Tag Archives: Blogging

The state of EU debate

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A subject worth another look every year or so – especially with EU elections looming in 2009 – is what sort of discussion (if any) the European Union is inspiring among its citizens. After all, I remain top Google result for “EU debate” (and second only to the EU’s own Debate Europe forum without the inverted commas), and the nature of political discourse surrounding the EU was one of the reasons I first started blogging about the whole thing. (Largely to slag off some of the nuttier anti-EU types, at first, but I’ve expanded a bit since then…)

I last had a look at EU debate nine months ago, which provides a fairly handy overview of how nothing much has changed during the time I’ve been blogging (Don’t believe me? Here’s a post on the subject from four years ago) – and that followed an intensive series of posts on the possibilities for building a genuine European demos that I did for openDemocracy (that’s the thing that I got shortlisted for that Reuters award for).

As such, for me to do another post on the subject is largely redundant. Thankfully, however, the newly revamped Kosmopolito (at an all new address and with an extra vowel) has had a stab, and brings a different, yet complimentary, take to the whole thing. One point in particular that stands out, however:

It is still cumbersome for non-experts to monitor the EU decision making process. Especially the internet and new online tools have the potential to make it easier to monitor and control EU decision making processes. Even though the europa.eu portal contains most of the information, it needs a serious relaunch. A new EU portal needs to be transparent, with a focus on policy processes that makes it easy to follow documents, combined with some interactive elements.

This cannot be stressed enough. I’m actively interested in the EU. I’ve been blogging about it for five years. I know my way around most of the sources of EU information available online, and I know (roughly) where to start looking to delve deeper into particular subjects. Yet even I still find it difficult to find what I’m looking for sometimes. (Where is an EU equivalent of TheyWorkForYou or The Public Whip? The only thing similar is Brussel Stemt, a Dutch-language site tracking the votes of Dutch MEPs – as far as I’m aware there’s nothing else out there.) The Europa portal has a near impossible task in trying to provide so much information in so many different languages, certainly, but it remains one of the most confusing, unintuitive sites on the web.

One of the major reasons why Euromyths spread so quickly – and also why the Lisbon Treaty has sparked so much opposition – is that the people find it impossible to find out information about the EU for themselves. (As noted the other day, to argue against the classic straight bananas Euromyth necessitates hunting down an obscure EU regulation and then trawling through and attempting to understand seven pages of legal jargon. Far easier just to believe what your newspaper tells you.)

If information is hard to come by or hard to understand, the power of the press and other self-professed experts to influence public opinion is massively increased. When the experts and the press are themselves ill-informed (as most journalists writing about the EU and many national politicians commenting on it sadly are) or biased (as is certainly often the case in the UK), the public is – intentionally or otherwise – going to be misled and misinformed. A misled and misinformed public in turn leads to misinformed debate, and that to an ineffective democracy. (Indeed, it’s arguable that part of the reason the public are so uninterested in the EU is that they’ve been consistently misinformed about just how important it is to their daily lives – if only they knew, claim some eurosceptics, they’d be up in arms.)

I’m afraid I can’t see this situation changing any time soon. EU debates outside the Brussels beltway remain largely non-existent, dominated by lack of solid factual knowledge and understanding (by both sides) and a lack of interest from anyone bar obsessives (as Jon Worth noted is still the case as recently as June, and as I’ve been saying for years). Hell, sometimes even the obsessives aren’t that interested.

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Can I sue Iain Dale?

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Being labelled a left-wing blogger in Iain Dale’s latest unscientific guide to the world of British blogging is one thing (though something I was not alone in thinking was somewhat odd – check the comments below that list). Sometimes I do go a bit lefty – just as sometimes I go a bit right-wing (mostly economically, but still). A casual reader could be forgiven for getting the wrong impression.

But I’ve just had a gander at the full version (warning – PDF) – and he’s got me down as a Labour blogger.

I’ve been doing this blogging business for long enough not to take these things too seriously, as – like busses – there’ll be another one along in a minute. (Only 155th best political blog in the UK according to that list? Meh – last month I was named blog of the month by the UK Good Web Guide, whatever that is. Best blog lists are ten a penny.)

But still. Me? A LABOUR blogger? That’s one insult too far.

I am not, nor ever have been, a member of ANY political party. Indeed, I hate the very concept of political parties. At the London elections back in May I voted for four different parties in the end, allocating those votes largely on the basis of the individual politicians concerned. That post, please note, has been (for reasons that escape me) in the “Most Popular Posts” section to the right there for the last couple of months. Anyone confused as to my political leanings could have found out in just a couple of seconds that I am not a party beast.

I rarely get too riled by online insults – but this isn’t just an insult, it’s a slander. A libel. I’ve long prided myself on my lack of party affiliation – to the extent that, on principle, I refused to join the party of the MP I worked for at the House of Commons. Especially in the current climate, with Labour ever more embarrassing in its ineptitude, I am not at all pleased.

Nosemonkey interviewed: On EU blogs and Russia

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Believe it or not, from time to time people actually ask me for my opinion on things, rather than me just spouting out unsolicited words into the electronic ether and hoping that someone may spot them and correct my mistakes.

As such, this evening I’ll be doing the talking head thing on the BBC World Service’s World Have Your Say, trying to come up with a coherent theory about Russia’s current plans and how the rest of the world should respond. (Likely argument? Russia’s being childish and throwing a tantrum, and there’s usually two responses to tantrums: smack them or ignore them. Unfortunately, neither option’s really possible in this case.) Any suggestions much appreciated.

Oh, and some content from this place may soon start appearing in syndicated form on the website of a new PBS world news show – about which more details when I have them. (Check me out – I’m a regular media whore…)

Meanwhile, last week the chap behind L’Europe en blogs got in touch to ask my take on all things Euroblog. The write-up can be found here and is, I believe, the first in a series of interviews they’re doing with leading EU bloggers. Below the fold is a longer version of my somewhat pessimistic take on the state of the EU blogosphere – a taster:

the EU continues to work largely unscrutinised by the public – because us bloggers ARE the public, and if we’re not doing it, who the hell is?

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Blogs, Georgia and David Miliband

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There’s a rather good look at blogland’s attempts to cover strange going ons in faraway lands of which they know little from the chap behind tip-top Central Asia blog Registan, which is well worth reading in full:

“Elite bloggers often portray their analytical and news-gathering skills as equal or (more often) superior to those of professional journalists… But in the case of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia, the blogging world mostly failed to live up to its promises… Days after the fighting began, even normally excellent sources of analysis and insight… were still linking to the same narrow set of news sources —sources that offered little more than thin quotes from government officials. While this isn’t necessarily a knock on, say, Reuters or The New York Times (it takes a little time to get a correspondent on scene), it is a tremendous failure on the part of the blogosphere, noteworthy for precisely how it failed to deliver on its original promise: breaking out of the mainstream media’s tendency toward groupthink.”

It’s hard not to agree with pretty much every word. I’m no Caucasian expert, and wouldn’t call myself a Russia expert either (hell, I’m not sure I’d even count as an EU expert), so these criticisms apply just as much to this place as elsewhere, but still. From skimming the blogs, you’d never get the impression of the complexity and lack of clarity of the situation. You’ll get constant references to the same news sources. The same bland platitudes about sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-determination, Russia’s Cold War mentality and the like – all repeated Chinese Whispers style from some pundit in some paper somewhere, with little secondary thought, criticism or research applied. Hell, some places are still picking up on my pipelines post as if it’s an amazing new discovery that Georgia is a major point of transit for energy resources, rather than something that anyone who knows anything about the region at all has known about for years.

But you know the really worrying thing? It’s when the British Foreign Secretary ends up taking the same approach as the blogs:

“These actions need to be taken in the context of a clear diagnosis of the events of the last two weeks. For me, the fog of war does not obscure the basic points.”

Well, it should – if armed conflict doesn’t make you question your existing policy of containment of one of the belligerents, then what the hell will? The situation has changed from a year ago when Miliband first decided that escalation of the UK’s ongoing post-Litvinenko spat with Russia was the way forward. Russia has moved its troops into a sovereign nation. The Kremlin has gone from vague threats and subversion (via cyber attacks and withholding energy) into physical attacks. This requires new thinking and new approaches – not least because it shows just how ineffective the existing British strategy towards Russia has been.*

Me? I’m just a blogger, not Foreign Secretary – and yet I’m trying to revise my preconceptions of Russia. I’m reading more widely, researching in more depth, trying to work out how this might play out, and what the best options are for both sides. I haven’t got there yet, but I plan to work at it constantly – because the joy of international relations is that they are constantly shifting, affected by myriad factors, many of which are both obscure and obscured. If a week is a long time in politics, a year is an age in international relations. So why is the British government still pursuing the same course with Russia when the rules of the game have shifted once again?

(* Of course, it could also be a sign that the current policy is working fine and that Moscow is beginning to get desperate… But although I’m increasingly firmly in the “Russia is weak and trying to hide it” camp (as is the decidedly more knowledgeable Registan, I was pleased to note), this strikes me as both worrying and wishful thinking.)

EU Blog Directory – new additions

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It’s about time I updated the EU Blog Directory, so here are the latest additions – some new, some merely new discoveries, all worth checking out. If I’m still missing any, please do let me know…

The 8th Circle
- “Corruption, democracy, and Eastern European politics.” Welcome addition to the world of Eastern European blogs, covering the region – and its relations with the rest of the EU – with rare insight and intelligence.

Alphasources
- Focussing primarily on European (and occasionally Japanese) macroeconomics, this is a handy addition to any reading list for those of us still struggling to get to grips with the complex interrelations of the European economies.

Blogging from Brussels
- Yes, that’s right – an EU politics blog written by a GIRL! Or, alternatively, a left(ish) leaning Swedish media officer at an unnamed Brussels-based think-tank, looking at European politics in the widest possible sense.

Brussels Media
- “A blog about the EU media landscape in Brussels” with an emphasis on the role the internet is starting to play in the EU public sphere.

EU Corruption
- “Despite appearances this isn’t a eurosceptic blog. But transparent and honest government is good government.” Critical and often insightful, it can only be hoped that it keeps going – we need more of this sort of thing.

Euro Watch
- Has been going for years (since 2002, in fact) and is a stupidly handy resource, packed full of in-depth yet easy-to-understand economic analysis and data – and with sub-blogs on the economies of France, Germany, Italy, Greece and Spain. Essential reading.
europa-eu-audience
- “The Institutions of the European Union endeavour to be transparent, open and accessible. They want to be seen in the best possible light by the public at large. We share this objective, and intend to contribute to its achievement.” – focussing primarily on EU politics on the web.

European Avenue
- EU news linklog, mostly rounding up EU content from the UK broadsheet press.

Ironies Too
- “A continuing chronicle of how democracy is being destroyed across the entire Euopean Union” – unsurprisingly, this is another eurosceptic blog, albeit one that’s readable, regular and interesting for a change. Worth a look, and long-running.

Julien Frisch
- Only launched in July 2008, even in its first few weeks this blog managed to attract attention for its frequent, eclectic and insightful posts on all things EU-related. If the same rate of posting is kept up, it could soon become one of the big boys…

Yellow Stars Blog
- “Christian Democrat and Pro European Union blog in support of a European world order!” Irregular posting (averaging just 4/5 a month) on eclectic European subjects, but well worth a look when new content appears.

Stanley’s Blog
- The first blog from the Blogactiv stable to merit its own listing – regular, informative and insightful, and already deserving of a place on the “must read” list.

The Tap
- From EU Referendum’s “Umbrella Blog” stable, little wonder this is another British eurosceptic. But despite a tendency to repeat many of the anti-EU/centre-right memes, there are nuggets of unexpected insight and better analysis than we have come to expect from the majority of anti-EU British blogs.

The Turko File
- “Blogging Turkey’s road to membership in the European Union” – we need more of this sort of thing: blogs analysing specific countries’ relationships with the EU. We’re inundated with British eurosceptics doing this sort of thing, and there’s a moderate number of French ones, but outside these two they’re surprisingly rare. Yet they’re also essential to understanding how and why the EU is doing what it’s doing.

Whitebull
- Blog spin-off of EU video news YouTube channel EUX.TV, there’s some good stuff here, as well as all their latest videos. Launched in May 2008, fingers crossed they keep the blog going.

Check out the rest on the EU Blog Directory.

UK political blogs just aren’t profitable

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And so another attempt to make money out of someone blathering on about politics has failed, with the closure of Westmonster.

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so…

Note to any other wannabe online publishers thinking of starting a UK politics blog: don’t bother. The audience figures even for the biggest aren’t sufficiently high (certainly in terms of uniques) to warrant any advertiser forking out anywhere near enough money to make such ventures profitable. The only way to make money via British blogging is adapting the long tail model, stealing some ideas out of AdSense’s book, and setting up an advertising platform across numerous blogs. Only Blogads has already done that – and the UK version, MessageSpace, is backed by some of those self-same big boys of the UK blog world.

Or, of course, you could lobby for funding and sponsorship – seems to work for places like EurActiv, that’d never (that I can see) be able to survive on advertising revenue alone. But the thing to remember is this: if newspapers only had political news in them, they’d swiftly go bankrupt.

Top blogs list

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Via DK, it appears that leading UK Tory blogger Iain Dale is putting together another of his top blogs lists. Last year it was somewhat hampered by selection bias – evidence of which is still on display in Dale’s new Total Politics blog directory, which lists this place in the “Non Aligned” category but not the Europe/EU one (a list that also fails to mention Jon Worth, among others). I wasn’t even aware of the list until I discovered I was in it…

Anyway, if you fancy it the instructions for sending in your pics can be found here – basically, email in your ten favourites – UK-based or UK-focussed blogs only – in order of preference. Whether you believe he deserves it or not, one thing is certain – Dale seems to be regarded as something of a British blogging expert, and his list is bound to get some attention. It would be a shame if decent, deserving blogs end up losing out simply because their readers don’t bother reading blogs by Dale and his readers.

(Personally, I find making top ten lists almost impossible at the best of times – let alone top tens in order of preference… This may take me a while…)

Seconded

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Jon Worth on the futility of being an EU-focussed blogger.

The only thing I’d say he’s missed is that the EU is also insanely boring, which makes getting up the motivation to write about it even more tricky than the minute readership and constant feeling that your few good ideas are being nicked by people who are then getting paid for it…

Of course, the plus side is that a small readership of people who know their stuff or will intelligently engage (hello, dear readers, etc.) is infinitely preferable to a large readership of idiots. In professional journalism you always end up writing for the audience you’ve got (for example, just last week I ended up using the phrase “gossip-fest” in the headline of a piece I was working on – not something you’d normally see here…).

The point of blogging, I always thought, is to write to the audience you want. Want a large one? Saying remotely positive things about the EU – if you’re writing in English in particular – simply isn’t the way to go. Instead you need populist conspiracy theories, knee-jerk politician-bashing, and plenty of rumour and innuendo. Just be prepared for a flood of comments from nutters. Want an influential one? Be thoughtful and original. Just don’t expect a great deal of credit – and don’t expect to be able to tell whether you’re influential or not half the time…

Blogging about blogging

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Someone got in touch to ask some questions about citizen journalism and the July 2005 London terrorist attacks. My response ended up getting rather lengthy as I went off on one, so I reckoned I may as well post it. Could prove interesting to some, even if it is another of those blogging about blogging things I thought I’d stopped doing. Continue reading →

Anyone else having problems with WordPress 2.5?

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I’m getting a load of “you do not have permission to do that” errors and appear no longer to be able to add custom fields to posts, or edit their timestamps, which is somewhat irritating.

What with Firefox also having gone crap on me since the latest updates (both to regular Firefox and to Firefox 3 beta), eating up half my processor power and slowing normally decidedly speedy computer to a crawl, I’m getting rather annoyed with two bits of software I can’t normally do without, and am starting to punch inanimate objects.

Still, you get what you pay for, I suppose…

Blogger becomes Finnish Foreign Minister

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Congrats Alex Stubb MEP (yes, he of the website full of really bizarre photos) on his recently-announced promotion following the highly entertaining mobile phone sex scandal.

That makes two Scandinavian countries with bloggers as Foreign Ministers (the other being Sweden’s Calr Bildt, formerly of Bildt Comments fame). With David Miliband doing the blogging Foreign Secretary thing for the UK, does this mean that Britain is finally acknowledging our northern heritage?

Let face it, us Brits are all pretty much Scandinavian when you get down to it – the Angles (of Anglo-Saxon fame) were pretty much from Denmark, the Normans were originally Vikings (the name coming from “Norse men”, or something), and most of the north of England was under Scandinavian rule for centuries.

Plus, of course, we’ve got the Scandinavian booze habit. And a tendency to rape and pillage when we go abroad – especially to Ibiza and the Costa del Sol.

The state of British EU news coverage

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I may well have only made the shortlist for the UACES-Reuters Reporting Europe Award because the selection panel felt that in this day and age they needed a web-only publication to be sufficiently down with the kids (at least, I assume that’s why I’m on there alongside people like the Europe Editors of the BBC and The Economist…) – but the fact that I am on there at all demonstrates one of the fundamental problems at the heart of Britain’s turbulent relationship with the EU.

A Sun classicBecause, you see, the Reporting Europe Award is designed “to honour a leading journalist whose writing and reporting on Europe has made a real impact”. Now, by no stretch of the imagination am I a leading journalist. Nor have I had a huge impact, even in the small world that is online discussion about European and EU politics.

But think about it a moment. Bar Mark Mardell, by far the highest profile Europe/EU-focussed journalist in the UK (and my fellow shortlistee) thanks to occasionally cropping up on the BBC news of an evening while we’re all sitting down to our tea, how many high-profile Europe-focussed journalists are there in the UK? How much coverage of European politics is there, for that matter (even when the French President popped over for a visit, most coverage was focussed on his good-looking new missus rather than anything he said or did)? In particular, though, how much coverage is there of EU politics: the goings on in Brussels and Strasbourg at the Parliament, Council and Commission? Continue reading →

EU blog directory

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Skip straight to the EU Blog Directory

I missed my blog birthday. Two days ago was the fifth anniversary of the birth of this blog. Since that time, the world of EU politics blogging has changed massively.

EU blogsBack then, in March 2003, I wasn’t aware of any other blogs attempting to cover the same subject (though I think A Fistful of Euros may have started by then) – most people were obsessed with something or other going on in Iraq, if I recall. The technology was clunky, there were no blog search engines, no RSS feeds, no WordPress – nothing that makes blogging so easy these days. Little wonder I gave up so quickly, leaving the thing to stagnate for a year after a mere three posts. But hey, I revived it, so it still counts as this blog’s real birthday, I reckon – even if regular updates didn’t start until August 2004.

Anyway, time for an overview of EU blogs, I reckon. Please note – this list is sadly not comprehensive, and a number of blogs that appear not to have been updated in the last couple of months have been left off. I’ve also left off blogs with more of an emphasis on individual countries rather than EU politics as a whole.

If you have an EU politics blog and you’re not present here or on my Netvibes RSS roundup, drop me an email via nosemonkey [at] gmail.com and I’ll add you. I plan to keep both this and the RSS roundup regularly updated.

And so, without further ado… Continue reading →