The EU plumps for obscure and even more obscure as its first president and foreign minister 

Diogenes

Forgive me, has this decision actually been taken yet? (I write at 2130 on Thu 19.) Or are you still speculating?

DavidDP

Given the options, the Tory priority was to get the most obscure non-entity possible to prevent the precedent of an activist president.

Job done.

malone

formerly boss at west herts Health authority 98-2001
now that's an organisation with a good reputation for being well run......
never faced an election?
perfect for the job at the eu then....

Alex Creel

The BBC's Ashton biog says it all http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8369392.stm Pushed by Blair, promoted by Brown, a career politician who never worked a 'real' job, helped sell our souls to the Lisbon treaty & married to a pollster. Not fit to represent me, us or our nation.

Goodbye Gordon

I suspect it is just me, but have they just made Michael Foot's (slightly) younger brother President of the EU?

strapworld

Baroness Ashton of Upholland.

please note the very last sentence! HIGHLY RELEVENT FOR THIS UNELECTED CROWD.

Ashton studied a broad degree in economics at Bedford College, University of London, graduating with a BSc in sociology in 1977.[3][4][5] Between 1977 and 1979 Ashton worked at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and was later elected as its national treasurer and subsequently as one of its vice-chairs. As of 1983 she worked for the Social Work Training Council.[6]

From 1983 to 1989 she was Director of Business in the Community working with business to tackle inequality, and established the Employers’ Forum on Disability, Opportunity Now, and the Windsor Fellowship.

She chaired the Health Authority in Hertfordshire from 1998 to 2001, and her children's school governing body, and became a Vice President of the National Council for One Parent Families. She briefly advised the producers of several American television shows, most notably 'Boston Legal' on sensitive storylines.[7]

She was made a life peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland in 1999. In June 2001 she was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills. In 2002 she was appointed minister for Sure Start in the same department. In September 2004, she was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department for Constitutional Affairs, with responsibilities including the National Archives and the Public Guardianship Office. Ashton was sworn of the Privy Council in 2006, and became Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the new Ministry of Justice in May 2007.

In 2006 she won the "Politician of the Year" award at the annual Stonewall Awards.

On 28 June 2007 the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, appointed her to the Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council.[8]

Ashton's 2007 biography at the Department for Constitutional Affairs does not include any instance of her standing for election to public office.[9]

Yow Min Lye

Grief. And to think: Prince Charles used to complain that the Chinese Politburo gave the appearance of being 'waxwork dummies'!

Ronald Combo

The Baroness. Unheard of. Unelected here and now unelected there. Just about perfect I'd say.

Moraymint

" ... Belgium Prime Minister who is obscure even by Belgium standards ..."

He's not obscure to the Bilderberger Group. Are you naive James?

Frank

Just looked up Baroness thingy: typical lefty: trade unionist, CND the lot.

Prodicus

Except PB's Morus. 50/1 isn't bad.

Jez

Joseph Stalin was quite obscure before Lenin's death.

Herman van Rompuy is the new 'President'.

This publication along with 100% of the mainstream- including all of the Westminster elite, have just gone along with actively seeking their own replacement.

Am i honestly missing something here?

I just don't get it.

If anyone doesn't think that we're on track for being swallowed up- check out all the new coinage from last year- no Christian Crosses on any of it..... just like Italy's Cross ban.

Great job.

A completely left socialist non-indiginous trade block slowly being dominated by Islam.

Yipee.

HFC

Oh. THAT Baroness Ashton. I see.

kein

shouldn't that be baroness upyours

JONNY

Aren't we all forgetting Gordon Brown has the utmost confidence in her.
She must have done something right.

Amadeus Plonquer

I just pray that Emperor Rompuy never has to go to Pompey as I might be arrested for making derogatory statements about the EU.

Snowman

There will be many in the former communist block countries who will say 'what's new?' In the West, we should catch up and accept that this is how dictatorships are run.

Tom FD

"The speed with which my earlier prediction unwound is proof that no one should try and make their living by betting on the European Union."

Morus did all right!

Holly ......

'The speed with which my earlier prediction unwound is proof....
You media types get more useless by the day.
We are at a stage in the political cycle where everything is on sand...you would be better off going away for six months to practice nailing jelly to the wall.
What you should have done(as any sane person
would have)is WAITED FOR THE OUTCOME...THEN reported on it.You would have looked less eggy faced, but who am I to tell you your job?

Glyn H

The list of non-jobs is quite extraordinary; social work council indeed but par for the Labour party. Surely the big issue is that a former vice chairman of CND, an organisation that actively sought to undermine Western security in now in name in charge of same.

It is a scandal that such people should even have any public sector job, let alone a highly paid one connected with security. Has this been cleared through MI5? Did she have fully security clearance even at Cabinet?

greenslime3

Splendid. A nonetity, but at least he was voted in by someone, and another nonentity who has never been voted for by anyone. We are sliding towards a Chinese style of government - appointment by secretive quango.

Let's get the hell out of this club PDQ.

I don't think I want to stay controlled by a country whose population will stand compliantly at a completely empty road junction, at 2am, waiting for a red man to go green and another whose population wishes to retain medieval methods of agriculture whilst someone else pays for it.

John Moss

I wonder how quickly Lady Ashton will act to secure control of the UK's permanent member seat on the security council?

General Zod

This is a perfect result for the Tories. These two people's names will be forgotten by the weekend. The roles have been rendered irrelevant.

Dorothy Wilson

Don't be lulled into a trap over this. Rompuy and Ashton may seem like bureaucrats. However, Rompuy favours federalism and EU levied taxes. Ashton seems to have been given the job as a reward for steering Lisbon through the Lords.

Meanwhile, the real strings will still, as ever, be pulled by France and Germany. And we should never forget the propensity of both to opt for dictatorship when the going gets tough. That can just as easily be achieved through the back door as through as through the front.

Hague's reaction to the appointments were just about the only one he could mke in the circumstances. However, we must hope there is some hard-headed realism lurking behind the comment that a Conservative Government will work with these people in the national interest - with emphasis on that.

JONNY

Teeth straight out of one of Beatrix Potter's bunnies.
No wonder they couldn't resist her.

Naomi Muse

The Treaty jamboree continues with the appointments of these people.

If the baroness is now, de facto, the EU Foreign Minister, whom Hillary Clinton regards as her main EU contact then we should immediately sack little Miliband as being superfluous to requirements? And the other EU Foreign Ministers too..That would save money!

oldtimer

Beware! They may be relative nonentities but that is deliberate. Their appointments reflects the intent not to frighten the doubters and the sceptics. It is a foot in the door, the thin end of a wedge. In two and a half years Van Rompuy will be replaced, in five Ashton will be gone. Then who will follow? The EU federalists play a long game.

Percy

Baroness Ashton's appointment seems like a plot from the new series of The Thick of It.

denis cooper

Agreed, oldtimer.

Rumpy-Pumpy may just do as he's told by Merkozy, but he'll be replaced (either after two and half years, or after five years) by somebody else, who'll be replaced by somebody else, and so on for a thousand years (they think) and eventually, inevitably, there'll be somebody much stronger and cleverer who'll gather the reins of power very firmly into his hands.

I recall something like this being said in reply to the argument that having a US federal President would be no threat, because it would be Washington - something about "And what will happen when General Washington is followed by General Shloshington?"

Taipei Exile

After all the horse trading they end up choosing a horse face.

Woodbine Willy

Amadeus Plonquer 12:22am
I just pray that Emperor Rompuy never has to go to Pompey
Just think what the Sun would make of it if he goes to Porstmouth

Roy Simpson

News reports tell us that the High Representative will have a staff of six thousand. Presumably, they will be employed at EU Embassies around the world.

Does anyone have any information on how much this ridiculous development will cost?

Naomi Muse

Roy Simpson - the whole thing fills me with horror and the six thousand staff worldwide has to be a modern application of 'Parkinson's Law' where the job expands .....Anyone remember Parkinson's Law?

Marcher Baron

Have they appointed a Lord High Executioner yet - for all of those heretics who do not follow the Federalist faith?

Bexleyite

Catherine.ashton@ec.europa.eu seems to be a working email so if you want to say something to her personally that address might work.