The grim machinations unfolding in and around Westminster are merely what would happen every election if we had some sort of more ‘proportional’ voting system. In countries where coalition politics is the norm governments can take many weeks, sometimes even months, to form. This wastes time and demoralises the public. It […]
Question What’s the only thing on any political party’s mind after winning an election? Answer The next election Why? What else do political parties think about? Having won an election because their policies and style had the most appeal, the winners think only about how best to […]
Even before any new coalition or understanding is set up here between Conservatives and Lib Dems and/or anyone else, the awful reality of European Union processes intrudes. The Guardian makes a crude lunge to create divisions right from the start: Tory-Lib Dem coalition threatened by secret hardline memo on Europe […]
Look at the pitiful spectacle of Greek civil servants and sundry Communists (insofar as those two categories are not identical) wailing about their country’s plight: "We want to send a message to the people of Europe," said Panagiotis Papageorgopoulos, a communist party official marching with the protesters. "We can take […]
Remember the Copenhagen Summit climate change debacle? The terrific Spiegel Online has fascinating material said to be extracted from tape-recordings of the key meeting between Merkel/Brown/Sarkozy/Obama and the Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister, there because the Chinese Prime Minister did not deign to join the gathering: Now, for the first time, […]
So here I am at the LBC newsroom on Leicester Square in London. The ‘story’ seems to be a number of complaints that in some places the polls closed before all voters there had voted. Hard to imagine that this happened on any scale that mattered. Otherwise my task is […]
Some random thoughts on latest dramatic developments in the UK, all the more random for lack of sleep. First the Really Good News. As for the feverish politics, note the following. It is not only that the new Parliament is ‘hung’, ie no party has an overall majority. It is […]
My thoughts on that subject are over at Business and Politics: As we can see in the current case, Angela Merkel is grappling with the primitive logic of phony EU solidarity. She is trying to establish the proposition that in return for enjoying the benefits of German discipline in the […]
Election Day across the UK looms. The Labour Party are set to lose power. Hurrah. But will they lose badly enough to be obliterated? Or somehow only enough to stay in business and start scheming anew after some ritual blood-letting? Here’s my own New Labour Story. I joined the FCO […]
Has the vast blob of financial support now made available to Greece saved the Eurozone? Or merely bought time? Baseline Scenario drills down into what it says is the core question (my emphasis): If Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn were honest, they would admit to Ms. Merkel “we messed up […]
