European Conservatives and Reformists

I had some interest in the ECR after the European Parliament elections, as they became the third largest party, and so made this page. The group was jointly founded by the British Tories as they build their off-ramp to Brexit and left the EPP. The parliamentary group is constructed for each parliament; in the 10th…

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Meadway on Graeber

James Meadway brought David Graeber’s work to my attention in a long article which I have annotated on diigo. The article pointed me at some further reading, most interestingly for me, he posits that the Silicon revolution changes the way power is exercised and at the end references Kate Pistor’s advocacy of Data Trusts. Here…

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The 2024 Riots

On the racist rioting, I wrote a blog article, but didn’t use all the things I found and so here they are. My notes and links …

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Housing Policy 2024

A note on Housing policy and the opportunities under a Labour Government. I assume they want more affordable houses both to allow people a better home and create demand and income. …

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The King’s Speech

The first monarch’s speech to Parliament written by a Labour Government in many years. It is reviewed by the Guardian, who welcome it as radical but not revolutionary departure from their predecessors empowering the state to make life better for people. They conclude by saying, The conditions of frustration that have fuelled far-right insurgencies in…

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Democratising the EU

The CTOE has published a manifesto of demands for democracy; we have examined those European Parties with manifestos for the European Parliament  elections this year and have scored them against our 10 demands. The results are published on the CTOE blog site, The European Party Manifestos: Who is Afraid of Democracy? Overleaf/below, are further comments…

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Rhodes

After my trip to Turkey, I feel that I should visit Rhodes, it may be my next destination or if I can work out how to do it properly an interesting way of arriving at Fethiye. Here are my notes on visiting Rhodes. …

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Border checks, finally

On the 30th April 2024, the UK introduced physical inspection for imported goods from the EU. This has been delayed five times due to an unpreparedness of the agencies and a fear of the economic consequences with price rises and shortages predicted. The EU have been conducting these checks since 1st Jan 2021. There is…

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EU Citizen? Vote!

Some EU citizen’s residents in the UK will be able to vote in the upcoming #EuropeanParliament elections. The infographic below, shows which countries are offering to permit this, and how they mean to make this happen. Some will offer postal votes, some will organise polling stations in the UK and Estonia is offering internet voting….

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