For the past week I have had an awful sense of déjà vu. Shenanigans in the House of Commons about Brexit. Rumours about removal of the whip from Tory MPs should they rebel on votes. And the threat of No Deal. It feels like the autumn of 2019 all over...
(Please read this post as me giving my view on what the EU should do, for the sake of the EU. I am trying to set my view as a Brit for whom all of this has some minor personal implications to one side.) Yesterday Brandon Lewis said in the...
I think this story in this morning’s Guardian (front page in the printed edition as well – but with a different title – more about that below) about Brexit is overblown. I tweeted as much late last night, but got a load of critique back this morning, so let’s take...
A Minister who had presided over a fiasco as major as Gavin Williamson has with the A-Level results algorithm problems would – in normal times – have either resigned or been sacked. A Special Adviser who had admitted a major breach of lockdown rules would – in normal times –...
For the past 14 years, jonworth.eu has been my online identity. It’s the URL of this blog, the hub for all I do online. Even as blogging in the traditional sense has diminished, my blog has still accompanied me through all the best and worst of my work and personal...
So the UK Government is at it again. Sunak has announced a “world-leading £1.57 billion rescue package to help cultural, arts and heritage institutions” The show must go on. We’re introducing a world-leading £1.57 billion rescue package to help cultural, arts and heritage institutions weather the impact of coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/J3KXUOxJEE...
When I moved to Berlin in 2013 I needed to find a flat. I used a blog entry to help with my search, and wrote up my search experiences in the blog post “How To Find a Flat In Berlin” in January 2014. That post became one of the most...
Even the original timetable for Brexit was ridiculously tight – out by the end of March 2019, and then the future relationship to be concluded 21 months later, by the end of December 2020. Remember that trade negotiations with third countries generally take more than 5 years, sometimes as much...
I read this tweet earlier: Hearing rumours that Dominic Cummings will get a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. — Christopher Snowdon (@cjsnowdon) June 5, 2020 It had a hundred odd retweets then, and more than a thousand now at the time of writing. It has to be a...
On BBC Breakfast this morning, recounted by The Guardian here, Robert Jenrick (Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government) said the following: [Dominic Cummings] has given his explanation to the prime minister, who listened and concluded that he’d acted reasonably and legally. The prime minister then asked him to give...
Yesterday was a public holiday in Berlin and I took a little cycle trip along the Teltowcanal all the way to the small town Kleinmachnow, sandwiched between Zehlendorf and Potsdam, south west of Berlin. The canal itself was partly the border between East and West Germany, and East and West...
So it is done. Mogherini has today been appointed as the new Rector of the College of Europe at a meeting of the Academic Council of the College, to be confirmed by the Administrative Council in June. Not that there is a formal statement about the appointment yet – that...