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“She says nothing that is not obvious,” claimed Alice Meynell of Harriet Martineau (1802-76), “and nothing that is not peevishly and intentionally misunderstood.” (Pall Mall Gazette, 11 October 1895). If this seemed the case in 1895, how does her reputation stand in the twenty-first century, given that so much of her writing and campaigning was […]
There is something unusual about the 2017 UK general election. It is the way in which all the manifestos clearly make their promises conditional on the ‘good Brexit deal’ that they claim to be able to secure. They are not the only ones. On 11 May the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney reassured the markets that the ‘good Brexit deal’ would stabilise our economy after 2019, and the markets were duly sedated.
On the evening of 7 May, Emmanuel Macron walked, almost marched, slowly across the courtyard of the Louvre to make his first speech as the President elect of the French Fifth Republic. He did so not, as others would have done, to the music of the “Marseillaise” but to the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – the “Ode to Joy”, the anthem of the European Union. It was, wrote Natalie Nougayrède in the Guardian, “the most meaningful, inspiring symbol Macron could choose”.
Apparently there is a Chinese proverb that says ‘unless there is opposing wind, a kite cannot rise’ but in the context of British politics it appears that only one kite is really rising, and the other is tumbling down. If truth be told the wind of opposition has arguably been so feeble that the Labour Party’s kite appears leaden rather than light.
A couple times a week, I hear someone remark “It is what it is,” accompanied by a weary sigh. I always puzzle over the expression a little bit, thinking What else could it be?
Was there ever a more hollow and impotent piece of legislation than the UK’s Fixed Term Parliaments Act? Trumpeted by the Conservative-led coalition as a way of stopping opportunist prime ministers ever again calling snap elections to capitalize on hefty poll leads – by complicating simple confidence votes in ways that prompted Labour to condemn it as a constitutional “stitch-up” – within six short years of receiving Royal Assent it has proved itself wholly incapable of doing any such thing.
This year Hay Festival is celebrating its 30 anniversary – cooked up round the kitchen table all those years ago it is now a global phenomenon. As part of their celebrations this year they have scheduled 30 Reformation speakers, one of whom is Sarah Harper who will be focusing on ‘Ageing’. She will also be recording one of BBC Radio 3’s Essays. The festival is very good at celebrating not only new writers but also young writers who ‘inspire and astonish’ and I am thrilled that they have selected Devi Sridhar.
While reading recently British Library correspondence files relating to the poet Edwin Muir—the 130th anniversary of whose birth will be on 15 May this year—I was struck, as I have often been, by the important part played in his development as man and poet by his contact with the life of Europe—a continent that is currently high on the agenda of many of us with a possible British Brexit in view.
Last month, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that Britain would hold a general election on 8 June. The election raises three crucial questions. First, why did the Prime Minister call an election now? Under British law, she could have remained in office without facing the voters until 2020 and, in fact, had promised on multiple occasions that she would not call early elections.
Since the political earthquake of Trump’s election, preceded by the earth tremor of Brexit, the commentariat has been awash with declarations of the end of eras—of globalisation, of neoliberalism, of the post-World War II epoch of political stability and economic prosperity. As though to orientate ourselves in this brave new world, the search has been on for historical analogies, through whose lenses we might understand our present moment.
For more than a century, capitalism has been the dominant planetary system for supplying people with, quite literally, their daily bread. It transformed our cultures and knit us together in a global network of buying and selling. But how do we understand it? How do we make sense of it? What do we talk about when we talk about capitalism? Recently we did a study to track talk of capitalism over two hundred years.
In this episode of the Oxford Law Vox podcast, human rights expert Conor Gearty talks to George Miller about human rights in the UK. To hear the full interview with Conor Gearty, and to listen to a bonus podcast about his career and background, visit the Oxford Law Vox on SoundCloud.
On 16 March, less than nine months after the public voted to leave the European Union (EU) in a hotly contested referendum, Britain enacted a law authorizing the government to begin the process of negotiating “Brexit,”— Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Although there was much talk of “Bregret” following the referendum, recent polling suggests that British attitudes have not changed much since June.
The 2014 Independence referendum was an important moment in British constitutional history. With the Scottish Parliament’s decision to ask for a second vote, it also provides useful lessons for the future. The referendum of 2014 divided Scotland into two camps, a division that has now become the principal dividing line in the nation’s politics. Yet it has not created a social or ethnic divide such as we see in Northern Ireland.
As the first buds of cherry blossom start to bloom around the Tidal Basin and throughout East Potomac Park in Washington D.C., the international law community prepares to descend on the nation’s capital for the largest annual event in the PIL calendar.
The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union consisting of 28 states that are located within Europe. With the United Kingdom’s recent decision of leaving the EU, the future of the European Union is timely as ever. Therefore, the OUP Economics team have decided to trace a very concise history of the European Union all the way from the end of World War two to Brexit.