From our UK edition
In our latest View from 22 video, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the two top stories from this weekend — the ascension of Jean-Claude Juncker and Jon Cruddas's intervention on Labour's 'dead' hand — and how they will play out over the week.
From our UK edition
The results of last month’s European elections demonstrated an appetite for change in Europe among voters – all parties seem to agree on that. Which is why David Cameron went into the most recent set of EU Council negotiations with cross-party support to secure a candidate for Commission President that would make achieving that kind of change and reform easier, not harder. Today there is a widespread and profound sense of disappointment at David Cameron’s apparent failure to build an alliance to secure an alternative candidate for the role.
From our UK edition
The European Council has nominated Jean-Claude Juncker to be the next president of the European Commission despite David Cameron’s staunch opposition. In the vote that Cameron forced on the appointment, he was defeated 26-2 with only the Hungarians joining the British in opposing the former Luxembourg PM. Junkcer’s appointment casts fresh doubt on whether Cameron will be able to renegotiate a new EU deal for Britain and whether this country will stay in the EU. In the coming weeks, we will have to watch and see whether other EU leaders try and come up with some kind of compensation package for Britain. When Cameron first came out in opposition to Juncker, he was pretty confident of success.
From our UK edition
Are we seeing a global revival of religion, which is having a radical impact on politics? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Damian Thompson debates Cristina Odone on this week’s Spectator cover feature. Is the UK and Europe unable to understand many of the current conflicts because of ardent secularism? Has our current government been too secularist; obsessed with Brangelina instead of Boko Haram? And would politics be simpler if there were no religious element at all? Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson discuss two political figures whose fortunes are shifting in different directions — George Osborne and Ed Miliband. Are we beginning to see the real George Osborne, who has more substantial ideological views than his detractors believed?
From our UK edition
The family photo at this week's EU summit will be a particularly awkward affair. EU leaders will have just come from listening to the last post at the Menin Gate, the memorial to the British and Commonwealth dead of the Ypres campaign, but they will know that they are about to have an unholy row over dinner as David Cameron tries to stop Jean-Claude Juncker from becoming President of the European Commission. Aware of how bad all this looks, the head of the EU Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has been busy trying to prevent a row at Ypres. Cameron and Van Rompuy had a 'full and frank' discussion about the matter today, Downing Street says. But Cameron is still determined to have this fight; he isn't backing down despite only having the Hungarians for allies.
From our UK edition
I wouldn’t wish to deny that all drug dealers and crime lords read the Guardian. Indeed, check the circulation figures, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that only drug dealers and crime lords read the Guardian. So, when I read last week about the trouble that GCHQ is now having tracking online criminality, and the way that GCHQ considers recent revelations about state surveillance via the Guardian to be the cause, I did not for a moment think that GCHQ was entirely wrong. I genuinely wonder, though, if the rogue National Security Agency IT boffin Edward Snowden, whom we hear so much about, has damaged national security as much as Apple has. Or Netflix or BT or TalkTalk, or the entirety of the global industries of music, television and film. No, I’m wholly serious.
From our UK edition
David Cameron visits Sweden today to discuss the future of the EU with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. The Prime Minister is attempting to block former Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker from securing the top job in Brussels. Earlier this year, Fraser Nelson explained how Cameron's 'Northern Alliance' may reshape Europe. If David Cameron were to divide Europe up, he’d make some crude distinctions. There would be the basket cases, like Italy, Spain, Greece, France — examples, by and large, of how countries should not be run.
