Mandelson sets up a faintly homophobic double entendre: he “needs wriggle room”, as “Any attempt to reduce room for manoeuvre would be likely to reduce the chances of a success”. I would say more about today’s Doha talks, but as … Continue reading →

Some nice person wrote something nice. Hurrah! (But what’s all this about “language which overly sensitive readers might find troubling”? Cocking bollocks – just because I’m number one Google.com result for “cunting” and “pissing shit” and “cunting cunts” and on … Continue reading →

I am indeed off to Japan at the end of the week. As such, after Friday this place may slow down for a few weeks, as I shall be otherwise engaged and, although I will doubtless be inundated with interwebnet … Continue reading →

Don’t panic over bird flu, UN says. Fair enough. The article does, however, contain the wonderful information that the UK’s chief vetinary officer is called Debby Reynolds. Which considering the name of the anti-Bird Flu drug means I’ve now got … Continue reading →

A Charles Clarke policy “rather alarming”? Surely not… – Once again the courts make a sensible decision in the face of rabid Labour nonsense; once again, the utterly unelected prevent our elected leaders from being dicks.

Thanks to this cheeky bastard I have felt obliged to install “Backlinks” – Blogger’s new sub-par alternative to Trackbacks, where clicking on the new little “links to this post” bit below will utilise the power of Google’s sub-par Blogsearch to … Continue reading →

It’s not often you’ll find a Frenchman slagging off EU farm subsidies, but that’s precisely what World Trade Organisation Director General (and Peter Mandelson’s predecessor as European Commissioner for Trade) Pascal Lamy is doing. Is international pressure to scrap the … Continue reading →

Turkish bird flu confirmed as “the highly-pathogenic H5N1 strain that scientists worry could mutate into a human virus and spark a global flu pandemic likely to kill millions”. Hurrah!

I was wondering what the next area for Blair’s EU presidency to fail in would be. They’ve already buggered up sorting out the budget, the constitution aftermath, CAP reform, data retention, very nearly Turkey, and doubtless numerous other less prominent … Continue reading →

Bird flu confirmed in Romania. Tomorrow the test results on the virus found in Turkey should reveal whether it’s the deadly H5N1 strain – with its 50% fatality rate. And still the government has only 900,000 doses of the vaccine. … Continue reading →

Blair government in complete policy U-turn following “turns out it wasn’t either popular or properly thought through” shocker! – This time those stupid data retention proposals they were trying to push through the EU to avoid having to have a … Continue reading →

As such, things put here to remind me to read them later: “Is there anything left to argue about in economics? Anything interesting, to be more precise, or important?” “A couple of days spent clicking around the economics blogosphere last … Continue reading →

France attacks Peter Mandelson for “going beyond the principles of his mandate” in trade talks with the US. Mandelson has a mandate? Mandelson has principles?

I feel a migrane coming on, so will shortly be unable to see. So in the meantime check out how much just one government department is forking out on consultants via our Justin and the generally top chap that is … Continue reading →