There is a Commons Education Select Committee Inquiry going on into University Funding, with hearings held at the beginning of the week. On the Tuesday 25th, they took oral evidence including that from Susan Lapworth, the CEO of the Office for students, who stated that 50 institutions were [financially] vulnerable with 24 at risk of…
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Shabana Mahmood trailed and then announced even more appalling restrictions on asylum seekers. The Govt announcement entitled, “Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy” is on the web. Freemovement,org respond with this article, ‘Home Secretary announces major asylum and other changes in new policy paper: “Restoring Order and Control”’….
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The EU is rolling back some of its corporate regulatory measures in the areas of sustainability reporting, and coming soon, simplifications in the digital economy laws. Here are some notes and links …
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This explains a lot. This is a chart of the EU commissioners by political party, I made this today and it includes a few judgements. The EPP have a voting majority on the Commission. In addition, there is a creeping Presidentialisation of European politics which in my opinion concedes too much power to the singular…
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What is this? How will it help the cost-of-living crisis? …
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A new law, good or bad? This article is a bit better now. is nowhere near finished, come back later.
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I have written a lot about the European Union and its democracy and its easy to get lost so I have made this page which is meant to be a start page/index.
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As part of my reading as a result of the Bastani/Hao interview, I was pointed at and found a couple of books and articles on the UK’s dependence on the USA, primarily quoting the work of Angus Hanton. These are primarily economic, although the choices made by the Starmer Government, are increasing our dependence on…
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In the EU Parliamentary year, 2024/25, there was an experimental citizen’s assembly incubated by the EUI. I attended their Florence assembly 22/2 & 23/2, and made some notes. These stayed in my notebook for too long but I have decided to make this page, which collects some reviews and views and may even have some…
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The European Space Agency celebrated its most recent launch of a Copernicus Sentinel Satellite, which made me wonder how Brexit had impacted the UK’s participation in the EU’s space programmes. This post looks at what I found.
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Here is my #lab 25 page. Conference is to be in Liverpool again.
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I recently read Ingham’s “Capitalism Divided?” which has, I believe, some important insights into the nature of the British economy. The last two days I reviewed my notes I looked for further comments and reviews. He will have written a number of books but at the moment this page looks at, “Capitalism” and “Capitalism Divided”….
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The EU is preparing its next medium term budget. This is an act of legislation but they have convened a European citizens panel https://citizens.ec.europa.eu/index_en on the topic; its rercommendations are documented here. No matter the cynicism and valid criticisms aimed at these panels, this must be a good thing. The process continues and this page…
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On May 19th the European Union and the UK at a summit made a series of agreements. The UK government heralds this as a “Reset”. The European Commission have issued a press release, which has been agreed with the UK. The press release covers Defence, Connecting People, Trade and Economics, & internal security and judicial…
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I attended PoliticalTech Summit 25 in Berlin. One of the speakers was Beth Goldberg and what she said led me to dig a bit deeper; here are my notes and links. …
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