Author: |Posted: 5:18 pm on 19/11/09
Category: Gary Gibbon on Politics
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – From chair of Hertfordshire Health Authority to the voice of Europe in eight years flat?
There would have been few political career trajectories to match it! But that could turn out to be the story of Baroness (Cathy) Ashton, former Labour Leader in the Lords, if things pan out as some hope tonight.
Gordon Brown appears to have dropped the Blair candidacy for president in return for a Brit in the foreign affairs job. And what a job. read more
Author: |Posted: 1:29 pm on 19/11/09
Category: Gary Gibbon on Politics
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – Just waiting for Gordon Brown to turn up for the European Socialist group meeting in Brussels.
I hear that the Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, last week asked Gordon Brown if HE would be the new President of Europe (do you think Charles Clarke put him up to it?). Anyway, Mr Brown said no thanks.
It gives you an idea how very fluid this whole thing has been and still is. read more
Author: |Posted: 9:05 am on 19/11/09
Category: Gary Gibbon on Politics
Am on the Eurostar heading for the Brussels carve-up of top jobs.
Word last night from the Blair camp was that their man has pretty much given up on getting the presidency of the European Council.
Word from Paris and Berlin that they see the job as an internal affairs post dealing with issues like the EU budget makes it easier to handle – that was never the job TB was interested in. read more
Author: |Posted: 12:41 pm on 16/11/09
Category: Gary Gibbon on Politics
We are three days shy of the special summit to choose a President and Foreign Policy High Rep and yet Tony Blair is still in the contest.
Does that mean he is in with a serious chance? Is there a big player still pushing for him? I hear not.
The Prime Minister had been minded to hold on to the Blair candidacy and take it all the way to the EU special summit in Brussels in the hope that it might just work and even if it didn’t he would look like he tried… but that plan is now being reconsidered. read more
Author: |Posted: 10:40 am on 05/11/09
Category: Snowblog
On any other day it would have been the lead story.
But yesterday’s news day was no ordinary day. The conviction of 23 CIA operatives by the still independent judiciary in Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy was a remarkable first.
The CIA staff who included the Milan station chief (What is a secondary European city doing with a CIA station chief at all?) marked a major step in the struggle to bring to justice those responsible for the rendition and torture of suspects in the aftermath of 9/11. read more
Author: |Posted: 10:03 am on 30/10/09
Category: Snowblog
It’s been the back room project of the coterie of Blair loyalists – Peter Mandelson, Jonathan Powell, and others.
So troubled has Mr Blair’s ‘non-candidacy’ for the Presidency of the EU become that both Gordon Brown and David Miliband were forced to break cover yesterday and, risking further domestic controversy, make a very public case for Mr Blair taking over the new lead role in Europe.
But the socialist group in Europe rejected their pleas, and without so prominent a bloc, Blair’s hopes are all but dead.
You read it here first – it was Snowblog that learned first of Mr Sarkozy’s rapid cooling on the matter.
The personal relationship between Nicolas and Tony remains strong, but Sarkozy is too wily a politician to have failed to spot the tide running against Blair, and with Germany’s Angela Merkel less than lukewarm on the idea, he gave up on his plan to anoint Mr Blair.
Barring ‘a walking on water’ moment, the ‘Blair project’ in Brussels is sunk.
As I blogged last week, the French are now much more excited by the idea of ‘young David (Miliband) taking over the potential more powerful EU Foreign ‘High Representative’ role.
Author: |Posted: 1:20 pm on 27/10/09
Category: Gary Gibbon on Politics
I wouldn’t start from here.
That was David Cameron’s first line of defence over the EU president position at his press conference just finished.
His second line: I really don’t want Tony Blair.
He’d be high profile, big impact (”Too good at the job?” Sky’s Adam Boulton asked), so, bizarrely perhaps, the Tory position read more
Author: |Posted: 11:44 am on 27/10/09
Category: Snowblog
So McDonald’s has pulled out of Iceland.
The ultimate economic indicator of ruin is struck, with the closure of three fast food outlets on the island and an indication from the multinational that they don’t expect to return.
Iceland hopes to make good by swallowing something even more indigestible than a reindeer burger – membership of the EU. And it is not the presidency of the European Union that excites them, but the prospect that the island with a ‘c’ in its name can mimic the economic rescue the EU has extended to the member island with an ‘r’ in its name – Ireland.
Speaking of the presidency, I’m told by my Parisian informant that France continues to “decelerate” rapidly on backing Tony Blair for the job. But the problem remains “if not Tony, who?”
Author: |Posted: 11:41 am on 21/10/09
Category: Snowblog
Wow… that lit the blue touch paper! Or was it red? What on earth has Tony Blair done to ignite such bile? The party he led was handsomely re-elected in a campaign he led, he did not shy away from the issues, the country reportedly expressed confidence in him. How can the worm turn so fast? read more
Author: |Posted: 5:50 pm on 19/10/09
Category: Snowblog
The presidency of Europe is slipping rapidly from Tony Blair’s hands.
My sources in Brussels and elsewhere report a rapid sea change in the former prime minister’s fortunes as ratification of the Lisbon treaty creeps closer (the Czech president could reluctantly sign it within a week).
Those sources tell me that Blair’s candidacy has been hit heavily by the opening of the Iraq inquiry. read more
