The original blog: commentary about everything except transport
“Few in Labour would have noticed it taking place, but President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso delivered his annual ‘State of the European Union’ address (highlights here) on Wednesday this week, at the moment when Labour politicians and
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I’m no fan of First Past the Post. It distorts the UK election system in so many ways. But much as I dislike the system, it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future. So what can be done to improve
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(Thanks for @spignal for pointing out the film) Extraordinary ‘debate’ on Newsnight last night between Amadeu Altafaj Tardio (Ollie Rehn’s spokesperson) and Peter Oborne. Oborne repeatedly calls Altafaj Tardio ‘the idiot in Brussels’, a phrase that Paxman also uses, and Oborne
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Have a read of this piece (see comments – link changed – a version is available here) on AP’s website about Barroso’s State of the European Union speech. It’s entitled “Top EU official seeks closer policy union” and then starts “A
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Barroso has just finished delivering his State of the European Union address to the European Parliament. While – as before – we had a bit of a chuckle in the blogosphere with buzzword bingo, this was a serious occasion and Barroso rose
Continue reading “As last week’s column appeared on LabourList, voters in Berlin were going to the polls to choose the 149 members of the Abgeordnetenhaus, the parliament for the state of Berlin and one of the 16 states of Germany. Full election
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It’s 12:22 on Saturday 24th September 2011 and I’m sat in a friend’s flat in Berlin. At about this time 10 years ago I first set foot in this city, the start of a remarkable journey through European politics, work
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Last year a bunch of EU blog nerds had a laugh when José Manuel Barroso made a State of the European Union address (more here). The very notion that Barroso would do this made us smile, and knowing he’s not a great
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In a regular government, when a Minister is struggling he or she is removed by the Prime Minister. I don’t think anyone has any doubt that the European Union is struggling to get to grips with the Eurozone / debt
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A Twitter exchange this afternoon with @olafcramme and @anthonypainter (shown in the screenshot to the right) in light of both Thursday’s election in Denmark and today’s Berlin state election got me thinking: is Nordic bloc politics the solution to the
Continue reading “Denmark’s general election took place on Thursday. My column here on August 30th covered the lay of the land as the campaign started. So what actually happened? And what does it tell us? The headline result – a narrow victory
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CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FILM ON YOUTUBE This video of Green AM Jenny Jones having a go at Boris Johnson is worth watching, not least because of Boris losing his rag and refusing to answer the AM’s questions (and
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