My trip today, 10 April 2018: Toulouse (population: 467000, 1.3 million in the urban area) to Béziers (population: 75000). Distance 176km by train, 180km by road. Departure time: sometime around 1500. Towns along the route: Castelnaudary (population: 11000), Carcassonne (48000), Narbonne (53000). Beyond Béziers are Montpellier, Nîmes and Marseille. Here […]
A couple of months ago I had a conversation with two academic friends of mine about why they refused to use any messenger other than WhatsApp. “We just want it to work!” they said. “Well, Volkswagen cars work” I hit back. “That’s different,” they said. But then what about fairly […]
English politicians are prone to playing lip service to the unity of the United Kingdom. Theresa May even made sure she visited Northern Ireland on her whistle-stop one year until Brexit tour last week. May leads the Tory Party that is officially called the Conservative and Unionist Party. But how […]
Back almost five years ago I spent a week live blogging from Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise ship in the English Channel – you can find all my posts from that trip here. Now I am writing this on my way to another live blogging trip – I am going to Charleroi […]
Sometimes a tweet from a politician really hits the mark. So it was with this yesterday from European Council President Donald Tusk: I have just recommended to EU27 leaders that we welcome, in principle, the agreement on transition. In practice, the transition phase will allow to delay all the negative […]
A difference of ideology I can tolerate. Even willful distortion from political opponents I have come to understand. But low quality journalism by those who should know better continues to really rankle. So I was hopping mad earlier today when reading this piece by Gary Younge in The Guardian, a […]
A clever tweet caught my eye this morning: Ever wondered which gender #Brexit is? Obviously male, since 55% of men voted Leave, while 51% of women (and 80% of women aged 18-24) voted Remain. Happy #IWD2018🙂 https://t.co/8IX0doz1ex https://t.co/wqWfIQClid — Peter Ptassek (@GermanyonBrexit) March 8, 2018 It prompted me to think […]
The superficial difference between a Hard Brexit and a Soft Brexit is political control – taking back control, to coin a phrase. A Soft Brexit leaves the UK having to abide by the rules of the Single Market or the Customs Union or both but, as a non-EU Member State, […]
As anyone who has ever read this blog, or follows me on Twitter, knows, I am no fan of Theresa May or her government’s position on Brexit. So it was then not without a little surprise that I did not find myself shouting at the screen while listening to the […]
Back in December 2015, the board of trustees of Stonewall commissioned a series of essays, each of 1000 words, about the political context in which the charity will operate in the next 25 years. I was asked to the Europe essay in this series. I submitted the essay on 8 […]
I speculated the other day as to why Nigel Farage now wants a further referendum on the UK’s EU Membership. I don’t really mind why he’s had this change of heart, but welcome to the club, Nige. Let’s have the second referendum. Let me explain this a little more. I […]
EXCLUSIVE – Nigel Farage says "just maybe I’m reaching the point of thinking that we should have a second referendum on EU membership".@Nigel_Farage | @Matthew_Wright | #wrightstuff pic.twitter.com/T0fROToskr — The Wright Stuff (@5WrightStuff) January 11, 2018 When I saw this breaking on Twitter earlier I sort of expected he meant […]