…this guy would be dead by now. Of course, if Bush were Saddam, he’d never have tried his luck. But he knew his action would be interpreted as an act of political dissent — in a country where dissent is now allowed. He may serve a short jail term, but it seems more likely that [...]

Filed under: afghanistan, al qaeda, clarepoliticsnews, democracy, humanrights, ideas, iraq, jonathanbirch, society, uspolitics on December 15th, 2008 | No Comments »

Who’d have thought it could be so complicated? Unisex toilets are everywhere these days, but Manchester seems to have a new innovation: unisex urinals. How liberal. The cause of tension is presumably that the urinals are a little bit exposed. Even men want privacy sometimes. The future can only be unisex cubicles. What a [...]

Filed under: culture, jonathanbirch, socialcohesion, society on September 30th, 2008 | No Comments »

Photograph courtesy of The Centre for Social Justice
Clare Politics is pleased to announce that the fourth speaker of Lent Term 2008 will be former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith MP.
Iain Duncan Smith is Member of Parliament for the constituency of Chingford and Woodford Green. He was leader of the Conservative Party from September 2001 [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized, clarepoliticsnews, conservatism, ids, poverty, socialjustice, society on January 14th, 2008 | No Comments »

Application forms seem to throw forth ever new quantities of paper work. The myriad of questions can be quite baffling, yet there is one form above all which strikes one as being unnecessary, intrusive, dare I say offensive; the Equal Opportunities form on ethnicity. As I wade through mountains of scholarship application forms for [...]

Filed under: culture, socialcohesion, society, ukpolitics on May 17th, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Given the vapid nature of much television, the recent Adam Curtis triptych on BBC2 Sunday evenings 9p.m, on socio-political thought has been exceptional. A review can be found here
To summarise briefly for those who haven’t seen it (there is still one more episode this Sunday night,) Adam Curtis looks at the macro-shifts across the [...]

Filed under: freespeech, identity, society, ukpolitics on March 22nd, 2007 | 1 Comment »

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 »

…until the smoking ban in public places comes into force in England on July 1st. Yay! I was there in Scotland when it happened a year ago and was a resounding success. Smokers were giving up in preparation for the ban and publicans were forced to admit that their dire predictions of [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized, scotland, society on March 14th, 2007 | 8 Comments »

While listening to Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast as I ate my breakfast this morning I heard about an interesting piece featuring in the New Yorker this week (and, much as I love reading the New Yorker because I think it makes me look intellectual, it was interesting for another reason entirely) and immediately went to [...]

Filed under: crime, culture, iraq, society, uspolitics on February 18th, 2007 | 2 Comments »

As I was shaving under my arms this morning, I thought of comedian Shazia Mirza. According to her, ‘hairy is the new black’, and it is still possible for someone to be hairy and sexy (well, look at Karl Marx!) - she has decided to desist from depilation.
This statement was so earth-shattering that Women’s [...]

Filed under: society on February 6th, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Clearly the bird flu story has far-reaching implications for all of us. But I’ve noticed that whenever I talk about it with anyone, a lot of the conversation seems to focus on the fact that it’s Bernard Matthews (a nice link for you where all your questions about how bird flu might affect your Turkey [...]

Filed under: culture, society, ukpolitics on February 5th, 2007 | 5 Comments »