A Plan by any other Name

I am often amused by the activities that the great and the good spend their time on. One would think that the office of Prime Minister would force a person to ignore the petty and focus on the important. You would be wrong.

EU leaders have called for urgent action in the wake of a damning economic report although some have criticised its proposals.

The idea of naming and shaming in order to force countries to take the Lisbon agenda seriously, has not gone down too well in some quarters.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroder is said to have described the idea of naming and shaming as political suicide.

Alex Dakers a commenter on this site called it: A sycophant State of the month award, complete with blue McDonald type name badge, with little yellow rating stars for each National leader. Perhaps Gerhard is of the same opinon and knows that his chance of a star is non existent. Instead the way in which the project will be made successful is a flash of political brilliance. Change the name.

Spanish Socialist Josep Borrell criticised the fact that no one understood the name Lisbon Agenda, the name given to the EU's 2010 economic goals. He suggested that citizens would understand the aim better if it went by the name of the strategy for competitiveness, social cohesion and the environment.

The fact that the name he chose was even more meaningless and had nothing to do with the agenda was obviously a point he missed.