Back at the end of the 1990s one of the supposed strengths of the Britain in Europe campaign was that it brought together leaders of both industry and politics to create a broad coalition that would have eventually campaigned for the UK to join the Euro, if the vote had...
It sounded a bit far-fetched – that the UK wants to set higher standards for its banks than the EU would allow. But these are Cameron’s words in his statement on Monday [from Hansard here]: To those who say that we were trying to go soft on the banks, nothing...
Take a deep breath. Step aside from your preconceptions about the UK and the EU, and your views on David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sakozy. I’m trying to do that when writing this blog entry. Follow the steps of the simplified conversation below, and please comment if I am...
There’s too much still to digest in the fall-out from yesterday’s summit for me to write a full blog entry on it all, but there is one technical point on which David Cameron is wrong. As if he didn’t already look petulant enough, Cameron stated that he would make sure...
Anyone would think – from reading the stories today on The Guardian’s website – that the UK is shaping up for some major fight with the European Union over treaty reform prior to this week’s summit. There are two problems with this. First, the agreement might not be for treaty...
“It’s in Britain’s national interest to be in the EU” – it pains me how often we hear that phrase (or words that that effect) in speeches made by UK politicians about the EU. Yet we very seldom question its use. The need to start to question it, for me...
I’ve been watching today’s debate in the House of Commons about the response to riots across the UK. Others are better placed to analyse the substance of the security or policing response but I will focus on just one point: how MPs and the Prime Minister have been referring to...
David Cameron has announced that there are plans to be able to deploy water cannon ‘within 24 hours’ according to The Guardian. Why the time frame I wonder? They are going to ship in some water cannon trucks from Belgium or Germany? Whichever way, the use of water cannon is...
“We’re on track for a multispeed EU and the UK government is OK with it. That is the main conclusion for the UK from a week from a week when the Euro was, at least temporarily, brought back from the brink with a 15 point plan for its rescue. Oh,...
“Earlier this week, European Commissioner for the Internal Market Michel Barnier prompted stinging headlines in UK broadsheets for his comments about agencies such as Moody’s that have downgraded their ratings on Irish, Portuguese and Greek sovereign debt. “EU attacked for plan to gag rating agencies” screamed the Indy, while The...
Look across Europe, and think of the calibre of its leaders. Merkel, Sarkozy, Cameron. Zapatero, Berlusconi, Tusk. Reinfeldt, Løkke, Pahor. Brussels with Barroso and Van Rompuy. This is not a quality lineup, not what one would classically call a statesman or stateswoman among the lot of them. Not a Schuman,...
Well, not quite, but figuratively speaking… Bear with me. The gentleman pictured is Gus Murray (on Twitter here), an Australian currently resident in Denmark. He’s a graduate of Copenhagen Business School, and has been involved in numerous startup businesses and seems to be well integrated into Danish society, but has...