms please
Here we go again. Today Steven Hill has laid out his institutional vision for the European Union on Social Europe journal. His plan – with a bicameral European Parliament – is not too distant from ideas raised by Denis MacShane
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Is Open Europe simply becoming too sensible for the Tory Party?
Christopher Howarth of Open Europe has written an eminently sensible* piece for Conservative Home about how David Cameron needs to get his EU policy sorted out. Howarth’s case is that Cameron should appoint a Europe Secretary – one minister in
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I’m influencing people about the EU (and possibly think tank stuff too), but what does it mean?
I’m on a bit of a Twitter high these days. On the weekend I passed 5000 followers (probably only to drop below the level again once Twitter eliminates some spam-bots), and today two political Twitter league tables have been published.
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Lessons from Atheist Bus for the Gay Bus dispute
Stonewall has been running an excellent campaign on 1000 buses with the slogan “Some people are gay. Get over it!” So – surprise, surprise – some bigots decided to run a counter campaign on 25 buses with the slogan “Not
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