Archive for the ‘British current affairs’ Category
Will the polls get it right on Britain’s EU referendum?
June 4th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I’ve blogged several times on the growing difficulties for accurate political polling [for one example, see here]. Indeed. for all sorts of methodological and behavioural reasons, I think finding out what consumers and citizens really think is becoming harder. So I was interested in this article in the “Washington Post” by three academics which takes […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Britain fourth on ‘good country’ index thanks to science and technology
June 3rd, 2016 by Roger Darlington
The British are not very good at taking pride in themselves or their country, so we should celebrate this news that the UK has come fourth in the latest version of something called the good country index. A major factor is its global contribution to science and technology, thanks to the high number of journal exports, […]
Posted in British current affairs, World current affairs | Comments (0)
What are the differences between American and British politics?
May 17th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Earlier this week, I spent almost four hours in discussion – much of it recorded – with an American academic visiting London: Professor Gerald Sussman. He is the author of six books and is currently researching for a seventh. As he explained in an introductory e-mail: “I’m a professor of international politics at Portland State […]
Posted in American current affairs, British current affairs, My life & thoughts | Comments (2)
The great city of London has a mayor who is Muslim and Labour
May 7th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
On Thursday, I voted for a Hindu Navin Shah for the London Assembly and for a Muslim Sadiq Khan to be the London mayor. Of course, I voted for them because they were the Labour candidates, not because of their religion or ethnicity, but I was proud that my political party is so diverse in […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
10 reasons why the UK should remain a member of the European Union
April 30th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
One of my Members of the European Parliament Seb Dance has put together an informative but succinct case on why we should vote ‘Yes” in the referendum on 23 June. You can check out his 10 reasons here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
The shame of modern Britain – in one of the richest countries on the planet …
April 27th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
… over a million live in destitution, as explained in this piece from today’s “Guardian newspaper”: “More than a million people in the UK are so poor they cannot afford to eat properly, keep clean or stay warm and dry, according to a groundbreaking attempt to measure the scale of destitution in Britain. A study […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
The wonder of Palmyra – revisited
April 22nd, 2016 by Roger Darlington
This week, a monumental recreation of the Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, which was destroyed by ISIS, has been unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square. The 1,800-year-old arch was destroyed by Islamic State militants last October and the 6-metre (20ft) model, made in Italy from Egyptian marble, is intended as an act of defiance: to […]
Posted in British current affairs, My life & thoughts, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Fact checking the Government’s statements on the European Union
April 16th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I’m very much in favour of British membership of the European Union and I’ll be voting in the referendum for us to stay in the EU. But I think it’s good that 38 Degrees has organised for the statements in the Government’s booklet to all homes to be fact-checked independently. This is the result: The […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
These days, at almost every event I attend, there is some reference to Brexit
March 16th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
On 23 June 2016, there will be a referendum in the UK to determine whether the nation should remain a member of the European Union or whether we should leave (so-called Brexit). This is a huge issue for the future of the country and understandably it comes up at almost every meeting I attend. Yesterday […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (4)
When will we have a balanced assessment of the premiership of Tony Blair?
March 13th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
“Broken Vows: Tony Blair – The Tragedy of Power” by Tom Bower is a newly-published hatchet job on Blair’s record in office that has rightly been criticised by many reviewers. The political editor of the “Observer”, Andrew Rawnsley, opens his review of the book by pointing out: “History, so it is often said, is written by the […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (4)