Pint glasses will never be the same again. According to this Parliamentary Question, the current pint glasses will become collectors items in October. From then on they will have to dispaly the CE mark instead of the current Crown mark.
El Mundo has reported that 94% of Euro notes in Spain contain traces of cocaine. Well what a surprise!
Because these notes could have been “contaminated” at any point, such as when put in counting machines, it doesn’t tell us anything about the number of people using it, the frequency or anything else that might be interesting. But it does grab tabloid headlines.
Similar surveys in London have found traces on 99% of all £5 notes. Even tests in the European Parliament’s toilets found traces of cocaine. Does this tell us that MEPs are using? Hardly, they have their own private bathrooms, and the EP toilets can be used by the public.
The only thing that I can think that these types of surveys tell us is that people are using notes to snort cocaine. In this case Euro notes - perhaps we should get rid of notes! Or ban the Euro!
According to the Indie, ExxonMobil has been funding EU orientated think tanks who agree (or will agree for lots of money) with their environmentally sceptical “I don’t care about destruction of the world” view. This raises an important point about think tanks that many people do not realise. They all have a specific political agenda and are usually funded by rich and powerful business individuals and companies who want some “bang for their bucks”. Take for example the IPPR - employees have commented that they feel like they spend more time helping to keep Labour in power than rehashing other people’s work doing research. Over the summer there were also several “cash for access” stories.
Worryingly the MSM and public policy makers often rely on think tanks for information and stories; quoting them as if they are representative of civil society. The only thing they represent are specific politically partisan views and big business. Think tanks are just another form of political lobbying that dilutes proper political debate and allows unelected elites to wield political power.
It seems that the new EU wine label logo is not as uniting as people hoped.
The French have complained because the logo doesn’t look the same when you translate it into different languages, and supposedly it’s in English on some EU sites (not French). Here are the French changes:
…and the original one:
Some also believe it looks like Google and the ‘r’ at the end is like the copyright symbol - symbolising capitalism. Clearly these aren’t things the EU should be celebrating. That’s also no problem if we keep the French version.
According to the Times, the Germans are also unhappy - and plan to produce their own logo.
I can’t wait for the celebrations next year.
David Rennie is arguing on his blog that the attempt to introduce transparency in EU proceedings is a failure. This is because letting the cameras into meetings prevents deals and compromises from being made, resulting in all the “productive” discussions being taken during the unfilmed lunch.
Rennie goes on to explain that journalists know what goes on in these lunches anyway so there are no secrets. He compares the filming of meetings to the attendance of the CEO to a regular meeting, and asks “just how much really useful work would you get done?”
But the failure is not transparency. As Rennie rightly alludes to, the failure is the leaders themselves - they are unwilling to discuss things openly for political reasons. Because of this, transparency will not help to improve relations with citizens nor change the public’s view towards the EU.
So does this mean that we should get rid of the cameras?
Although the journalists might know what goes on, they often fail (I admit it’s often the fault of the editor/owner of the paper rather than the journalist) to pass this on to the rest of us. If it was passed on then clearly there would be no point in discussing things off camera because we would know what those discussions consisted of.
Also let us not forget that this is a “big” step for EU leaders who are used to late night back room deals. It takes time to adjust. If the CEO turned up to one meeting, that would clearly put you off. If the CEO was a regular attendee, then you would get used to their presence, interact with them and frankly the company would probably benefit.
But for transparency to succeed our leaders must stop assuming that people are not able to comprehend EU proceedings or understand that compromise is necessary and not a sign of weakness. They must accept that the EU should not continue as an elite and secretive project. So let’s give transparency a chance.
Looks like the EU logo compo wasn’t cancelled like the rest of the celebrations. And the winner is….
How sweet! -looks a bit like a wine label.
Iain Dale mentioned today the threat his new web TV site, 18 Doughty Street, faces from the Television Without Frontiers directive - a directive that is ill considered and unenforceable, don’t forget that there’s always a way on the web.
Don’t worry, according to The Times Shaun Woodward is on the case.
In our interview with Iain Dale last week we warned him about this, he said (20 mins in) “Well the EU can talk about a lot of things, if they seriously start regulating the internet then we’ll have a Soviet style system, which some think we have already.” - Luckily Dale’s got a backup plan - move the channel to Sky!
It seems that the EU has decided to limit its 50th anniversary celebrations planned for next year. Originally there were to be 50 days of fireworks, parties, flag waving and fun. Now instead they’ve chosen some sickening exciting plans for citizen ambassadors who will tell how the EU influnces their lives. I wonder if they’ve also cancelled the motto/flag competition?!
But why the changes?
The Indy reports that Government air travel has created 1000 tonnes of CO2 in the last year - clearly the Government’s going to have to deal with this if they want the rest of us to reduce our emissions (apart from continuing with the policy of carbon offsetting which doesnt reduce our environmental impact).
Many of these trips are for EU business, such as meetings in Brussels. The Lib Dems reckon only 30 tonnes could be saved by travelling on Eurostar instead. Further savings could clearly be made by conference calls, but many ministers will argue that it is important to carry out meetings in person.
Clearly this is a good argument for withdrawal from the EU (ministers won’t have to fly to Brussels) or complete integration of the EU (everything will be done in Brussels without ministers), depending on your political stance. Maybe even getting the MEPs who are already there to do more. On that note I wonder what the environmental damage of using Strasbourg Parliament is?!
Updated! - It seems that I’ve missed the point of this article and reported what I wanted to see. There’s a great graph in the Indy print version (just a list of figures online) showing that using Eurostar will actually significantly reduce the emissions created by visiting Brussels. Europe counts for less than 30% of the Government’s CO2 emissions from air travel, and this could be reduced by 90% by using Eurostar. Clearly we should force ministers to travel everywhere by train. It’s only 3 changes and 2 nights to get to Russia.
Out-Law.com Radio has an interview with the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. Although they failed to gain a single seat in the recent Swedish elections (or even get their deposit back) they manage to put a politician’s spin on are optimistic about the future of the Pirate movement. The leader of the Swedish party Rick Falvinge talks about a proposal to unite all the Pirate Parties in Europe and form an EU Pirate Party. They’re trying to appeal beyond the campaign on copyright reform and concentrate on civil liberties - something that may appeal to people across Europe.
Smaller parties have been more successful in EU elections than in their own country’s elections, especially if they have take a eurosceptic line. This is partially due to low turnouts - just look at UKIP and the Green’s recent successes.
I just hope that this leads to a British Pirate Party.