Allow me to respond

It seems easier to do another posting as a response to the comments on “What is to be done?”. As promised, I shall ignore the silly personal attacks as being of little interest. On the other hand, I am grateful to people who have taken the trouble to reply with various points, ideas and suggestions.

So, let me begin by sorting out the various blogs and how they fit together as there seems to be some confusion. EUReferendum is a joint blog, run by Richard North and me, though largely by Richard North. There are no restrictions on how much I can write on it, in response to one comment, but it has so happened that for various reasons I have not posted as much as Richard has. Indeed, for a while I was not posting on it at all. But I am back on it now. For the present.

There are several spin-offs. Defence of the Realm was set up by Richard because there was a threat that his defence posts would take over EURef. He usually cross-links to the main blog. EUReferendum2 exists solely for long posts that would take up too much space on the main site. There is always a cross-link. The Umbrella enterprise has not quite worked out as it was meant to, not least because of lack of resources. Umbrella3 is for long postings that are very loosely related to the main themes of EURef. Of course, those main themes have multiplies as well.

The forum was set up as a separate entity in order to make archiving easier and to create a feeling of a network community. On the whole it has probably succeeded but it is not a major interest of mine. People can post on it now without registering though I wish they would put some name at the top of their posting – nothing is so frustrating than dealing with somebody known as Guest.

The BrugesGroupBlog lies somewhere alongside that structure, not, at present, attached to anything. As I explained in my original posting, it was going to be part of something bigger but that has fallen through.

Let me just assure everyone that plans for a proper research structure are being worked out but they will be under EUReferendum rather than Bruges Group auspices. We shall certainly be looking for IT knowledge and experience but there is the enormous problem of finances. That kind of work needs to be paid for.

For the rest, there were as many people suggesting that I should abandon this blog and contribute more to EUReferendum as there those who saw some value in a separate outlet. On reflection, I think I shall stick with the second group of advice (which means that those who never look at the BrugesGroupBlog for whatever reason will not read my scribblings on that but we have to take some risks in life) and continue with the BrugesGroupBlog with cross-links. The aim is to change it into some kind of a more personal blog that will cover various subjects that I cannot really put up on EUReferendum. But that remains work in progress.