Former EU Commission candidate Rocco Buttiglione is apparently actively working to reduce the political damage caused by his remarks about homosexuality being a sin. Yet his strategy seems a little erratic. After reaching out to the social right last week by declaring his desire to build an influential conservative Christian political movement in Europe, like evangelical Christians have done in the US, he now gave the Italian gay website gay.it an interview (in Italian). According to the English
Posted in A Fistful Of Euros, Governments and parties
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Tagged Governments and parties, political
I think Tony Blair will from now on try to leave press conferences before someone gets a chance to ask the last question. Back in September 2003 in Berlin, a British journalist asked Blair about being embarrassed about being a spokesperson for the American President when talking to Chancellor Schr?der and French President Chirac (afoe post). Blair was visibly surprised by the question, and certainly a little embarrassed that Chirac and Schr?der replied on his behalf. Yesterday, Mr Blair must thus have sensed some kind of “d?j? vu” when the London Times correspondent asked Mr Bush if he indeed, as suggested by so many British, regarded Tony Blair as his “poodle”, or if he did not think that the US owed something to the UK for Mr Blair’s support. Mr Blair then sort-of-jokingly asked the President not to say “yes”, for that would be, well, difficult, before Mr Bush went on to praise Mr Blair’s leadership and wondered what he should owe a leader “[p]lenty capable of making his own mind.” Since you’re going to read about this everywhere, you might as well read the original. So in the extended part of this post you can find the (slightly edited by the White House) transcript of that part of the press conference as well as the video footage. For the interesting bits, forward to the last minute or so. Enjoy. Yesterday was regional elections day in France. France has not traditionally had any strong local government structure – one of the first acts of the revolution was the abolition of the old provinces and their replacement with purely administrative “departments.” However, the last 20 years have seen radical changes in the way French government is structured and the EU in particular has been a big force in decentralising the French state. The creation of the regions in 1982 was motivated by a desire to create institutions able to participate in partnering programmes with German Länder, particularly programmes subsidised by the EU. However, they have since taken on a life of their own. France is a quite diverse country on the ground and it has a number of long-standing problems related to regional differences. So, although the regions are still not very powerful in comparison to the central state, they have been growing in power, particularly in areas that are culturally or economically outside of the core of the French state – Corsica, Alsace, Brittany and the overseas territories in particular. A number of significant powers over regional economic development and education are shared with the regions. Both Chris Brooke and Matthew Turner have raised the suggestion that the Socialist victory in Spain may not have been caused by an actual swing in the electorate from the Popular Party (PP) to the Socialists (PSOE) after Thursday, but rather by the attacks in Madrid inspiring more people to go out and vote. With the majority of these new voters trending towards the left and the PSOE, the argument goes, this meant that they can attribute their victory to these new voters, rather than voters who switched from the PP to the PSOE. Curious about whether or not this is true, I took a look at the actual election results and there is evidence there to support this view. However, any conclusions from this evidence are necessarily tentative and speculative, as the evidence could be interpreted many ways. Two versions of the Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero story, Fox and Bloomberg, choose for yourselves. BTW: anyone out there help me: what is the Blair/Labour Government official position right now on the UN and troop withdrawal? Just to put this in some sort of perspective. If you’re looking for an eminently sensible warning againt misinterpreting the PSOE’s electoral upset of the PP, see Edward’s post below. This here is just my own ?0.02 cast in about the margins. By now virtually everyone must know the results of the Spanish elections. I suppose the real questions people are asking involve how to interpret them. I would advise against jumping to hasty conclusions here. I picked up one comment on Crooked Timber to the effect that: “anybody who decided to vote Socialist after the bombings presumably expected that the Socialists would reverse the government?s Iraq policy and do less in the war on terror than the government was likely to do.? I think this view is a mistake, and doesn’t reveal much understanding about the dynamic of Spainsh politics over the last decade. The great leftist protest movements of the past have often involved a certain questionable division of labour. The workers march and the academics think. Well, I guess France has always been a bit different. First, Les Inrockuptibles circulates an Appel contre la guerre ? l’intelligence (Petition against the war on intelligence), accusing the Raffarin government of dumbing down French society and offering, among other things, the headscarf debate as an example. Now, it seems that the French primeminister has bugged enough of France’s academics that they are now planning on doing some marching of their own. So Greece has a new government, Haider seems to be staging a comeback and next Sunday Spain is going to the polls. On this latter I will post something during the week, meantime, since I confess to knowing next to nothing at all about the significance of the Greek results, or the real state of play with Haider: anyone out there feel willing and able to give us some insight? Especially with those tricky and potentially significant Cyprus negotiations looming right in front of us.Irresistible.
Her Majesty’s government?Some light Saturday reading…
Continue reading Regional Elections in France: The UMP takes a hit
Continue reading How Spain voted
Continue reading Fair and Balanced?
Continue reading More on the Spanish elections
Continue reading Interpreting Spain’s Election Results
Continue reading Elections
Les chercheurs n’y ont rien ? perdre que leurs cha?nes.
Continue reading It’s Election Time in Europe
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A Fistful Of Euros
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