Tim King

Freelance journalist. Writes about the EU and occasionally about Belgium. Contributes Brussels Sketch to @PoliticoEurope

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

@QuentinLeray5 veuillez suivre pour autoriser les messages directs.

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

Brussels-West police team-building meets a school-trip in the Ardennes. Not a good combination. 9 out of 15 officers wounded. https://t.co/OEgpNMloSt

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

@tobyvogel But why are you pushing the idea that VdL was elected in 2019? Are your Swiss standards so low that endorsement by the EP of Macron’s choice constitutes an election? Or can you think only in the language of the TEU?

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

Would that be the same @JosepBorrellF who in 2012 had to resign as head of @EUI_EU , where he had set up a Climate Research Unit, when it emerged he was getting €300k p.a. from energy company Abengoa?

[POLITICOEurope @POLITICOEurope]

What does EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell think of the corruption scandal currently rocking the European Parliament?

It's “very, very worrisome.”
https://t.co/X33oCtgQFY

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

@jimoutoffaf Jim Harris renames himself Heritage on the Move in the Name of Democracy for the duration of the journey.

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

One of the few reasons I stay on Twitter is for news of @rowlsmanthorpe . So today's 🧵was a small ray of sunshine.

[Rowland Manthorpe @rowlsmanthorpe]

Long covid has wrecked my life

It’s bad, very bad. But you knew that already

I want to tell you a hopeful story. A story about the things that can be done here and now to mitigate this terrible illness

[Johannes Hahn @JHahnEU]

#EUbudget2023 white smoke: after lengthy discussions we have managed to reach an agreement between @EUcouncil and @Europarl_EN just before the legal deadline at midnight tonight! 🌟💫 1/2

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

A joy to be there, united by affection for @BernardodMiguel .

[Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick]

Sir David Butler, the father of psephology, or election science, died today at the age of 98.

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

I remember it as a joy to read. Title slightly less exotic than his essays on the post-Cold War order ‘When shrimps learn to whistle’ which also contains a few lessons for current times.

[Alex Barker @alexebarker]

“Next morning the pound was still falling fast. We drove with the [Bank of England] Governor to Heathrow for my flight to the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' Conference in Hong Kong, which preceded the annual IMG meeting in Manila….

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

“There was general agreement [in Cabinet] that it shd not be this year. This year the bailiffs may be in; the Crown itself may be in pawn.” [diary entry for 11/02/52 quoted by PH in ‘Having It So Good’]

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

Repeated mention on @BBCRadio4 #bbcbh of the “1952 coronation”, but as @bbcpaddy shld know from reading milord Hennessy it was 2 June 1953. Harold Macmillan recorded…1/2

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

This week, federal police made a series of raids targeted at alleged far-right extremists (see today’s @DeStandaard). 🇧🇪has moved on, but is it safer? The threats are different and defy comparison. /end *@BrusselsTimes mag print edition, not yet online

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

What constitutes success? Interesting view on🇧🇪’s shifting domestic security agenda. In the summer, I wrote a piece for The Brussels Times Magazine* ahead of the trial of those accused of the March 2016 Brussels bombings.../1 https://t.co/Li5NFQWr1f via @destandaard

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

I pointed out that the security agenda had changed – focus now on drug gangs, organised crime and far-right extremism. The day it was published, police said they’d uncovered a plot to kidnap Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne – blamed on drugs gangs.../2

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

Indeed, but I was confining myself to the factual task of counting Belgian institutions. I leave the commentary to professionals like you.

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

@anthonyzach Not an omission, but I reckon you’re double-counting the Flemish regional parliament and the parliament of the Vlaamse Gemeenschap, which have been rationalised into one institution.

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

https://t.co/mdqMao7G4h

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

When pigeon-racing goes wrong…
https://t.co/dDwE5vyfCo

[Tim King @TimKingBru]

Additional point: from @destandaard's coverage. An average pigeon might go round a storm or rest up and come home late. But the élite bird drives on into the eye of the storm and exhausts itself, perishing in the attempt or rendering itself unfit for future racing.