So, last Thursday the department for education (DfE) ordered schools in England 'not to use resources from organisations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism'. This has prompted quite a strong reaction from many on the left (and not on the left) on the (quite reasonable) grounds that it appears to prevent teaching the... Continue Reading →
The Humanities are under attack, it is time to stand up for it.
As a recent Guardian editorial reminded us, Nicky Morgan, former Education Secretary (who studied at Oxford, and is now ennobled and in the House of Lords) once said this about the subject area I practice within: ‘[In the past] if you didn’t know what you wanted to do … the arts and humanities were what... Continue Reading →
‘Keep cool and you command everybody’*: reflections on history and why we are focusing on the wrong freedoms.
‘We live in societies where the positive freedom to act as we wish is perhaps our central concern. Whatever the professed fears f global warning, or the expressed sympathies with the poor and downtrodden, the willingness actively to change our way of living is the province of only a small minority. For most, the everyday... Continue Reading →
Restricting immigration, a good idea? An historical perspective from 1905 to the present
At the beginning of this week the incumbent Home Secretary announced that from January 2021 new legislation would restrict immigration into the UK, as the government had promised in the run up to the 2019 General Election. In brief the aim of the Conservative administration is to limit the amount of poorer, less well educated,... Continue Reading →
Radical Conservatism, Edwardian Tariff Reform and Brexit
Recent changes in British Conservatism and the wider Brexit process have reminded me of a moment in the history of the Conservative Party during the Edwardian period.
