Budget Commissioner, Janusz Lewandowski, has said he will present some options next month for how direct EU taxes could work. The story is covered by the BBC. Cue a load of instant complains, howls of derision etc., particularly from Brits. Wait a moment. Think of what the EU does and […]
What should the Party of European Socialists do in 2014 to avoid a repeat of 2009’s disastrous European Parliament election results, and the mess over the dithering prior to 2009 that resulted in the PES not selecting a candidate to be Commission President? While Martin Schulz and the Socialist Group […]
My previous post about Citzalia has been creating waves in the small pond of EU debate throughout the day. The blog entry was first linked from Tim Worstall, then appeared in the Open Europe press review, and has then subsequently been linked by England Expects, Politics.ie, The Endless Track and […]
Yesterday – thanks to this tweet – I had the dubious honour to be one of the first people to have a look at a draft website for Citzalia, a project that promises some sort of virtual European Parliament role playing game. The official blurb is as follows: Citzalia is […]
If you’re an elected representative, what does an e-mail mean? If it’s from a constituent, individually written, it’s clear enough. But what about if it’s part of a campaign? In the clip above Clay Shirky argues that the predictive value of an e-mail for a member of Congress is zero, […]
It seems it’s the season for high level German politicians of yesteryear to have a go at the EU. Former Bundeskanzler Schmidt is quoted by Euractiv.de (Google translation here) as saying: Es ist im Augenblick keine Führungsperson da. Das ist eine schlimmere Situation, als wir sie jemals in 60 Jahren […]
I’m in Sweden at the moment, one of the most gender-conscious countries in the world, and motivated by this I’ve been thinking about the impact of election systems on gender representation, inspired in part by this from Talking about the EU. The general rule is that list-based election systems tend […]
I spent a few hours today at a seminar about left wing blogging in Sweden in Eskilstuna, a medium sized town 90 minutes south west of Stockholm. I was invited there by Fredrik Pettersson, one of my web clients. My presentation from the seminar is here, but this blog entry […]
So wrangles about how and when to hold a referendum on the future of the UK’s election system rumble on… and how messy the whole thing gets. The only given is that there will be a referendum sometime in this parliament – it’s in the coalition deal. So even if […]
Oh the irony! A Member of the European Parliament – Inge Grässle (whose name sounds rather like graisse, the French word for fat) – has had a go at the European Commission for creating its hundredth Director General post. Parliament Magazine has the story: Gräßle likened the commission to a […]
A friend pointed me to the Working Document on a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the citizens’ initiative from the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs. Rapporteurs for this are Zita Gurmai and Alain Lamassoure. This is not the first time I’ve […]
The original (53 million views at the time of writing) The Newport spoof (ace, especially for me as I grew up there, 1.2 million views at the time of writing) The Brussels (half-)spoof (where I live now, 26k views, some catching up to do!) Set all of those playing all […]
