Posts Tagged brown
The Loudmouth Across the Channel
Posted by Pete Quentin in European Union on 12/11/2007
There is one man across the English Channel who Gordon Brown must wish would shut up, writes Cem Suleyman.
The man I’m talking about is Valery Giscard d’Estaing (VGE), former President of the French Fifth Republic (1974-81).
VGE was President of the Convention on the Future of Europe, which drafted the original, and failed, EU Constitutional Treaty. Ever since the Constitutional Treaty was torpedoed by the non / nee votes in France and the Netherlands, VGE has made it his mission to make the people of Europe realise the error of their ways and eventually adopt the Constitutional Treaty in full. In the case of France’s non VGE has said “The French did not vote for or against this text, they avoided the text. This mistake must not happen again”. As you can see I’m not discussing the most humble of men!
Don’t force children to play the Government’s war-games
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 31/10/2007
More powers, new targets, less tolerance for failure, a boost to several central government run schemes (Teach First and Teach Next), are the only discernible content of Brown’s latest speech on education. The tone of the speech makes it sound as if the government, having annexed and occupied the education system decades ago, still finds itself combating a never-ending insurgency of ‘failure’. These forces of failure cannot be tolerated and must be eradicated.
Blair V Brown: Part Deux
Posted by Pete Quentin in European Union on 22/10/2007
Now that the EU Reform Treaty has been agreed by the member states, speculation has turned to who will be appointed the first permanent “President of Europe”, writes Cem Suleyman. The Reform Treaty proposes that the President of the European Council replaces the existing six month rotating presidency. The President of the European Council will be elected for a fixed two and a half year term, renewable once. He or she will chair the Council meetings, help set the EU agenda and be a figurehead for the EU on the international stage. While key decisions will continue to be taken by the national heads of government, many fear the post is the forerunner to a directly elected President of Europe.
Brown’s EU Blues
Posted by James Gubb in European Union on 14/05/2007
Some time ago Tim Garton-Ash summed up Blair’s EU problems in two words ‘Rupert’ and ‘Murdoch’. Brown too will face these problems but with two additionally troublesome words, ‘Tony’ and ‘Blair’.
Much has been made in the media of the fact that Brown is essentially a domestic politician, has little inclination to engage himself unnecessarily with the politics of the Europe, and moreover that he enjoys running the UK economy too much to be willing to share it with the EU any further. This appears to be cause for optimism amongst EU-sceptics, but realistically Brown will be unable to just ‘dig in’ – the constitutional issue will not simply pass over-head and action WILL need to be taken, even if it not compelled by the actions of Blair at the EU summit on 22nd June.