'Uncategorized' Category

  • Pages and word counts

    September 2, 2011

    I’m writing a grant application. Some of the documents in support of the application have an upper limit on the number of characters; some have an upper limit on the number of pages. I find limits on the number of pages annoying. The quantity of pages of a document has no relationship to the quantity [...]

  • ECPR Programme

    August 18, 2011

    I got tired of waiting for the ECPR printed programme, and got frustrated with the ECPR website. So I made my own PDF programme for Reykjavik 2011. It’s in A5 format, and is optimized for e-readers, so very thin margins. Other formats on request.

  • Peter Mair

    August 17, 2011

    Peter Mair died earlier this month. I knew of Peter by reputation from the moment I started studying European politics; I knew him personally at the European University Institute. Peter had three cardinal virtues of a scholar: first, a fine appreciation for the written word, in whichever language; second, a certain wanderlust, which led him [...]

  • Brooks resignation

    July 15, 2011

    I’ve spoken about Tom Mockridge (new CE, Nes International) before (here and here). I think he’ll be good for News International

  • Malleability, softness

    July 11, 2011

    So, I posted here about News International’s (perceived) power — but that’s really very unimportant compared to what’s happening to the Italian stock market and the BTP-Bund spread.

  • Coalition has one in three chance of going the distance

    June 23, 2011

    That’s the claim of the paper I’ll be presenting at next week’s UEA/IfG/MEG conference, The Coalition at One. Paper is here, abstract is pasted below: Using off-the-shelf models from the political science literature on coali- tions, I model the likelihood of the current coalition government forming, the speed of the negotiations leading up to its [...]

  • The man who screwed an entire country

    June 9, 2011

    … is the Economist’s take on Berlusconi. I don’t agree with the Economist on everything. But they have been consistently on target in their coverage of Berlusconi.

  • Want to hear why we have public broadcasters?

    June 7, 2011

    Then come hear me at the very first media@uea symposium on the 24th June 2011. Details are here. Quick descriptor: media@uea is an initiative which brings together the schools of Economics, Film & Television Studies, International Development, Law, Political, Social & International Studies and others from across the University of East Anglia. We are pleased [...]

  • Things which shocked me today

    June 3, 2011

    Interviewer: Would you trust her [reality television star the late Jade Goody] more than someone like Gordon Brown? A: Yeah I probably would, probably because she’s been in the media attention and obviously she’s been in Big Brother, so you see what she’s really like as opposed to a politician who says things just to [...]

  • Pretty awful table recognition

    May 31, 2011

    I’m currently working on a project together with Stephen Greasley on the life and death of UK quangos. One of our USPs is the extent of our data — we’re looking at quangos from the first Public Bodies yearbook in 1982, onwards. We’re getting the data into shape. We’ve scraped later online versions, and we’ve [...]

 
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