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
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What’s the value of an e-mail (or a thousand) in a political lobbying campaign?
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
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Europa ist führungslos cries Helmut Schmidt. He’s right. But why?
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
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Gender and Labour’s MEPs
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
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Blogging to set the political agenda – some thoughts from Eskilstuna
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
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How the current ‘debate’ about election reform is giving precisely the opposite of a principled outcome
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
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Your staffing budget is fatter than my staffing budget! EP has no right to grumble at the Commission
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
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See no citizens, hear no citizens, speak to no citizens – the institutional approach to the European citizens’ initiative (ECI)
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
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New York – Newport – Brussels
The original (53 million views at the time of writing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsZlY0Vz4-o 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,
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Dog owners are a social menace
Right, this is a blog entry that’s going to annoy a lot of people. But I’m very annoyed. So here goes. I’m totally, utterly and completely sick of dog owners. Note I am not completely and utterly sick of dogs.
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Financial weight
It’s one of the problems I have as a freelancer, and I’m not alone in this – how much am I supposed to charge for the web design services I provide? An invoice running to hundreds or even thousands of
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Gender images on the Tube
Ever seen this notice on the London Underground? Bet you have. You’re sure? Perhaps it’s time for a bit of a guerrilla feminist campaign in the public space in the UK. All we would need would be 2 triangles of
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