Within a couple of days of each other The Economist and the FT have written pieces about how tensions in the governing coalition in Berlin are having an impact on EU policymaking. The central topic is Germany’s decision to oppose the phase out of internal combustion engine powered cars at...
As explained in this blog post, I am seeking a place on the German Grüne European Parliament election list. The decision as to who makes it onto the list will be taken at a party conference on 10th November in Leipzig. This is my first campaign video, examining whether Germany...
Yesterday one of the initiators of the “Volksentscheid Fahrrad” in Berlin came to make a presentation at my local Grüne party meeting. The campaign initiators want to use Berlin’s direct democracy systems to put 10 major changes to Berlin cycle infrastructure into law – these include some pretty major infrastructure...
Just over two years ago I joined the Grüne in Germany. My reasons at the time I outlined here. But how has the experience been so far? Reporting about it has been largely absent from my blog and I only tweet about my party political work very sporadically. This blog...
David Cameron’s victory in the UK election presents me with a personal problem: he promises to hold an in-or-out of the EU referendum. If the UK leaves the EU I have a major headache – I live in Germany and I need freedom of movement within the EU more than...
I’m an intensely political person and it has been that way for a long time. I joined the Labour Party in the UK as a 16 year old, before I was even old enough to vote. This means I have spent more than half my life in the Labour Party,...
Hoping for the continuation of the grand coalition was the best the SPD could hope for before yesterday’s Bundestagswahl. In the end the result was even worse than that: 23.1% and a historic low vote for the social democrats. Guido Westerwelle’s beaming grim was everywhere, the FDP the big winners...