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Category: EU matters

New Jobs All Round?

New Jobs All Round?

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Who will fill the coming vacancies? News stories this week suggest that there are two upcoming vacancies for the underemployed global statesman: Managing Director of the IMF and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Dominique Strauss-Kahn is facing serious accusations of sexual assault in New York, making likely his departure from the IMF as likely as if he had filed for the Socialist candidacy for the French Presidency. Baroness Ashton, on the other hand, is merely suffering…

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Meanwhile..in the Daily Express…

Meanwhile..in the Daily Express…

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…the “Crusade” to get out of Europe goes on According to the paper:- “.VOTERS were last night signing up in their thousands to a campaign warning MPs to back a poll on EU membership or face losing their seats Supporters are being asked to sign a pledge not to vote for any MP who fails to back a national “in or out” referendum..Organisers of the cross-party “People’s Pledge” initiative said yesterday that they were astonished at the massive surge of…

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Why’s the ECJ being so breathtakingly stupid?

Why’s the ECJ being so breathtakingly stupid?

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Bloomberg Should Britain say it will defy the court? The story that’s made me most angry today has been the extraordinary decision by the European Court of Justice to stop insurance companies from allowing women to pay smaller car insurance premiums even though they are less likely to have accidents. This is being stopped on ground of “gender equality”. Andy Cooke on the previous thread had this right:- What a stupid ruling by the ECJ! The different premiums aren’t based…

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What are the implications of “votes for prisoners”?

What are the implications of “votes for prisoners”?

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Where will the fallout from yesterday’s vote end? If the overwhelming vote in the Commons against prisoners being granted the vote is unsurprising, it is so only because in choosing between reflecting the views of the country and setting up a clash with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), they opted for the former despite the can of worms that could open up. In the past, politicians have tended to opt for a ‘hands tied’ defence. In the short…

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Is ConHome right to be getting excited?

Is ConHome right to be getting excited?

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Is this the politics for those who believe the Diana conspiracy? The Daily Express is not one of those papers that often gets cited on PB, or indeed other political sites, for its most noted for its front pages on the Diana conspiracy and regular new cures for one form of cancer or another. So how are we to regard it’s launch of a campaign crusade today to get the UK out of the EU? Is this going to resonate…

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Has the EU simply ceased to be an issue?

Has the EU simply ceased to be an issue?

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Ipsos-MORI Or will the Tories of yesteryear emerge again? Every month for more than thirty years Ipsos-MORI has asked the same two part-question question in the same standard way which, almost uniquely, is totally unprompted. The pollster asks “What do you see as the most important/other important issues face Britain today”. As you’d expect the economy, race relations and immigration, unemployment and crime figure high as you can see here. But there’s one issue that’s been sharply on the decline…

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How can Ed Miliband get onto the news?

How can Ed Miliband get onto the news?

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Google News search -“Ed Miliband” Is visibility always the problem when you are opposition leader? On the face of it yesterday was a pretty bad news day for the coalition. There was Boris and “call me Dave” having their huge public spat over housing benefit, a suggestion that the child benefit move for higher rate tax-payers might be a lot harder to achieve than was first thought, and the PM fighting a tough battle in the EU. Yet the main…

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Could Europe blow Brown off course?

Could Europe blow Brown off course?

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Can the government avoid the Greek debt trap? After the recent EU summit, a reporter asked Gordon Brown if UK taxpayers’ money would be go towards a rescue package for Greece. He said, after a lengthy preamble that “the discussions at the moment are within the euro area”. That’s very far from a denial. The Greek government’s funding crisis could spread to Britain’s political scene rapidly in two obvious ways: if the UK forms part of a bail-out for Greece,…

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