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Recent Posts
national identity Archive
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Faith, Belief and Fundamentalism (19 October 2015)
Posted on 23/09/2015 | No CommentsThe 37th Corbishley Lecture will be delivered by Lord John Alderdice on “Faith, Belief and Fundamentalism” on Monday 19 October 2015 will be in the basement Conference Hall of Mary Sumner House, 24 Tufton Street, Westminster, London SW1P 3RB (around the back from Europe House in Smith Square). […] -
What makes Britain British?
Posted on 15/10/2013 | 1 CommentA last word, I hope, on the row about the Daily Mail’s published attack on Ralph Miliband, the late father of Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour party. A previous blog post tells the first half of the story here – there is more to […] -
Who hates Britain?
Posted on 09/10/2013 | No CommentsThe political news last week was dominated by a row between a leading politician and a national newspaper over whether the politician’s late father had hated Britain. The newspaper said he did, the politician denied it. I have never read anything written by the politician’s […] -
Could you pass the citizenship test?
Posted on 14/10/2011 | No CommentsA nation, famously, is a group of people who think of themselves as a nation. They may have other things in common – a language, a religion, a state – but those are incidental, not fundamental. What matters is the mutual understanding among the people […] -
New borders for British politics to fight over
Posted on 13/09/2011 | No CommentsThis blog reported a year ago on the prospect that the redrawn constituency boundaries for the House of Commons would provoke disputes based on identity. Now that the Boundary Commission for England has published its first report, those disputes have started. Here is Vince Cable, […] -
Official languages
Posted on 26/08/2011 | No CommentsLetter published in the Jewish Chronicle, 26 August 2011 Geoffrey Alderman’s reference to Norway in his discussion of the proposed new language law in Israel is more relevant than he realises. (“Knesset is a democratic body”, 12 August) That is because Norway has not one […] -
Keep Cornwall whole!
Posted on 26/08/2010 | No CommentsOne of the planks of the coalition government’s platform is to reduce the number of members of the House of Commons and redraw the boundaries so that each constituency has roughly the same number of voters. At present, the largest constituency – the Isle of […] -
The fate of declining communities
Posted on 03/07/2009 | No CommentsJonathan Guthrie writes in the Financial Times about the problems faced by towns and cities once the economic reason for their prosperity goes into decline. Cities in the north of England, for example, once were ideal locations for heavy manufacturing industry but have now lost […] -
Democracy and national identity
Posted on 24/03/2009 | No CommentsThere was an interesting comment yesterday in the debate about the government’s green paper on a new Bill of Rights. Justice secretary Jack Straw introduced the debate, with a proposal to put down in writing more detail about citizens’ rights and responsibilities in the UK. […] -
Immobility
Posted on 03/02/2009 | No CommentsThe dispute about Italian and Portuguese workers having jobs at a power station in Lincolnshire highlights the issue of labour mobility within the EU. One of the fundamental principles of the EU is that of the free movement of workers. The single market is founded […]