Some of the argument about fact and fiction in the EU referendum campaign is the normal, everyday political stuff trying to bend the facts to suit your purposes. The £350 million a day sent to Brussels claim by the Leave side is in this category – ultimately wrong, but based...
“Eurozone crosses Rubicon as Portugal’s anti-euro Left banned from power” screamed Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph on Friday last week. The Telegraph even followed up with a piece about why Portugal’s situation was a threat to everyone else. Everyone from Daniel Hannan to Owen Jones jumped on it, and...
According to Philip Stephens in the FT “Facts finally collide with ideology on Europe“, as his column gives solid backing to the FCO’s Balance of Competences review. The reports are “shorn of ideology and political judgments” he says, while “Iain Duncan Smith, Owen Paterson and Philip Hammond were among cabinet...
So with rather little fanfare, the UK Government’s EU balance of competence review has today published its first six reports (links to PDFs here). The first six reports concern Taxation, Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid, Health, Foreign policy, Single market and Animal Health and Welfare and Food Safety. So what can...
For someone as active as I am in social media, perhaps the title of this blog entry is a little extreme. But bear with me. Or, to be more precise, bear with me those of you in the ever dwindling band of people who are going to read this. This...