Archive for the ‘British current affairs’ Category
Why Britain needs a new foreign policy
December 16th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
“The last few years have been disastrous for British foreign policy, and no one is held to account. The edifice of human rights law and norms, which took half a century of careful work to construct, has been undermined by those who claim to defend it. Maybe 500,000 people have died in Iraq and the […]
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Keeping you posted
December 14th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
Today the Government announced a major closure programme for our post offices – some 2,500 will go between summer 2007 and the end of 2008. The story leaked over the weekend and so I’ve done a number of radio interview this week on the subject of behalf of Postwatch. Altogether I’ve done five interviews, making […]
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Who is the British Obama?
December 12th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
In my previous posting, I talk – as I have on many previous occasions – about the American politician Barack Obama. His mother is white and his father is from Africa. He is young, charismatic and black and is the strongest candidate to be the first man of colour to bid for the top job […]
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What’s happened to British politics?
December 11th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
“In the face of the complex economic and social challenge that globalisation represents, I don’t think it’s enough to praise the open economy and leave it at that. The only serious option is indeed an open economy in an open society, but it is also our responsibility to tell the whole truth – that globalisation […]
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What kind of schools do we need?
December 5th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
The Government wants to see more faith schools but, in a recent poll of headteachers, only 9% agreed with this policy. The Government wants to see more academy schools but, in the same survey, only 7% of headteachers backed such establishments. You can see more information on the survey here. I think that the headteachers […]
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Should the UK renew the Trident system? (1)
December 4th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
Trident, the UK ‘s nuclear weapons system, is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) system consisting of four British-built Vanguard class nuclear-powered submarines each carrying up to 16 US Trident II D5 missiles. There are around three British-built nuclear warheads mounted on every missile making about 48 warheads carried by each submarine. Each warhead can be […]
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A chip off the old block
November 6th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
Who is this Richard Darlington who is quoted today in the “Times”?. You guessed it – it’s my son speaking his capacity as Media Manager of the Institute for Public Policy Research. The boy done good.
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The rural post office network
October 18th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
Today the National Federation of Subpostmasters is organising a rally at Westminister Central Hall and a mass lobbying of MPs, as well as presenting to 10 Downing Street a petition signed by 4 million people. What’s it all about? It’s about the future of the rural post office network. We still have around 14,300 post […]
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The British political system
October 15th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
It’s been a very busy weekend. Yesterday I spent most of the day preparing a lecture on the British political system. All day today I’ll be delivering that lecture to a group of 25 Chinese civil servants visiting the UK. I’ve turned the lecture into a section of my web site in case readers from […]
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From Sunningdale to St Andrews
October 14th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
I first visited Northern Ireland in August 1969, the week after troops were deployed on the streets of Belast and Londonderry to stop what we would now call a version of ethnic cleansing. I could not believe that such an occurrence was taking place in the UK and wanted to see for myself what was […]
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