Current Affairs

Let’s thank my need to get the car MOT’ed for my chancing upon a very interesting discussion about the OODA loop on the radio. For those not into military tactics, the Observe-Orient-Decide-Act loop was devised by a US fighter pilot in the Cold War to conceptualise ways of (literally and metaphorically) out-manoeuvring your opponent: essentially […]

Let’s call this the age of Gloomy Dawning Realisation. Since the start of the year, every day has been filled with examples of How It’s All Going To Be, as various individuals and sectors click that what we have is what we’ve got. This seems an odd way to put it, especially since those of […]

The European Refugee crisis, which began in 2015, has provided significant challenges for political parties across Europe and for the governance of the European Union (EU). In 2015, over one million migrants and refugees arrived into Europe. This wave continued into 2016, with a substantial reduction in 2017 and 2018 taking place. The peak number of refugees entering the EU in 2015 is often referred to as the European Refugee crisis.

The UK’s push for the frictionless market of the Norway option, while accepting only the obligations of the Canada option, was not viable. It was a delusion, either due to ignorance or self-deception. The UK never had the same vision of the EU as the other Member States. A main reason for the UK’s accession […]

Something’s bothering me about Brexit. The main thrust of Johnson’s time in Number 10 has been ‘getting Brexit done’, which I have always taken to mean ‘getting Brexit off the front pages so we can get back to some more interesting/important thing’. This has manifested itself in Johnson’s lack of engagement with the detail (or […]

There has been much speculation, and a lot of inaccurate gossip, about the EU’s vaccination programme. So, to get to the facts, please refer to this new and clear question and answer website setup by the European Commission to answer your questions. Just click the graphic: Just click on one of the themes on the European […]

This week, the government published some commissioned research on the financial impact of Brexit on UK universities. The work looked at the likely impact of changing demand from EU students in response to various changes in fees and finances. The broad picture of the impact was that while numbers would fall markedly, that would be […]

As we were racing fast to leave 2020 behind, 2021 came as a slap on the face as the COVID-19 mutations promptly popped up in different parts of the World, including in the UK, Brazil and South Africa, which have made the successful vaccination roll out across the globe all the more crucial. While all […]

It was one year ago today that Britain left the European Union, and one month ago that we also left the EU’s Single Market and customs union. So far, NOT so good. Putting up costly and complicated barriers to trade with our most important customers and suppliers in the world is causing enormous headaches and […]

Differentiated integration is a political reality in the European Union. However, public opinion remains divided, both across countries and among individual citizens. This fact highlights important challenges for the workings of the Conference on the Future of Europe. During the recent tense and aggressive debate on the EU budget and the COVID-19 relief fund, Prime […]