Thank you to everyone who filled the Latimer room beyond capacity to hear David Loyn this evening.
David shared with us his free and frank assessment of the history, present and future of the conflicts in Afghanistan in a talk he preferred that we did not record. He gave detailed analyses of the military, [...]
Filed under: 9/11, afghanistan, bbc, clarepoliticsnews, davidloyn, foreignpolicy, history, speaker discussion, taliban on January 22nd, 2008 | No Comments »
We are entering a very interesting time in British politics – aren’t we? That’s the statement that seems to be on lips of many politicos at the moment. Blair’s marathon premiership is coming to a close and a shake-up in British politics approaches. Brown versus Cameron, ‘clunking fist’ versus ‘New Conservatism’, question marks over the [...]
Filed under: democracy, electoralreform, history, ukpolitics on May 21st, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Having spent a great deal of time (probably not enough) subsidised by the British taxpayer looking back over the history of 20th century Britain and trying to get some of it to stick in my mind, I feel that it might be worth speculating about the views of historians on the Blair governments. I’m sure [...]
Filed under: constitution, foreignpolicy, gambling, gordonbrown, history, tonyblair, ukpolitics on May 5th, 2007 | 2 Comments »
I’m too young to remember much about the referendum on a Scottish Parliament – I do remember that it didn’t really dominate discussion in my household. We were living in California at the time, although my parents were voting by proxy, and while I’m sure it came up at the dinner table every so often, [...]
Filed under: culture, history, identity, scotland, ukpolitics on May 5th, 2007 | 10 Comments »
Picture the following. During a time of heightened tension in the Gulf, a U.S warship, USS Vincennes, falls into a skirmish with Iranian patrol boats over its incursion into Iranian waters. Shortly after the skirmish it sees an incoming jet on its radar and fires two missiles. It’s too late when it transpires that [...]
Filed under: foreignpolicy, history, iraq on April 8th, 2007 | No Comments »
Sadly we have no video of James Bartholomew’s talk from Tuesday, but nonetheless, I feel that a response to his talk- possibly the most controversial talk that Clare Politics has run so far- is in order.
To summarise Bartholomew, as I understood it:
- the welfare state has failed, and failed the poor more than anybody else
- [...]
Filed under: conservatism, history, poverty, society, ukpolitics on March 16th, 2007 | 7 Comments »
This is almost a seamless transition from the discussion of Britishness we see above, into a questioning of the proposed changes to the House of Lords as outlined by Jack Straw. The House of Lords is that old cliché, peculiarly British. Its role has been relatively unclear since at least 1867, though I’m not going [...]
Filed under: constitution, electoralreform, history, labour, ukpolitics on February 10th, 2007 | 2 Comments »
The debate brought forward on the subject of Britishness, and the stomach churning article which we are directed to in the Independent on government initiatives to teach Britishness in the classroom, leaves some serious questions unanswered.
Alan Johnson proclaims that we are ”a nation built from and by people from other countries.” A new GCSE combining History [...]
Filed under: education, history on February 6th, 2007 | 4 Comments »
Well, I finally got up the courage to actually write something in the intimidatingly blank textbox, but I fear it won’t be very substantial just yet. I’ll start small by introducing myself and work my way up to expounding my flawless Theory of Everything. I’m Patrick, a first-year history student, which means I don’t know [...]
Filed under: history on January 18th, 2007 | 2 Comments »
