Current Affairs

Irony comes in many shapes and sizes. Just as Greeks and the rest of Europe watch with bated breath whether Greece will leave the Euro zone, comes news that a designer with the Bank of Greece has won a prize for the design of a new Euro coin. The new coin is to celebrate 30 […]

Ten years ago today, the French voted down the European Constitution Treaty, which was supposed to replace existing EU Treaties and institute key changes such as the appointment of a EU foreign minister. This was followed by an even stronger ‘No’ in the Netherlands three days later. These ‘No’ votes succeeded where the Danish 1992 […]

For every pound that the UK contributes to the European Union science fund, it gets back £1.40. Why? Because the European Union invests into science projects “on the basis of scientific excellence”. And British scientists are among the best in the world. As Michael Brooks pointed out in his weekly science column for the New […]

Citizens from over 70 nations will be able to vote in the UK referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. But most European Union nationalities will be excluded. A spokesman for the British Prime Minster said: “This is a big decision for our country, one that is about the future of the United Kingdom. That’s […]

Today’s newspapers are full of the latest migration figures that show net migration to the UK rose last year by 50% to 318,000. That’s way beyond the target set by Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, who five years ago promised – but failed – to reduce net migration to ‘tens of thousands’. Today Mr Cameron […]

On Tuesday I went to one of my alma maters, LSE’s European Institute, to listen to a panel on Britain’s EU policy. As well as storifying it, I’ve also been thinking about the discussion and particularly three of the things mentioned by Simon Hix, one of the panellists. “Never underestimate the EU’s ability to find a way to muddle through” […]

Following the Conservative party victory in the 2015 UK general election, Tobias Lock presents the key findings of a policy paper which resulted from a UACES Small Event grant funded workshop.

Bank of England boss, Mark Carney, told the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme that foreign workers are helping to increase the UK’s productivity. Presenter John Humphrys asked Mr Carney if “cheap foreign labour” was actually stopping productivity increasing. But Mr Carney replied, “I would really dampen down that explanation.” He said that there had been […]

These days, the People’s Republic of China and the European Union celebrate the 40th anniversary of their diplomatic relationship. At the age of 40 one might assume that this relationship has indeed ‘grown up’ by now. But has it, really? Here are three indicators supporting this view and three against it: FOR: China established diplomatic relations in 1975 with the […]

Since Ryan Heath‘s been kind enough to mention all the work I do on this site on Brexit, it seems like a good opportunity to mention a new project I’ve been working on. ‘A Diet of Brussels‘ is a podcast about the referendum here in the UK on EU membership. In it, I want to try […]