Journalism prize: James Clive-Matthews on his "Nosemonkey" blog

The winners of this year's European Parliament Journalism Prize received their awards at a ceremony in Brussels on 13 October. There were four categories: written press, radio, TV and the Internet. The Internet prize was won by UK blogger James Clive-Matthews - also known as "Nosemonkey" - for his article "EUtopia - What percentage of laws come from the EU?".

The judges liked the wit and humour in Mr Clive-Matthews' blog but they also noted the amount of research he put into it, describing him as "one of the few bloggers covering the EU seriously". He gave an interview in at the Parliament in Brussels ahead of the award ceremony.

Why blog under the name "Nosemonkey"?

There's absolutely no reason at all - it was just a hangover from the internet era where you had to have a stupid signature.

What made you write the winning blog?

The main reason was getting annoyed at a statement by an MEP on "Question Time" (a UK current affairs TV programme) saying that 84% of laws come from the EU. The next morning I woke up and I thought "that must be nonsense, 84% is ridiculous, if is true and if 84% of all laws come from the EU then what's the point in having national governments anymore."

The UK's Europe Minister at the time said it was 9.1% which is the standard official response in the UK, but no-one believes that either - and it also sounds a bit low. So I thought it can't be 84% and it can't be 9.1%, what is it?

It took me and hour and a half to track down specific comments from specific people at different times. I am not party political and not a europhile or a eurosceptic in the British sense so we have to ask "What is the truth about these figures?".

So what is the figure?

You'll have to read my blog! [ed. link below]

Why write about Europe?

I first started a blog back in 2003, which is a significant date as the whole Iraq war thing was kicking off - it was dominating the news. It's probably callous...but I got bored of the concept of invading a country and I was thinking, what else is going on and so I looked for something that was interesting. I probably picked the wrong subject, but it was something that was complicated and intellectually challenging.

The EU is so complicated you are never going to run out of new things to discover. Seven years on, I still don't understand it - I am not sure anyone ever does - it's not like anything that has ever been tried before.

If you understand the EU you can probably understand anything and if you can make it interesting you can probably make anything interesting.

What should the EU and national governments be doing to engage people with the EU?

National governments should be doing more but they won't - if you are a conspiracy theorist you would say they are losing power and influence - the EU has become a scapegoat.

If governments try and communicate then they will of course be accused of propaganda. National governments like people not to know what is going on, and claim credit when the EU does something well but blame "Brussels" when things go badly. It's not just the UK - it happens everywhere. It's pathetic but entirely understandable.