The UK government establish an independent body to give it advice on drugs policy which it could then ignore. Now they’ve gone and fired the head of the body. Of course, because the machinery of British government functions on blu-tack and sticky-back plastic, the minister hasn’t used any formal powers, but has merely “invited” the [...]
By convincing all these people.
Second in a series explaining why Pierluigi Bersani won the leadership of the Partito Democratico. This post focuses on the reasons why Bersani should have been considered the favourite right from the off.
The governor of Lazio, Piero Marrazzo, has been forced to step down, ostensibly because of poor health, after four police officers attempted to blackmail him with footage of him snorting cocaine with transsexuals.
The police officers had been stupid enough to offer the photos to the print media, including Chi magazine, which is part of the [...]
Yesterday Pier-Luigi Bersani was elected leader of the Partito Democratico. This post is one in a series of posts analyzing the leadership contest, and looks at the programmatic statements of each of the three candidates (Bersani, Franceschini, and Marino).
The primaries for the Partito Democratico are today. Voting continues until 20:00 and the first data are expected at midnight.
Franceschini has closed strongly: there was an appeal signed by 75 parliamentarians, and (somewhat inexplicably, at least to me), left-wing film-maker Nanni Moretti came out in favour of Franceschini.
The nightmare scenario for the PD is that [...]
Interesting blog post from Michael Crick on differences in how the UK Electoral Commission treats donations to the LibDems and UKIP, suggesting that the former are favoured relative to the latter, other things being equal. Question is what’s the causal link between a given political party having more elected representatives and receiving more favourable treatment [...]
I’ll be chairing a session at this event. The Shrumster will be there!
New York University’s La Pietra Policy Dialogues
invites you to the International Conference:
“The Obama Administration: An Early Assessment”
at Villa la Pietra in Florence on October 20, 2009
Top media experts, political analysts and scholars from both sides of the Atlantic will evaluate the new [...]
Legislative proposal suggests that a crime motivated on the basis of the afflicted party’s sexual orientation be added to the list of aggravating factors contained in the penal code.
The UDC raises a point of order, arguing that the proposal is inconstitutional insofar as it violates articles 3 and 25 of the Constitution (equality before the [...]
I didn’t get a chance to blog about the decision of the Italian Constitutional Court to invalidate the bill guaranteeing Berlusconi immunity from trial. The court ruled that any such immunity would require a constitutional amendment.
Now, Berlusconi might have already got what he wanted. The immunity bill stalled existing trials, and now they’d have [...]