Britain & sick pay

While considering motions to go to GMB’s National Congress, I and my comrades considered sick leave and sick pay. Some of the saddest stories I have from my time acting as an accompanying rep come from people who have been long term sick and thus suffered a serious decrement in their income.

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Enshittification and Apple

This is a note, I might convert it into an essay. What’s the difference, I write the notes for me, I write essays for at least one other person. I am not sure this is finished, but as it stands, a bit of Corey Doctorow, and a bit of me. Corey Doctorow has turned his…

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EU Reform

What chance is that there’ll be a convention and that the TEU will be amended progressively?

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What about the Euro?

Should we campaign to rejoin the Euro? In my blog article, Say no to extrawürst, I look at Niall Ò Conghaile’s arguments on EU re-entry terms and dovetail them with my realisation that the UK’s previous unique deal and its opt-outs are gone. I have felt there is room for a deal on the Euro…

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Labour’s coming manifesto 2023

Labour published its draft National Policy Forum report, I was told on the 9th May. The Labour Party URL for the report is here, on the Labour Party’s main site and behind the members’ ID wall; I have made a mirror. It is strangely not on the NPF site. Labour List report that a number…

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Democratic renewal in the EU

This page documents my notes on the EU’s attempts to renew and reinforce its democracy. it should be read in conjunction with my Digital Regulation in the EU page, and Subsidiarity and proportionality , which deals with the laws and treaties. I also made this, a page based on some ERS criticisms, not all of…

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The EU & Immigration

The Council decided at an emergency meeting, to spend more money on its border enforcement. The likely consequence of this is more deaths at sea of refugees.

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The economics of the ERDF

In considering the recommendations of the CoFoE on digitsation, I came to consider how economies innovate and how competitive the EU is in the technology industries. The key programme may be the EU Regional Development Fund. See also their factsheet. This of course has relevance due to the announcement of the UK’s levelling up grants…

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On CoFoE

Over the last 18 months I have working with CTOE, their focus has been on using the Conference on the Future of Europe to further democratic reform of the EU. CTOE has been influenced and supports the work of direct democracy campaigners. I made this page at the end of 2022 to expose some of…

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About Ursula von der Leyen

Ursula von der Leyen, became the 1st woman President of the EU’s college of commissioners on 1st Dec 2019. Her appointment was controversial because she was not one of the spitzencanditaten. The record of her commission is documented on wikipedia. I became interested in this when trying to understand how and why the CoFoE was…

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Data Protection Act 2022

The government issued a consultation on the Data Protection law; it was commonly felt that they were attempting to allow itself to monetise the personal data of citizens, especially through the NHS data files. Whether after their response, it is felt to be so threatening is another matter. Here are my notes …

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The EU and defence policy

I have a couple of notes on defence policy on this wiki. All recent white papers have emphasised that the defence capability we build is onky capable of success if working with allies. The primary military alliance is of course NATO, which has over the last 30 years concerned itself with “out of theatre” operations….

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