Just a note to say that, to mark the 3rd Birthday of my website, there are currently some major changes happening.

They will be ready as soon as the company that I hired to do them has done them. I don’t know when that will be.

So remember, there will be blogs. I’ve had a lot I need to write about recently too.

My blog header is a photograph of the Assemblée Nationale ; the French Parliament.

Of course, the current incarnation of the site has not been the only one:

Like all rookies, I started out on Blogspot before moving to wordpress.com. Back then it was mainly a collection of articles I’d written in the print press.

After the site had a couple of breakthroughs (notably the ‘controversial’ review of the Sabb Election campaigns) I decided that for my 20th birthday it was time to “go it alone,” where I bought my first .co.uk domain and some hosting. Then, from scratch, I taught myself how to put everything together, and since then it has been my most marketable skill. The site then became too popular and the hosting company charged me extra.

That’s the technical side of things, but as you look back through the articles I hope there has been a marked improvement. You can also probably chart my politicisation.

So, what ideas do I have for Year Four? Well first of all I’m considering moving to hadleighroberts.com! Next, I think I’m going to devote more space to French politics, as there are hundreds of other blogs about British politics that are more widely read than mine.

I’d appreciate your comments on this post, as ever with any kind of feedback you can give.

I’ll still be checking my email accounts regularly though.

I’m going to try and keep away from social media for until about September 1st, with perhaps some slight blogging if something important comes up.

In the mean time, I’d just like to recommend to you some of the blogs I read:

Max Atkinson’s Blog

I only discovered the site recently, but immediately Dr. Max Atkinson has become one of my favourite bloggers. He writes about public speaking and communication. Often it relates to politics, but I would say (as a languages student) that his posts about conversation analysis and general communication are of even more interest to me. I’m going to buy some of his books soon, he’s that good he is.

Bryony King’s Blog

Bryony is a Labour Party friend of mine from Leeds. She doesn’t update particularly often but when she does it shows that a demonstrable effort and amount of thought has gone into writing it.

Caitlin Fitzmaurice’s Blog

Another Labour Party friend of mine, but one from my University this time. Having grown up with Labour Politics, she makes me look downright impartial.

Working Class Tory

It’s not all about crony-ism though. Here’s proof you don’t have to like something to recognise its quality (here’s looking at you, LOTR). In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen something with which I agree, ever, but he certainly cuts through journalism well, and is to be commended.

Benedict Pringle

A bit like Max Atkinson, Pringle’s blog looks mainly political communication through marketing and branding.

Left Outside

Left Outside is special because he’s obviously very clever. All his posts are incredibly well researched and he’s not afraid to get his graph out, if you like that sort of thing.

Tom Harris MP

The only ‘mainstream’ blog I read, I agree with Tom on pretty much everything. All those awards he gets are well deserved.

I’d just like to ask for your vote.

I’ve been writing this blog since August 20th, 2007. That’s just about three years now.

Most blogs fail when the author loses interest, and I admit that I’ve thought “What’s the point of all this?” on more than a few occasions.

Nevertheless, I’d like to try and earn a decent score in the Total Politics Blog Poll 2010, and ask you personally for your consideration.

Simply put, you send an email to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com .

You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and ranks them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite). You don’t have to choose ten, but you must have at least five.

I’m not allowed to tell you which blogs should get your other preferences, but you may be interested in looking at the winners from last year if you don’t read many sites.

Why vote for Hadleigh Roberts ?

I’ve always had a few missions for this blog.

The first is to provide a service, usually on politics in Britain, France, Spain and Europe from an insider perspective. My posts are always discussed with natives before I publish anything, so it is always properly researched.

The second is to be accessible. Most, if not all, of my friends are apolitical. Through the discussion of international events, I always try and explain the why behind a what, making sure to include proper context.

The third is simply to produce good writing. Most of the feedback I get is about my writing style, which I hope has developed sufficiently and clearly.

In conclusion, I’d really appreciate your vote. I put a lot of effort into this site and a little badge that tells me I’m moderately popular will encourage me to carry on doing so.

Thank you,

Hadleigh

PS. You have until midnight on Saturday.

I was going into a bar with two friends of mine (both of them French) who are a bit older than myself. In the event that they read this and understand it, I’m going to say they are about 34.

As we walk into the bar (decisively not a club but still quite noisy), at around 2130 I add, I was suddenly stopped by the man on the door.

He asked me how old I was.

Now I’m 21 which is a significant way past the age of majority, but I accept I don’t always look it (particularly having shaven just a few hours previously), but I’m no longer used to the question. Especially because of the way I usually dress and behave; on the contrary, I am more often confused to being the manager of Marks & Spencer, Tesco, or Bristol Temple Meads railway station.

Surprised, I told the man I was 21. He asked for identity, which I didn’t have because a) I didn’t have my wallet with me and b) because I’m English and we don’t have identity cards.

After I said I don’t have ID with me, he asked (this is all in French, mind you)

What’s your date of birth?

The 10th of March, 89.

Again surprised at the question, I responded with the truth as I had no reason to lie. If you’re under-age and you have to lie, you say you’re 18 or 19, you don’t go the distance to 21.

Then came the most aggressive question:

Why did you have to think about it?

My reply:

Why did I have to think about it? Because I’m not used to people asking and French is not my maternal language!

I am thus more taken aback not by the fact that he thought I was a minor (it was dark and he has to be careful) but by the fact he thought I was French and didn’t believe me the first few times when I said I was English. This particular bar is well known in Nice (Chez Wayne) and particularly popular with ex-pats.

Normally this is the part where I would try to draw a conclusion on society or culture, but I think this guy was just an idiot. So here’s a punchline instead: having negotiated entry, we left immediately because it was too full, and went somewhere much better.

My year abroad is officially over, as I returned to the UK on Friday.

It’s been a year of great change for me, both professionally and personally, in a time of great change in politics and society.

This explains my recent redesign.

I go back to Nice tomorrow morning to reprise my role in the Parti Socialiste, before my final year in Bath in October.

The redesign is mainly layout and branding, but it should reflect a change of focus.

So many blogs today are too cynical and miserable. Attack attack attack or, worse fact fact fact.

I think my blog has always had a european focus. That is to say, Europe, not the European Union. When I write, I try to write my “insider” perspective, having lived and worked in politics across the continent.

I’ve thus tried to use my experience to explain and inform others about the world elsewhere.

So I hope you will enjoy the new refocused blog of mine as it enters its third year of life.

Welcome “Behind Closed Doors”.

Moving from France to Spain is a larger leap than England to France. Equally, I am trying to make the transition from the workplace to the classroom.

My first impressions have been formed, and they tell you more about me than they do the locals.
Principally, I feel much more foreign here than I ever did in France. In Nice, my nationality was more like a funny hat that I would bring out and wear from time to time. Here, it’s a lot more permanent simply because of genetics; I don’t (as far as I know) look even the remotest bit Spanish, the locals react as such.

Even thus, my identity is still a bit confused. In Nice, I was so connected through my job to the town and the region PACA that I feel much more at home speaking with the French students than I do the English.

Then when you add my personality into the mix it becomes even more complex. Friend and colleague Jack Penrose, well known for his linguistic elegance and amateur poetry (rumoured) described me as “someone who flushes before he’s finished pissing.” I would translate that phrase as “time-efficient”. My life is divided into hour-long blocks of time; I enjoy darting from one meeting to another, getting from A to B. I love my Blackberry, I hate downtime.

This “time-efficiency” trait is a direct contradiction with the Spanish way of life.

Everything is closed, all the time, and nobody cares about anything. If it is agreed to meet at 1200, may god help the person who turns up at 1210, particularly if they find we’ve already left.

At the risk of being compared to Hugh Abbot, I find it’s much more difficult to click with Spanish people as we don’t seem to have very much in common. Hopefully that will change once classes start and I get involved with the PSOE (that the Spanish Labour / Socialist party… you know… the one with Zapatero in it.)

Of course it’s early to start making wild generalisations, but there really is a key difference in the mood of this part of my placement. In France, I was integrated and absorbed in the culture, ethic and identity. In Spain, I feel like I am looking at society through a lens.

It’s been an excellent stay, and I never wanted to leave for a minute.

There will be a longer, more reflective post after I get back in the UK. For now though, I’ll show you this video which was a campaign song for Opposition group in Nice Changer d’ère.

It’s not goodbye, it’s Au Revoir.

I’ll be in the UK from this evening until January 22nd.

Next stop: Madrid.

Like many bloggers, I’m going to enter the Orwell Prize, an award for political blogging.

Unlike many bloggers, I don’t expect to win. I’m sure it’s a total stitch-up reserved for some snooty journalist. (Prove me wrong, guys, prove me wrong.)

How did I pick the Top Ten? It was a complex algorithm I like to call “That’ll Do” which involves rules of thumb, unreliable memories, bitterness, arrogance and guesswork.

The result was a mix of posts that almost made a splash in either links or comments or hits, ones that almost achieved something, ones that were almost exclusive, ones that were almost a good idea. I’m going to almost win this prize, it’s almost certain.

Anyway, here’s the list in chronological order:

• We’re going to get hammered on June 4th – and videos like these don’t help
• Anti-BNP Demonstration at BRLSI Meeting
• The Prime Minister is in legacy mode: he is destroying 100 years of history for his own ego
• Libertarian Party threatens Libel against Hadleigh Roberts
• Cutting down the Commons will cripple Cameron’s government
• My very French By-election: The Battle for Nice 6
• Dividing Lines: When politics comes between friends
• Fixed Term Parliaments won’t necessarily fix Parliament
• It is Labour’s duty to defeat the BNP, we must end the ‘No Platform’ policy
• Tory PPC: “It is about time we had a recession”

Enjoy!

Fortunately, I don’t give a damn about football. Rather than getting shot from both sides, I’m able to avoid tribal warfare in that respect.

When it comes to religion, I’m an Existentialist (Or rather Absurdist, if you want to get into it), which is a fancy intellectual way of saying that I’m a certain type of Atheist. As for Politics, it’s fairly obvious where I stand on that matter, as a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society.

The difference is that when I talk to friends of a different religious persuasion we find it a lot easier to “agree to disagree”. I walk away thinking they were horribly misguided as a child but are nonetheless trying to do the right thing, and they think I’m going to a land of fire and goblins. Two sides to every coin.

Politics is not so easy, perhaps because the playing field is level. I have tried the argument “Gordon moves in mysterious ways” but it doesn’t always work.

I have a lot of Labour friends and undecided-but-interested friends, I even have a few Tory pals (admittedly I can’t think of any specifically) and a couple of Lib Dems too.

Although I’ve made a lot of friends through politics, I’ve also lost a few. Mostly the rich-kids from high school who complained about Daddy having to sell her favourite pony due to the 50p tax rate (true story) but one or two have really disappointed me.

I’ll say now that he used to read this blog; whether he still does I don’t know. I don’t want to know, and I hope he doesn’t leave a comment on this post. If he does, I will read it, but it will never see outside of the spam folder.

Start playing your violin, this could get heavy. This story is personal but I don’t want it to just be a sob story; I hope it can serve as a cautionary tale about how not to do Politics. It’s an example of how people can become so obsessed with what divides instead of what unites to such a self-destructive extent.

I was best friends with a gent in high school, right from the age of 10 through to 18 we were practically a double act. Not only were we roommates right the way through, but we even in the same classes together. French and Spanish A-levels were just him, me and the teacher.

I recall one morning our teacher saying “I hope I don’t hear in a few years that you two fall out or secretly hated each other all this time!”

How prophetic he turned out to be.

At the end of A-levels my friend and I went our separate ways, I headed down south to Bath and he stayed north. I wasn’t involved in the Labour Party or politics in general until then; interested, but not committed.

Various Tories will know I’m a pretty good sport about politics, in that I have a sense of humour and am not completely defined by the media portrayal of my party.

Anyway, over the course of a year, I conversed with this friend over MSN every now and then. I’ve never had a more surreal experience than watching my best friend turn into a closet-BNP supporter. He actually joined UKIP but it felt a lot more sinister than that. It felt a lot like Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where Obi-Wan Kenobi is shouting to Anakin about how he murdered little children, you know the scene.

Our conversations became more and more dominated by our ever increasing political divide. As time wore on I became more and more disappointed, ashamed and convinced he was a lost cause.

Imagine your best childhood friend told you this:

You deserve to drown in your own blood for supporting Labour.

After the abuse continued, I decided that there was nothing that could be salvaged from our friendship except perhaps this blog post and a collection of wistful anecdotes. The good man who was my best friend ceased to exist. So I told him after he started yet another ill-informed rant:

You’re boring me. In fact, you bore me every night. I try and listen, I try and humour you, I try and appreciate your views, sometimes I even try to find ONE constructive idea; but it’s empty. It’s hollow and empty and I’m fed up with it. I’ve been patient for so long, but it’s run out now.

So I’m going to ask you, never talk to me again about your views on Labour, or just never talk to me again.

We haven’t spoken since.