The European Commission has put together the smart video above about the EU budget. Clearly professionally filmed and produced, I wonder whether it will it will convince anyone about the merits of the budget? Yes, OK, it’s 1% of EU GNI, that’s all very well. It’s decided in a transparent […]
Since mid-September I’ve been a resident of Tower Hamlets, Bethnal Green & Bow constituency to be precise. I’m still trying to work out what’s going on there, and how I might do something in the local Labour Party. I’m hence not in a position to be able to comment on […]
There’s nothing quite like sitting for 5 hours in an uncomfortable seat with a fat, tattooed lump of a man reclining the seat in front of you, forcing a sharp ridge of protruding aluminium into your shin. The distance between my face and seat in front of me could literally […]
16th September – order O2 broadband and they send me a confirmation e-mail. 17th September they set up my direct debit. 24th September they activate the line, 2 days late, but not bad. The day after they even rather nauseatingly tell me I am connected, and to smile about it. […]
OK, I have to admit it – the IMAP account on my shared hosting cannot cope with the quantity of e-mail I am receiving, and the size of the attachments I get. So it’s time to make use of the Gmail account I’ve had for a while, and use its […]
I’m a big fan of using social media – particularly Twitter (via one of more hash tags) and blogs – during large events and conferences. The event itself, the speakers’ presentations, are like a rock being dropped into a pool, and the social media reactions are the ripples going out […]
Political Betting has raised the issue of whether David Miliband’s decision to get Diane Abbott onto the ballot paper in the end costed him the leadership. The line is that Abbott being on the ballot motivated more on the left of the party and affiliated organisations to cast their ballots, […]
I’ve just sat through a largely uninspiring panel at Labour Conference entitled “European Social Democracy: The Path Back To Power”, organised by FEPS and EPLP. Roger Liddle chaired in his charming but rather bumbling manner, and the panellists were Philip Cordery, Roland Rudd, Claude Moraes and Rushanara Ali. None of […]
James Kirkup on the Telegraph Blog has raised the interesting idea that David Miliband, pipped to the Labour leadership by his brother, might leave UK politics for the IMF. Kirkup says the info on this comes from Bagehot in The Economist, and as Bagehot used to be Charlemagne for that […]
I heard a short speech in Berlin yesterday evening by Ulrike Guérot from the European Council on Foreign Relations at an event organised by Europa Union. The essential gist of her presentation was that, now, 20 years on since the fall of the Berlin Wall (and indeed that’s half as […]
At Bloggingportal we came up with the idea of having a laugh at the expense of our esteemed President, Jose Manuel Barroso with his “State of the European Union” speech by playing bullshit bingo. The entire speech is now available here, and the Wordle for it looks like this: Barroso […]
Aahmed ElAmin, one of the developers of Citzalia (whose words were followed hook, line and sinker by The Guardian) has penned his own side of the story at a website entitled The Royal Gazette. Odd location, and his approach to the whole thing is even odder. You can read the […]
