Things turning out right
The past 24 hours or so have brought me two pieces of good news. For an unreconstructed old liberal like me, the prospect of Emmanuel Macron making it to the presidency of France via the run-off elections in two weeks is hugely heartening, provided he manages to defeat Marine Le Pen convincingly. The main jarring note in all this was sounded by defeated left wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who appears to believe that Macron and Le Pen are equally unacceptable; thereby confirming my wariness of what the media describe as the ‘hard left’ in European countries (including the UK).
And secondly, Newcastle United FC, by beating Preston North End today, have qualified for promotion back to the English Premier League.
Not everything at the moment is bad news. Though there is still a lot of it.
Explore posts in the same categories: politics, sportTags: Emmanuel Macron, France, Marine Le Pen, Newcastle United
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
University Blog 
April 25, 2017 at 7:12 am
I don’t think you should become too comfy. Yes, LePen will lose, but do you hear what that says. The other parties in France are so null that the two people in the final vote aren’t members.
So the question is how is it possible the populations can be so ungrateful as to jettison the liberal. Is it at all possible that the insane monetarist policy with its 70s fixation on wage inflation while protecting themselves might have something to do with it.
April 25, 2017 at 7:53 am
Hm ‘unreconstructed old liberal’ makes me think of unreconstructed old cheese 🙂
April 28, 2017 at 11:38 am
Off topic entirely. But when you as VC of DCU were dealing with upper civil servants where in their structure did they slot you in. I know that Pat Wallace when at the NMI was deemed at a certain point, and all the heads of the other cultural were place likewise.
April 28, 2017 at 4:22 pm
Not absolutely sure what you’re asking, Vincent. In civil service seniority terms, we were equivalent of a Department Secretary-General. In government interactions we were usually speaking with them or with Ministers.
April 28, 2017 at 10:20 pm
Thank you.