It is I suppose only to obvious that in the build up to the second Irish referendum, the EU and its acolytes will continue with their tactics of smearing those who oppose rather than actually openly debating the issues.
Its “just re-hashed, unproven speculative analysis that did the rounds of the Euroblogs well over a year ago” says EUtopia
Well not really as the document (not being frisked) was a detailed condemnation of the Irish Referendum Commission and its dereliction of it legal obligations and was written last August.
In any case why should there not be a rehash of the same arguments after all there is going to be a rehash of the referendum on the same treaty.
Not having the capability to disprove the accusations made by Prof Anthony Coughlan about the Referendum Commission does not prevent an attempt to smear both the author and the paper.
The EU Research Centre is dismissed as;
“actually nothing more than one man and his blog, most of the content of which consists of cut and pasted newspaper reports”
And on the paper detailing the derelictions of the Irish Referendum Commission
“There are so many misunderstandings, misinterpretations, factual inaccuracies and weak semantic pedantry there that any proper fisking would end up far longer than the article itself. And it’s hardly worthy of that”.
As the details of the complaint made by Prof Anthony Coughlan included the fact that:
The Referendum Commission is statutorily bound to act as a collectivity. Yet the Chairman arrogated to himself the job of “clarifying” or explaining contentious issues of the referendum debate to the media and clarifications” in each case lent heavily towards the Yes-side interpretation.
There were possible Conflicts of interest on legal advice and public relations consultants:
The Referendum Commission’s profound failure to carry out its statutory function of explaining the actual Constitutional Amendment and its text to Irish voters:
The poor quality of the legal advice adopted by the Referendum Commission is shown by the fact that the Commission substantially failed to carry out its statutory duty under the Referendum Act establishing it.
The Commission’s Handbook to Voters was significantly misleading - by omission
Positively misleading statements in the Referendum Commission’s publicity material on the mode of appointment of European Commissioners under Lisbon:
Any blogger who wants to be believed and wants to get their point across, should be prepared to put some backbone in their statements, especially if they are dismissing the details of a complaint against a government agency.
Perhaps EUtopia might like to offer some proof of prof. Coughlan`s misunderstandings, misinterpretations and factual inaccuracies.
After all for such a well regarded blogger (in EU circles) who has received various gongs (from EU backed organisations) it should be a piece of cake.
Not your vested interest never for one moment thought so.
I do find your EU position baffling
http://eurealist.co.uk/2007/01/08/support-for-the-eu-can-be-equated-with-a-semi-religious-belief-2/
Ken, that WAS the full article.
As to the rest, I can’t be bothered any more. You attribute motives to me when I have none. I blog about the EU because I find it interesting, not through any vested interest.
(And before you point to my CV, yes I worked for the European Commission very briefly more than ten years ago - at the time I was a committed Eurosceptic, and the experience turned me more so. If you want documentary evidence of this, I can provide it in the form of signed and dated anti-EU essays I wrote at the time as part of a course I was taking.)
As you say I have been reading your stuff for a time on many issues I agree with you, I have though been unable to see you position on the EU. I can quite see the argument that this EU is not fit for purpose (I hope I do not misinterpret). What we have failed to achieve is a clear understanding of how we get from this EU to one that is fit for purpose. You see reform of the EU has been the battle cry for all of those who have subsequently passed ever more power into the hands this present EU. In hindsight I would have questioned those calling for reform thirty years ago, they have been proven right, unfortunately not in the way they implied, because reform only happens on one direction, so forgive me if I question your motives.
Well to be totally honest with you I have not read the full Private Eye article, only that part which you posted on your blog.
Yes your post was about an article in the Private Eye which was based on a report which Prof Anthony Coughlan had prepared with regard to the conduct of the Irish Referendum Committee.
However if I understand you correctly you are saying that an article which is based on a report misunderstands misinterprets and prints factual inaccuracies, but the report itself does not do any of those things. You therefore must be arguing that Private Eye misunderstood the report therefore it misinterpreted it and printed factual inaccuracies about the report. Your argument therefore that you have no opinion on the report really does not stand scrutiny does it.
You described the article in none too glowing terms and did not dissociate your comments from the original report, thus leaving the very strong impression you were intending to question the veracity of that report. This impression was somewhat confirmed when you then want on to attack the one man and his blog by suggesting it was merely a blog masquerading as a think tank, most of the content of which consists of cut and pasted newspaper reports (yes I paraphrase but hopeful do not mislead).
So I wonder who is missing the point.
I believe I have already provided evidence re. UACES, I already know its details, I checked them out before I posted. As I said there seems to be a divergence of thought about the term independent, I have explained my view. I accept it might not be good enough for you, but I think it would be considered a fair view in a court of law. But then who knows these days, someone whose job depends on, who does work for, someone who takes any form of assistance from an organisation someone who freely spends there time and money supporting an institution might be considered independent.
Yes Libertas is not exactly anti-EU is it?
The problem is the lunatic fringe is not defined it could mean anyone who believes in the nation state for instance.
I think your later comments re; only meaning Private Eye which misunderstands misinterprets and prints factual inaccuracies, are already covered.
Oh, and one last thing - do a Google search for \”the Lisbon Treaty is dead\”. I think you\’ll find that I am the top result, with a post that contains the following:
“The Lisbon Treaty is dead - don’t make the same mistake as last time of trying to dress up the corpse to make it look a bit different. Accept the fundamental failure of the treaty (and constitution), and accept that a far more radical solution is vital. A complete rethink. A deep, serious analysis of what the EU is and what it is for - and, most importantly, what the European people think it is for. This is something that hasn’t happened in decades, but that is absolutely essential if the EU is to avoid the further alienation of its citzens - citizens who, it should be noted, have not all been asked if they want such citizenship in the first place.”
Any chance of a retraction now, or are you going to persist with this nonsense?
Christ, we’re going round in circles. Yes, there are entirely legitimate reasons for listening to him. But that’s irrelevant to my point - which was that Private Eye failed to mention any of them.
As for UACES, there we go - “I don’t consider it to be independent”. Your opinion, old boy, is not good enough. Where’s your evidence? I have no brief to defend them - I’d never even heard of them before they got in touch to tell me I was on the shortlist, and have had no contact with them since. I’ll quite happily accept that they are EU stooges if you can provide me with a single bit of evidence. (Hint: UACES is a charity, therefore all of its accounts are publicly accessible.)
And as for my alleged support for the EU - just because I slag off the lunatic fringe of the eurosceptic side does not mean that I am pro-EU. How about this post? Or this one, where I slag off various leading pro-EU types? Or this very recent one where I welcomed the launch of Libertas? How about my repeated praise for leading Danish Eurosceptic Jens-Peter Bonde over the years?
I am quite happy to have my views questioned, old boy. But what you have stated to be my views in this post categorically are not - I thought you were better than this. To be very, very clear: I have precisely no opinion about Coughlan or his criticisms of the Referendum Commission. Nor do I have any opinion on the Referendum Commission itself. I purely have an opinion about Private Eye’s article about Coughlan’s criticisms, not the criticisms themselves - which I only attacked for not being new revelations, as Private Eye presented them as being.
You have misunderstood and misrepresented me entirely. And are continuing to do so despite my repeated attempts to explain this to you. Are you doing it deliberately?
Well it is hardly my fault that your research did not turn up Professor Coughlan and did not link him to his blog.
I believe you said the article based on his complaint contained so many misunderstandings, misinterpretations, factual inaccuracies, but it seems after all, because he is Senior Lecturer Emeritus at Trinity College, Dublin, (retired) there are entirely legitimate grounds for regarding him as someone worth listening to. Even though he misunderstand misinterprets and prints factual inaccuracies.
The National Platform is hardly merely a blog as it operates independently of the blog some of its findings might well be reproduced on the blog. You might well be right that The National Platform only consists of Prof Coughlan. I do not know do you or was that the extent of you research.
Any suggestion that your journalistic independence is compromised by having been given an award by anyone would I totally agree be an outright slander, you after all are not responsible for the actions of others.
UACE, as it is the primary umbrella organisation for British academics researching the European Union. Is financially backed by the EU commission and its members promote a pro-EU integration agenda through university courses.
I would consider it not to be independent of the EU, neither do I consider the jury to be independent.
Prof Alex Warleigh-Lack previously Chief of Staff to the Chair of the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Consumer Protection and Public Health
Sir Stephen Wall who admitted to the press that for years he had been working behind the scenes in interest of the EU.
Dr Martyn Bond who began his career in the BBC. He subsequently taught European Studies in the New University of Ulster before joining the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers in Brussels staying in Brussels to work on overseas aid issues in the Council of Ministers and on relations with the European Parliament Press Office was Head of the European Parliament Office in London, 1989-2000 Director of the Federal Trust, where he is now special advisor on EU Enlargement.
These are hardly independent of the EU in my view.
There does seem to be a question about the term independent.
Support for the EU! Now let me see how about slagging off a professor who made a complaint about the conduct of the Irish Referendum Commission. Just to start then how about littering your posts with the foaming at the mouths Eurosceptics ext.
I would respectfully suggest that if you choose to set yourself up as an honest broker on EU affairs, be prepared to have your views questioned. If you choose to consider EU backed organisation as independent then be prepared to have that belief questioned. If that equates to slagging off consider how Prof Coughlan might feel to have is complaint dismissed as having many misunderstandings, misinterpretations, factual inaccuracies by a blogger who did not even take the trouble to check his information. In other words if you cannot take it stop throwing it.
No, Ken. That’s what you’re doing, and you know it.
The Private Eye article that my post was about never mentioned the Referendum Commission. Not once. And my post was about the Private Eye article, not Coughlan.
Had they referred to him as “Professor Coughlan” (which they didn’t, at any point), or as Senior Lecturer Emeritus at Trinity College, Dublin, I wouldn’t have had any complaint - both of those are entirely legitimate grounds for regarding him as someone worth listening to.
My point was that Private referred to him as director of “The National Platform EU Research and Information Centre” - something that, in the context of the article, appears to be a thinktank or other such organisation. But is in fact merely a blog. They also repeatedly went on about how he was “exposing” things about the Lisbon Treaty - things that have been known for well over a year. Which is hardly an exposition or a revelation.
On the substance of Coughlan’s arguments I said very little. Because my complaints were about Private Eye, not him.
As for your claims about UACES - they’re mostly blown out of all proportion, and at no point do you offer any evidence that it receives EU funding (acting as a channel for providing Commission research loans to students hardly counts). I remain unaware of any direct EU funding for the organisation, which is made up of dozens of academics from countless universities. To imply that this is some kind of monolithic EU-offshoot (as you do) and that as such my journalistic independence is compromised by having been given an award by them is an outright slander (unlike anything that you seem to think I’ve said about Coughlan), and one that could cause harm to my career.
And in any case, you neglect to note the most important issue - the jury that judged the award was from the independent news agency Reuters. Or are they backed by the EU too?
Finally - give me one bit of evidence of me “continu[ing] to support this EU” in the last 12 months or more. Just one. I can’t think of one.
You are wrong on this. You’ve leapt to a conclusion based on your own prejudices, not on what I have actually written. So stop slagging me off, there’s a good chap?
I believe you are misrepresenting
Point: It is I suppose only too obvious that in the build up to the second Irish referendum, the EU and its acolytes will continue with their tactics of smearing those who oppose rather than actually openly debating the issues.
In this case you choose to slag off Prof Anthony Coughlan and dismiss his complaint against about the conduct of the Irish Referendum Commission, without defining your arguments.
I did not say, nor did I intend to imply you were slagging off all criticism of the Lisbon Treaty. If you do believe I did then I apologise.
Second point: see
http://eurealist.co.uk/2008/04/01/an-independent-jury-and-an-erudite-mole/
In fact you say you want to change this EU, yet you continue to support this EU, you may not see yourself as an EU stooge, but to me the question remains open. Quite simply because if you do not support this EU why are you continually attacking and misrepresenting those who point out its deficiencies.
Oh, and by the by - care to back up the claim that I have ever received ANY gong from ANY EU-backed organisation?
Seriously, Ken - you’ve been reading my stuff for years now. You know all too well I’m not an EU stooge, so stop painting me as one. It’s dishonest and (technically - though I’m obviously not enough of a tit to kick up a fuss) libellous, considering I actually earn money out of writing about this stuff, based largely on my insistence of independence.
Sorry, old boy - you’ve entirely missed the point, and are being rather disingenuous to use an out of context quote to make it look as if I’m slagging off all criticism of the Lisbon Treaty.
As you should know, I’ve repeatedly attacked the Lisbon Treaty since it was still the Constitution. I am also on record as saying that the treaty should be scrapped following the Irish referendum result, which I am also on record as saying should be respected.
See my reply to the comment you left at my place for the real point of my post.