Latest posts
Den Dover owes the taxpayer £538,290
A whopping £538,290 is the sum that Den Dover is refusing to pay back to the European Parliament. Read more here and here on the case. Den Dover, former Conservative MEP for North West England 9 Comments - Leave a Comment...
Europe’s elites deserve this EU election result
The record low turnout for the European Union's seventh election gives the game away. Voter participation has plunged from almost 63 per cent in 1979 to 43 per cent in 2009 charting popular disenchantment with the political status quo, always embodie...
The EU elections that we can only lose
I have a strong feeling that on Sunday night as election results, dominated by low turnout, come into Brussels there will be the old complaint that the European Union simply does not have the voters that it deserves. EU types see public indifference...
EU space cadets promote high euro election turnout
I want to give my apologies for the long absence. My wife was taken suddenly and seriously ill over a week ago. I have not been working over that time. I hope to resume a more normal service very soon, when life gets back on a more even keel. 9 Comme...
Berlaymont's burning
It was an unusually lively Monday in the European Commission's Berlaymont HQ today. Berlaymont's burning (photo: theparliament.com) 7 Comments - Leave a Comment...
Berlaymont's burning
It was an unusually lively Monday in the European Commission's Berlaymont HQ today. Berlaymont's burning (photo: theparliament.com) 7 Comments - Leave a Comment...
Time for politics for a change
The Westminster expenses revelations are an unedifying spectacle and a sure sign of a ruling class that has stopped even going through the motions of politics or public service. MPs have stopped doing politics 10 Comments - Leave a Comment...
Time for politics for a change
The Westminster expenses revelations are an unedifying spectacle and a sure sign of a ruling class that has stopped even going through the motions of politics or public service. MPs have stopped doing politics 10 Comments - Leave a Comment...
God, crisis, the Lisbon EU Treaty and the Irish
The Lisbon European Union Treaty will be good for God - or at least His churches. The Gods Squad - various clerics, imams, vicars, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, grand muftis and rabbis - was back in town on Monday. 17 Comments - Leave a Comment...
Can the EU ban weekend driving?
Here's the European Parliament's elections advert clip - to be shown on 100 channels - which came out on Friday. Here is the idea: "The spot shows people in fictitious TV news studios, announcing news that they would like to hear. Its key claim point...
Be afraid, be very afraid. EU elections are coming...
Be prepared, be afraid is the message. The European elections and more loony attempts to get us out to vote are coming our way. I quite like this one from the EP's "viral" marketing people . Hat tip, Julien Frisch and Kosmopolito. A scantily clad wo...
The EU has nothing European to offer the east
European Union diplomats currently describe Ukraine as the biggest foreign policy "challenge" of the day. Last week, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Radoslaw Sikorski, the German and Polish foreign ministers, wrote to their colleagues to warn of "destabi...
Ireland stands alone against the EU Treaty
Ireland now stands alone after the Czechs completed parliamentary ratification of the Lisbon Treaty this afternoon. Irish No protesters last July (Photo: Bruno Waterfield)...
Kosovo and the EU's missing millions
There's a breaking story just about to go online about the alleged serious fraud and corruption swirling around the millions the European Union pumped into Kosovo just after the war ten years ago. Internal documents - click here for a blog world exc...
Baby seals are cuter than humans when EU election time looms
The European Union's ban on all trade in seal products will be in place for when the hunts begin next year. Cuddly toys are cuter than real people for MEPs (photo: Bruno Waterfield)...
Will the EU snub the Czechs?
It looks as if the European Union is going to postpone two key decisions rather than allow the Czech President Vaclav Klaus to take the chair at a June summit. A final EU humiliation for the Czechs?
Just how dishonest are MEPs?
Euro-MPs have declared that "under no circumstances will Parliament in the prevailing economic situation provide extra money" to bailout their second pension fund. Are these people liars? The European Parliament vote and the declaration are entirely...
The human cost of the EU's fishing failure
The European Commission has finally admitted that the EU's Common Fisheries Policy has failed. Cliona Conneely defends herself against the CFP (Photo: Bruno Waterfield)...
EU bans 'dangerous' anoraks
"It is a miracle that our generation managed to survive into adulthood without legislation like this," said a European Commission official, rather dryly. We were chatting next to a display (see above) of rather harmless and normal looking children's...
80% of British MEPs get publicly funded second pension
Good to see that at least 62, or 80 per cent, of Britain's 78 MEPs will get a publicly funded second pension when they retire. MEPs, because they're worth it...
