TRANSPARENCY NOTE: I have been teaching at the College of Europe in Bruges for 5 years. I teach the Negotiation Simulation (compulsory course, taught with 2 others) and a short optional course entitled “Online Communications in EU Policy-Making“, both courses in the Politics Department (there are also Law, Economics and […]
Some people have used the Coronavirus lockdowns to clean their homes and flats. I instead have spent a good part of the past fortnight cleaning my online presence instead – essentially getting this blog back into some order after a good while just posting day to day. The aim: to […]
A 57 year old straight white man, an ex-lawyer and ex-Director of Public Prosecutions, has been elected as leader of the Labour Party. He is married with two children. He is himself one of five, his father was a toolmaker, and he worked his way up the legal profession, and […]
V1 of shop4me.team went live on Saturday 21 March, and the first deliveries were conducted on Monday 23 March. Getting the first minimum viable product up and running was the priority, and how the tech for that worked is explained in this blog post from Saturday. A couple of things […]
On Tuesday 17 March I published a first blog post about whether a WordPress-based local community shopping system would make sense in the times of the Coronavirus. The aim was to help the people living in the 40 or so flats in my building through the Coronavirus outbreak – to […]
My Facebook and Twitter feeds are full of people doing things like this with their usernames or profile pictures: While a week ago that might have been useful, I am by now not sure it is. Yes, we should stay home. But all my friends, and my friends’ friends, are […]
OK, next up in Jon tries to solve Coronavirus social problems… what about grocery deliveries? My first specification was for a WordPress plugin to coordinate local food deliveries in my building and neighbourhood, which – when coming up with a Minimum Viable Product – is going to start with a […]
I’ve been wondering for the past 24 hours what I ought to do, personally, to help with the Coronavirus response – in my building, my neighbourhood, my city, more widely. I’m healthy and have some skills, but I am not a medical professional. While I might ultimately do other things as […]
I logged into Instagram this morning and the first picture in my feed was of a political friend of mine speaking at a conference. Further down a professor friend has posted a pic of him skiing with very important people. Then there was a friend posting a picture of herself […]
“He doesn’t like not being liked,” said Katie Perrior of Boris Johnson in this 2016 of the then outgoing Mayor of London in this 2016 essay by Jeremy Cliffe. Those words have stuck with me since reading that essay back then, and today it is perhaps time to revisit those […]
This week something interesting happened in matters Brexit: farmers at the National Farmers’ Union conference booed environment minister George Eustice (FT story here (€)). This was connected to the news that direct payments to farmers will be reduced by 25% from 1 January 2021, as Farmers Weekly reports here. Why […]
I’ve long been fascinated by how the pro-Brexit campaign’s lack of a plan for Brexit, prior to the 2016, actually helped the Leave side win that referendum. It gave Leave a sort of slippery quality in campaigning terms. “Oh no one is talking about putting up trade barriers!” Gove would say […]
