ofthewedge

rooting around for grubs in diverse soils

EU

  • Race and the European Union: Can the subaltern speak?

    They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte At the end of a podcast interview with author Rafia Zakaria, the presenter said the European Commission had been asked how many members of the current college of commissioners were persons of colour. The reply was that the question Read more

  • Football

    Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) Walt Whitman, ‘Song of Myself’. Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; they live in it, and everyone participates because its very idea embraces all the people. While carnival lasts, there is no other life outside it. Read more

  • A radical Labour keynote speech on the UK and the EU

    [This is what Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition should be saying. Yes I know I’m biased but it helps to get it off my chest. The blame for the 23 June debacle lies primarily with Cameron, but secondarily with the ineptitude of the current Labour Party.] Brexit means Brexit. Except that no one knows Read more

  • Greek stuff, or, Hélas Hellas

    Once I went to a post office on a Greek island. I asked the man at the counter whether he spoke English. Looking at me blankly with bored, heavy eyes, he lifted his chin with a slow jerk: όχι. No. A younger me would greet the triumph of Syriza with unalloyed glee. With my more Read more

  • My high charms work And these mine enemies are all knit up In their distractions

    This is not supposed to be a blog about the EU, and I’m not one to say told you so but…. During the week that was the Brussels commentariat is coming alive to the self-aggrandising chicanery which these pages foresaw a couple of months back. First, there was the leaked memo spelling out in Teutonic detail how Read more

  • L’Union? C’est nous.

      A friend of mine recently told me that the artificial Brussels construct – of the EU institutions by day and the polite socialising by night – makes for relatively boring fayre, replete with platitudes, when compared to the bonhomie enjoyed with educated peers from his native Portugal. The air of society in the bubble Read more

  • The Juncker Class

    I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” Boswell, Life of Read more

  • Cunning linguists

    I want to understand you, I study your obscure language. Pushkin It is always gratifying to read something that chimes sympathetically with your own experience. Living in Brussels and speaking bits of sundry other European languages, I rather dread the ‘It’s ok we can speak English’ interjection, so ubiquitous among Euroland’s hyper-educated non-native speakers. Germans do it a lot (believing Read more

  • Yes, Madame la Commissaire

    One of the half-truths about the EU is that it’s very hierarchical. In fact, as far as the Commission is concerned, it’s a very flat management structure, with only three formal tiers of management, whereas in the UK civil service you might have a dozen of them. Directors-General are in charge of the department, and Read more

  • This sceptic isle

    Euroscepticism is an English problem not a UK problem. And, I would venture, it is even more accurate to view this as an English non-urban white issue. It stems from a latent sense of superiority and xenophobia, in spite of the fact that our economic and political clout has been steadily declining for over a century, and Read more