Archive for the ‘British current affairs’ Category
The view of an Englishman living in Scotland on the independence referendum
February 27th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
The Scottish Independence Referendum – Yes or No? I am a mongrel of the British Isles. Self-exiled in Lancashire throughout their married life, my parents were defiantly Yorkshire in origin and spirit. However, my father’s great-great grandfather had migrated with his sheep from south west Scotland to the West Riding early in the nineteenth century. […]
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Rest in peace Alice Herz-Sommer
February 24th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Seven years ago, I did a blog posting about the utterly remarkable Alice Herz-Sommer. She was a Holocaust survivor with an astonishingly positive approach to life. Almost four years ago, I did another blog posting as a result of a television programme about her. Today comes the sad news that Alice – the world’s oldest […]
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OK, it’s official – Britain has had the wettest winter on record
February 20th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
According to the Met Office, winter encompasses the months of December, January and February, so there is still a week to go before it is over. But already it has announced that the UK has had the wettest winter since records began in 1910. You can see the details here. We’ve been lucky. We live […]
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Anglican bishops lambast Britain’s welfare reforms
February 20th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
“Britain is the world’s seventh largest economy and yet people are going hungry. Half a million people have visited foodbanks in the UK since last Easter and 5,500 people were admitted to hospital in the UK for malnutrition last year. One in five mothers report regularly skipping meals to better feed their children, and even […]
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Has the weather gone mad?
January 7th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Here in the UK, the last month has seen truly miserable weather. We have had storm after storm with strong winds and lashing rain, often accompanied by high tides. The result has been some serious flooding. According to this blog posting by the Met Office: “December 2013 is the stormiest December in records dating back to […]
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Why are fewer people voting in the older democracies?
December 27th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
“The issue? Millions of British young people are not voting, have never voted and are unlikely to do so unless there is reversal of a downward trend in electoral participation that seems to have started 50 years ago and accelerated in the last two decades.” Today’s “Guardian” newspaper today devotes two and a half pages to this […]
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How the Mother of Parliaments might be brought into the 21st century (2)
December 24th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
A few weeks ago, I did a posting about the formation of a Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy. This exercise will start in early 2014 and report in early 2015. The first three members of the Commission have now been announced: Robert Halfon MP Meg Hillier MP Helen Milner, Chief Executive, Tinder Foundation Since I am […]
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When it comes to Christmas, we British are gonna party like it’s 1899
December 23rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
So writes Duncan Exley of the Equality Trust in this piece about how Britain is facing the sort of inequality experienced in Victorian times – the excess of the few and the struggle of the many
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The absurdity which is the current House of Lords
December 17th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
“Half the members of the House of Lords clock in and out of Parliament for a few minutes a day in order to claim a £300 daily attendance allowance, a former Conservative peer has said. Lord Hanningfield made the claim when challenged to explain his own attendance record.” This is the opening to a story on […]
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How the Mother of Parliaments might be brought into the 21st century (1)
November 28th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Speaking to the Hansard Society this week, the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow said: “I am announcing today the creation of a Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy, the core membership of which will be assembled in the next few weeks, supplemented by a circle of around 30 expert commissioners and reinforced I […]
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