Eu

Thursday

James Delingpole

The tao of Ayn Rand

I’m now half way through Atlas Shrugged and I’m loving almost every moment. But Ayn Rand isn’t someone you read for pleasure, I’m beginning to realise. She’s someone you read so you can underline sentences and scrawl in the margins ‘Yes’, ‘God that is so TRUE!’ and ‘YES!!!’ For example, at the heart of the novel are three romances between heroine Dagny Taggart and a trio of driven, dauntless free marketeers. But you don’t pay them any serious attention — not even during the sex scenes, which you skip quickly past in order to get to the much more exciting bits about industrial relations. Partly, it’s because Rand isn’t much of

Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr’s diary: Holidays after a stroke, and what the Germans really think of us

It’s been a strange summer. After a stroke, holidays are not what they used to be. We went to Juan-les-Pins for a week in a hotel. It seemed perfect because it had beaches for the family, and at nearby Antibes there is a great little Picasso museum for me to haunt. It has the best drawing of a goat ever made. My daughters and wife doggedly manhandled me across hot sand into and out of the water and I enjoyed that. But being surrounded by so many fit people running, cycling and swimming was a little dispiriting. Mind you, I’ve always been useless at holidays. I hate being too hot.

Thursday

James Delingpole

Ukip are playing it safe – so they’ve rejected me

So farewell then £80,000 salary, £150,000 expense account, secretary, team of assistants, constituency office, first-class travel, immunity from prosecution, Brussels blowouts, ludicrous pension and all the other perks I’d been so looking forward to enjoying from May next year onwards. Ukip has decided that it doesn’t, after all, want to have me as one of its MEPs. The rejection came as a bit of a surprise, I must say. When the party chairman, Steve Crowther, rang to break the news, I felt rather as Brad Pitt might on being turned down for a mercy shag he’d proffered Ann Widdecombe. No offence intended to Ukip — I think they’re great people

Prue Leith

How new food rules could ruin restaurants

The coalition said they would tame health and safety, which would be great for those of us in the food -business. But they, like the public, like to blame Brussels, and the problem is not with Europe, or not often. EU law is basically Napoleonic, and sensible. It places the onus on the operators to ensure safety, and to be able to prove that what they do is safe. If it turns out not to be, then they will be prosecuted and likely clapped in jail. Fair enough if you have maimed or poisoned someone. Our law is basically Roman and we like to stipulate every tiny detail in statues. Where

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: David Gower defends bats

In defence of bats Sir: I am saddened by the ‘us versus them’ stance taken by Melissa Kite (‘Bats vs people’, 3 August) when referring to bats. I might be better known for wielding a different sort of bat, but I am a strong supporter of the winged variety. These amazing creatures have lived alongside people for centuries but bats are often misunderstood and even persecuted. So let’s set the record straight; bats are a natural British pesticide, eating midges and other pests. But the last century hasn’t been good for bats. We have carelessly destroyed much of their habitat and, although, as Ms Kite noted, they are protected by

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The EU is being used to put the brakes on shale

It is beginning to dawn on Westminster just how much shale Britain has. The Bowland Basin — which runs from Nottingham and Scarborough in the east to Wrexham and Blackpool in the west — will deliver, on a cautious estimate of how much of it can be recovered, the equivalent of 90 years of North Sea gas production. This country is six to seven years away from seeing the full economic benefits of shale. But they will be substantial — the next election will be a good one to win. However, there are still opponents of shale. The hyper-local ones have received considerable coverage recently, see David Blackburn’s very good

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 – learning to switch off, is London the new Venice and Britain’s shale ambitions vs. the EU

Will holidays ever be truly relaxing again? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, Mary Wakefield and Freddy Gray discuss Clarissa Tan’s magazine cover piece on how technology has ruined our holidays. Has our love of the smartphone and tablet destroyed our ability to ‘switch off’? Do we need to control our impulse to use technology? And is this all a bad thing for our brains? Alec Marsh and our cartoon editor Michael Heath wonder if London is becoming the new Venice — bustling with tourists and barren streets of houses. Michael has been a Londoner since 1935. How has the capital changed since then? Have areas like Primrose Hill

Mike Weatherley

Why bikers need a better deal from the EU

Since I was elected to Parliament in 2010, I have taken every opportunity to push back against the EU’s move towards ever closer union. I have also been a long-time supporter of offering the people a say on our membership of the EU and was delighted when the Prime Minister led the way in pledging to hold that referendum after renegotiation before 2017. I am proud to be a member of the only party offering that choice. Now that the Prime Minister has taken the bold step of pledging a referendum, he must be no less ambitious in the renegotiation he seeks. When we talk about our membership of the

Monday

James Forsyth

The wrong choice for Britain’s EU ambassador

David Cameron is committed to an EU referendum if he’s still Prime Minister after the next election. We also know that he’d like to lead the ‘In’ side if he can get a good enough deal. Given this, the fact that the FT is reporting that Ivan Rogers, the PM’s Europe adviser, is the frontrunner to be Britain’s ambassador to the EU is particularly disappointing. Rogers is a cerebral chap who knows the EU and its institutions back to front. But what he is not is someone who is a natural at driving a hard bargain. As one insider says, ‘he’s not a tough negotiator like Cunliffe’, a reference to

Thursday

Conrad Black

Conrad Black’s farewell to the British press

The astonishing level of enthusiasm over the birth of the new prince goes far beyond the pleasure that people naturally feel for an attractive young couple who have had a healthy child. If there is any truth at all to these estimates in the North American media that trinkets and other bric-a-brac, and even increased numbers of tourists, will produce hundreds of millions of pounds for the British economy, the answer lies not just in normal goodwill and the effusions of the most strenuous monarchists. If my memory is accurate,  the last time there was so much public interest in a royal event, albeit of the exactly opposite nature, was

Wednesday

David Blackburn

David Goodhart tells David Cameron how to tackle immigration by reforming the EU

Much, if not all, of the discussion about immigration in recent days has barely mentioned migration from the European Union, which, given the scale of such migration, was an oversight. Freedom of movement is sacred in Brussels – and indeed elsewhere on the continent. But the times they are a changing. The accession of Bulgaria and Romania has alarmed leaders on the frontier between old and new Europe, in capitals like Berlin, Stockholm and Copenhagen, where there is concern about the effect of a further wave of immigration on employment and public services. The think tank Demos says, in its response to the EU Balance of Competencies Review, that David

Saturday

James Forsyth

We can’t talk about immigration without talking about the EU

Harrods and The Refugee and Migrant Forum of East London don’t strike one as natural bedfellows. But they are both up in arms about the government’s immigration policies. Harrods is upset about the government’s plans to charge visitors from India, Nigeria and four other countries a £3,000 bond to come here, warning it will hit the London luxury goods market. While The Refugee and Migrant Forum of East London is threatening legal action over the vans going around various London boroughs warning illegal immigrants they could be deported. But, as so often, when we discuss immigration in this country we aren’t talking about the elephant in the room: Britain’s EU

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: The EU diplomats hit back at Norman Lamont

EU diplomacy Sir: Lord Lamont’s article ‘The EU’s scandalous new army of overpaid diplomats’ (Politics, 20 July) revisits his oft-repeated views on the European Union. It also shows scant regard for the facts and for the reality of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. The European External Action Service (EEAS) was created by unanimous agreement of all EU governments to project and implement EU policies in the areas covered in the EU Treaties, including trade, aid and the environment, which member states have decided are better done collectively. It has made EU external policy-making more streamlined and cohesive. It in no way duplicates the work of national diplomacies. Cheap shots

M.E. Synon

Why you can’t live in a ‘country’ in the eyes of the EU

Here is a lesson from today’s European Commission midday press conference on how EU propaganda works, and works at all times and at every opportunity. Whenever a commissioner appears on the podium to make a statement, a specially-designed slide is projected onto the giant screen over his head. Today Commissioner Johannes Hahn (an Austrian, you’ve never heard of him) was on the podium to tell the press corps about his plans to make payments out of the EU disaster relief fund, known as the Solidarity Fund, faster and simpler. Fine. But what was more instructive than anything Hahn had to say was what was projected in giant letters behind him,

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

The EU fails to ban Hezbollah

As though the sunny weather and the royal baby were not enough, here comes yet more good news. The European Union has finally banned the military wing of Hezbollah. This is something I have argued for often, including here, here, and here. After recent trials of Hezbollah operatives and Hezbollah operations – including the Bulgaria bombing – on European soil the decision did seem inevitable. Yet there is a cloud on the silver lining – which is that the EU, in somewhat characteristic fashion, has only managed to do a partly good thing. While they have banned the ‘military wing’ of Hezbollah they continue to allow the ‘political’ wing to fundraise and

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Britain and Brussels: what the Foreign Office found

It’s always wise when looking at the European Union to imagine that you’re an alien (it’s the sort of thing MEPs probably do on away days, anyway) coming to the administration for the first time. If a friendly alien had pitched up on earth this afternoon and read the Foreign Office’s first tranche of Balance of Competences Review reports (clearly the sort of thing any sensible alien would do, after a period of revelling in the labyrinthine beauty and inefficiency of the gov.uk website), what would they think? The first of reports – there are three more to come – were published this afternoon, delayed, it was claimed, to stop

Friday

Gabriel Heller

What Stephen Twigg doesn’t understand about Sweden’s for-profit schools

As a Swede, I’m always intrigued to hear the British Labour Party say how Sweden’s free school system has been a disaster. Profit-making schools, says Stephen Twigg, are backfiring. But I’d like to pose a question. If Mr Twigg thinks that profitmaking state schools in my homeland are such a disaster – and one with “with dire consequences for parents and children” – then why does he think that the Swedes haven’t banned them? Has he, from his vantage point of Westminster, spotted a flaw that the Swedes have missed? Or could it be that he has grasped the wrong end of the stick? Mr Twigg recently wrote a piece

Thursday

Norman Lamont

Does the EU really need 32 diplomats in Mozambique? And 44 in Barbados?

The Prime Minister recently professed himself shocked at waste in the European Union. In particular, he was incensed by an EU-funded colouring book portraying the daily lives of ‘Mr and Mrs MEP’. It is appalling, certainly, but far from unusual. The propaganda that comes out of Brussels has long been full of such idiocies. Some may remember Captain Euro, a cartoon superhero who won sporting events for the honour of the single currency. But if the Prime Minister was looking for truly conspicuous examples of waste, he might turn his attention to the EU’s diplomatic service. The European External Action Service was an important institutional innovation brought about by the

Saturday

James Forsyth

Miliband’s EU referendum dilemma

Friday’s vote on James Wharton’s EU referendum bill is going to push the whole Europe question right back up the political agenda. The Tories will try and use it to highlight their support for a vote and the opposition of the other major parliamentary parties. It will be very hard for Ed Miliband to go into the next election opposed to a referendum. It would look like he was opposed to giving the public a say. I also suspect that it will become almost politically impossible to oppose a referendum after the European Elections in 2014. Patrick Wintour reports today that Labour is toying with the idea of either amending

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Lock, load and prepare for ambush – David Cameron’s very British approach to Brussels summits

Many Prime Ministers go native when they head to Brussels. But David Cameron’s hostility to the whole racket is hardening with every trip. At his post-summit press conference today, he was remarkably frank about what had just happened. “I have defeated this latest attempt to cut the rebate,” he said. “I am frustrated I have to go through that battle all over again. But in this town you have to be ready for an ambush at any time, and that means lock and load and have one up the spout, and be ready for it. And that is exactly what I did… It is, and I won’t lie, it is immensely