Jon Worth

Some weird parallel EU communications universe

Mostra 2009 Portfolio Screeshot - from mostra.com

A retweet from @belitabrux drew my attention today to a Mostra e-book called Opinion Corner. Take a look – it’s well researched, looks smartly designed… but why does it exist? It’s not that different from the (paper) Shift>Mag published by Tipik in Brussels, a publication that I’ve written for a couple of times. It’s smartly printed and has its own website but if the 10 people that have voted in their recent poll is indicative of the number of web visitors, it’s not immensely popular or relevant. Again why? What is the cost per visitor, the cost per reader of each of these initiatives?

Both Tipik and Mostra are communications agencies that work almost uniquely for the EU institutions. Indeed Mostra’s portfolio for the last 12 months shows nothing but EU institutional clients, and Tipik counts a dozen Commission DGs in its references, and it has 160 staff in Brussels.

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February 8, 2010 | Posted in EU Politics, Euroblog, Technology | Tagged EU Communications, European Commission, Gender Balanced Commission, Mostra, Shift>Mag, Tipik | 7 Responses

Expenses speculation – time to hit MEPs?

Euros - CC / Flickr

Mark Reckons has done an excellent bit of work looking at the likelihood of UK MPs milking their expenses correlating that with how safe their seats are. Meanwhile New Europe has raised the question of if and when the scrutiny of expenses is going to come to the European Parliament. Put those two thoughts together, and throw in the fact that the UK’s election system for MEPs increases the likelihood of candidates just making the party happy… Giles Chichester and Den Dover have already been hit. 390 of 646MPs had to pay back after Legg’s enquiry in Westminster, so are Chichester and Dover the only ones from the UK’s major parties in the EP? I suspect not.

February 7, 2010 | Posted in EU Politics, Euroblog, UK Politics | Tagged European Parliament, Expenses, Legg Enquiry | 2 Responses

The EU can’t have its cake and eat it when it comes to relations with the USA

US-EU Cake - adapted from an original on Flickr

How are you supposed to measure the state of US-EU relations? No easy task seen from Brussels.

Earlier this week Barack Obama prompted a bout of soul-searching by stating that he would not attend a EU-US summit pencilled in for May this year. At least it resolves who will first shake his hand or sit next to him – no-one.

Then today comes the news that Hillary Clinton called Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, regarding SWIFT. Buzek even tweeted that he had spoken to Clinton, but the tweet has subsequently been deleted – screenshot of my retweet of it here. The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs nevertheless voted against an agreement today.

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February 5, 2010 | Posted in EU Politics, Euroblog | Tagged Barack Obama, Jerzy Buzek, Twitter, US-EU Relations | 19 Responses

If you want to be a Eurocrat you have to be an arch-federalist – FT just uses the same old broken frames

It’s good to see that the story that the UK government is cutting funding for the College of Europe is starting to be seen more widely – today’s FT has a story entitled “Funding cut for places at Eurocrat college“. I first wrote about the issue on Friday last week – maybe the FT Brussels people do keep an eye on this blog? Anyway, the FT has a quote from Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg who is an alumnus and he criticizes the UK government’s position – good.

There is one line I really dislike in the FT piece though:

Based in Bruges, it has for 60 years fed prospective civil servants an unabashedly federalist diet of courses for a post-graduate degree in political studies.

Oh come on folks, is that the best that FT journalists can do?

Continue reading “If you want to be a Eurocrat you have to be an arch-federalist – FT just uses the same old broken frames”

February 4, 2010 | Posted in EU Politics, Euroblog, UK Politics | Tagged Bruges, College of Europe, Eurocrats, Federalism, Financial Times, Nick Clegg | 2 Responses

We have been at our best when at our boldest – so AV?

Gordon Brown - CC / Flickr

Two striking phrases appear in Tony Blair’s 2002 Labour Conference speech – the famous “We have been at our best when at our boldest” and a lesser known line “Thanks to the brilliance and vision of Gordon Brown we have succeeded beyond any Labour government“.

Fast forward a little over 7 years, and more than 12 years after Labour’s historic 1997 election victory, and the same Gordon Brown has penned a column in The Guardian where he makes his case for holding a referendum after the election on voting system reform for Westminster. The problem is that the option on the table is the Alternative Vote system – keeping the one MP / one constituency system, but allowing voters to rank candidates. The Electoral Reform Society gives the idea a lukewarm welcome and I’m inclined to agree, but bold this definitely is not – it is at best a compromise. Mark Reckons has more on the issue from a Lib Dem perspective.

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February 3, 2010 | Posted in Euroblog, UK Politics | Tagged 2010 General Election, Alternative Vote, Election Reform, Electoral Reform Society, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, UK Constitution | 3 Responses

I’m a voter in the Leyton & Wanstead selection – make a case, but don’t spam me

Harry Cohen Web Screenshot

A UK general election is on the horizon and my name is on the electoral register in the Leyton & Wanstead constituency in East London. As I’m a Labour Party member resident there for more than 2 years it means I have a vote in the selection procedure to see who will succeed Harry Cohen as the Labour candidate… Harry has always struck me as a pleasant and jovial (although perhaps ineffective) individual, but due to the expenses scandal it’s clear he has to go.

So what is happening actually? According to Peter Kenyon Leyton & Wanstead will be an open selection, presumably taking place rather soon. I trust there will be something about it in the post for me when I’m next in London next week…

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February 2, 2010 | Posted in Euroblog, UK Politics | Tagged Christine Shawcroft, Claude Moraes, Harry Cohen, Jack Dromey, Labour, Leyton & Wanstead | 1 Response

How much does it cost a country to buy some influence in Brussels?

It’s one of Tony Blair’s best known phrases, a promise to put Britain at the heart of Europe. Leaving the big issues (Euro, Iraq) to one side, any relationship with the European Union needs people to make the relationship work, and that’s the focus of this blog entry – where are those people, and how can you (should you?) support them?

The decision to look at this was prompted by an open letter to all UK alumni of the College of Europe (I have a MA from Bruges, 2004), informing us of the decision of the UK government to stop funding the 28 annual scholarships for Brits. I’m not sure exactly how the cash allocation is worked out, but the total cost of this will be something in the region of £300000/€350000 a year.

David Lammy, the BIS minister responsible, gives some flimsy legal reason for why the funding cannot be maintained (more in the letter), but essentially it must be that they are looking for ways to cut the Higher Education budget, so why keep funding scholarships to small colleges in Belgium and Poland that train people who mostly end up working as eurocrats…

But hold on a moment. Haven’t I heard that recently? That Brits are underrepresented in the institutions? Hence the European Fast Stream scheme has been re-introduced within the UK civil service, promising a posting to Brussels and enhanced training to allow participants on the scheme… to become eurocrats.

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January 29, 2010 | Posted in EU Politics, Euroblog, UK Politics | Tagged Bruges, College of Europe, European Fast Stream, Natolin, UK-EU Relations | 8 Responses

TweetLevel – intuitively about right. No more, no less.

I’ve managed to cause quite a fuss after my previous post about the main players in the EU-Twittersphere. So much so that some more reflection is needed, something that, due to the lack of nuance of 140 characters, I’ve been thus far unable to provide to (among others) @mathewlowry and @FabienCazenave.

I think the essence here is that TweetLevel, the tool I used for the main players post, tries to take something rather complex – how good someone is at using Twitter – and to make it incredibly simple, to boil all the complexity down to one number. After all Edelman are in the PR business, selling social media strategies to clients, many of whom probably have little clue about the technology. Making it simple is the essence of their business. It’s not that far from what I do professionally – trying to get politicians and campaigns working online.

So is TweetLevel actually any good? I essentially think it’s intuitively about right, and that’s what makes it useful.

Take @AlexAlvaro for example – he’s a German FDP MEP who basically uses Twitter to broadcast to people, and follows just 19 people. That’s not a good strategy – Twitter is about interaction and conversation, and his score is a measly 31. @JeanineHennis, Alvaro’s Liberal colleague from the Dutch VVD scores 60 on TweetLevel – she actively replies to @replies sent to her, asks for opinions, and genuinely interacts with others via Twitter. Her strategy is better and she scores more in the system.

All of this is intuitively right – I appreciate Jeanine’s strategy more than Alex’s, her approach is the one I would advocate to clients, and now there’s a handy little tool I can use to lend a little more credence to my assertions. As the TweetLevel About Page shows, there is some decent methodology behind their site, and I think that’s reflected in the outcomes, and users are also given some practical tips on how to improve.

So TweetLevel perhaps tells us what we already more or less know or feel, but that doesn’t stop it being useful.

January 28, 2010 | Posted in EU Politics, Euroblog, Technology | Tagged EU-twittersphere, TweetLevel, Twitter | 12 Responses