From its headquarters at the southern end of Stresemanstrasse as far as Potsdamer Platz, the SPD has filled the street with huge election posters for the European Parliament election campaign… and they are awful. The five main posters are shown below. For me the main test for an election slogan […]
German Politics
Time for some policy-based evidence-making – how the Jacques Delors Institut Berlin ought to work
Back in my days as a civil servant one phrase dominated UK government-speak: evidence-based policy-making. The essential idea was to gather adequate evidence about a problem, and how various solutions could work, and determine a policy choice based on that. Now of course this was constrained by the ideology of […]
The elite calls out the elite for being elite. Or is it leadership?
Perhaps I’m overdoing it, but I’m not a fan of the way Mark Leonard’s recent ECFR column is titled. “The revenge of the German elite” he writes, documenting concerted efforts by Bundespräsident Gauck, and ministers Steinmeier and von der Leyen. The basic gist of the piece is that the German […]
How to find a flat in Berlin
I moved to Berlin on 26th October 2013, and now, less than 3 months later, I am already living in my second flat. I’ve gathered an enormous amount of knowledge through the two flat searches, and this blog entry is a summary of my learning. Do comment below, or tweet […]
Why I’m in favour of building on parts of Tempelhofer Feld / Tempelhof Flughafen
The former Tempelhof Airport is one of Berlin’s extraordinary places. The former airport is a huge open space in the city, and is larger even than Tiergarten (the park / forest further north in the city). Slow Travel Berlin has an excellent history of the airport and the field in […]
Video | RE:INVENT Europe (auf deutsch)
Mit Blick auf die Europawahl 2014 initiieren die Stiftung Mercator und der Zeitbild Verlag das Projekt „RE:INVENT EUROPE – Jugend gestaltet Europa”, das Jugendliche in Nordrhein-Westfalen dazu motivieren soll, sich kreativ mit der europäischen Idee auseinanderzusetzen und eigene Ideen für ein zukunftsfähiges Europa zu entwickeln. Jon Worth, Europa-Blogger und Politikberater, […]
Why I’m leaving the Labour Party, and joining the Grüne in Germany
I’m an intensely political person and it has been that way for a long time. I joined the Labour Party in the UK as a 16 year old, before I was even old enough to vote. This means I have spent more than half my life in the Labour Party, […]
The German EC-Karte oddity
Today in Berlin I bought a bike. With cash. Yes, with a wad of €50 and €20 notes. Why? Because the bike store accepted only the German EC-Karte debit card, and not credit cards. On Thursday I will need to buy some furniture in IKEA and, as confirmed on their […]
So why this affinity for Germany?
I’m back. Today is my first full day back living in Berlin since leaving here in March 2002. Then I had spent 6 months living in the city as a 21-year old recent graduate from the UK, trying to scrape together a living. I left for Brussels, and resolved one […]
Moving to Berlin: I need a place to live (a little social media experiment)
The days when it was easy to find a flat to rent in Berlin are long gone. While rent, in comparison to other EU capitals, remains reasonable, trying to find an adequate place is complicated. An additional annoyance is that estate agents charge the tenant in Germany (normally 2 months […]
Berlin. From 26th October.
At 1747 on Saturday October 26th my train will pull into Berlin Hbf and I will be arriving at the place I hope I will be able to call home. Since a short period living in the German capital between October 2001 and March 2002 I have longed to return, […]
Too young for Berlin
I’ve always had regrets about the months between October 2001 and March 2002 I spent in Berlin. First and foremost is that I did not manage to stay there longer. Second, that I really did not make close to the most of the – admittedly meagre – job opportunities I […]