Tag archives for UK
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Article 50 – How will we Brexit?
After the referendum there's been a lot of speculation on how we invoke Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon. Article 50 (see below) is the provision for a member state to leave the EU. Article 50 Here is Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. It helps to know what it is before giving an opinion. 1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty…
Getting A Civil Service Job
Today is my last day in my current civil service job. On Monday I will start a new civil service job, on promotion, with a different civil service department. 100 Parliament Street (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Figuratively, I will be at the other end of Government. Physically I'll be in Parliament Street, a five minute walk from my current building. I'll be quite sad in many ways. I've worked with some very good people on things that I've both found interesting and felt that it was improving things from a citizen perspective. I expect that to continue in my new job, just with new people and new subject areas. This is not the end of my first chapter, not is it the start of the last. I describe myself as a career civil servant, having had many civil service jobs since 1992.…
UK General Election 2015 – A Reaction
Last night I flitted between the BBC and Channel 4's coverage of the election results, although only till about midnight. Exit Polls When I first saw these I didn't give them much credence, nor did the twitter stream that commented on them. I only saw a couple of very cautious positive comments at that point. Most twitter commenters rubbished the exit polls. After weeks of not much change in the opinion polls it seemed unlikely that the Conservatives would have suddenly gained momentum and Labour lost it. The SNP prediction also seemed extreme. This morning I'm writing this on the train platform and there are only 18 seats left to declare. The exit polls look very accurate indeed. From running neck and neck for weeks the Conservatives seemed to have stolen 3 points from Labour to give them a 6…