The British government has been making a significant effort to present the video conference between the Prime Minister and the Presidents of the European Council, Commission and Parliament on Monday as constituting something of a breakthrough in the negotiations over the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, one which could (with...Read More

Many commentators and political actors have only recently begun to take seriously the possibility that the “transition period” for the UK’s exit from the European Union will end on 31st December 2020 without an agreement on the future EU/UK trading relationship. There was, however, always good reason to expect such a disruptive outcome, given the gap...Read More

The Chinese government’s announcement of a controversial new national security law for Hong Kong has encountered distinctively restrained responses from policymakers and officials in Brussels and other European Union (EU) capitals in contrast to combative countermeasures coming out of Washington DC and London.  As a result of US President Donald Trump’s numerous threats of withdrawals...Read More

Have I seen this musical before? No, that is not a Hamilton moment, but the musical is based on Ron Chernow’s excellent biography of one of America’s founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton. We used the term several times in our Federal Central Banks. A Comparison of the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (2018)....Read More

Media commentators’ concern over the German Constitutional Court (BVG) ruling on the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) appears to have been replaced by concerns over the consideration by the Bank of England over the potential introduction of negative interest rates, another of the ECB’s monetary policy instruments. However, the implications of...Read More

We are being bombarded with statistics, wave-like attacks. The debt statistics of the great financial crash starting in 2008, then the awakening interest in inequality, and now the dreadful stats of Covid-19, which are instigating another wave of debt and expenditure statistics. If statistics could put the world to rights, allowing what Condorcet called “the sweet despotism...Read More

This is a top down view of the progress of the Covid-19 virus and the global pandemic. It summarizes information obtained from John Hopkins University, and presented in a different form. The world is divided into 8 regions, and the analysis shows what has been happening to them in the period from March to mid...Read More

What I see is European construction drifting towards a free-trade zone, that is to say an English-style Europe, which I reject. If we do nothing, this will lead in 15 years to a break-up. I reject a Europe that would be just a market, a free-trade zone without a soul, without a conscience, without political will,...Read More

As different countries take measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, much is being revealed about the nature of different forms of society. In some it is revealed as strong, in others weak, and in others a fatalism about the lack of society. As sociologists we do not lack analyses and approaches to understanding and explaining...Read More

During the Cold-War years, Europe and India engaged with the Soviet Union at very different levels. On many occasions they found themselves supporting the opposite side. Western Europe was part of the American led western alliance. India, however, had very close strategic and economic ties with the USSR, which were institutionalised through the 1971 Indo-Soviet...Read More