‘Prediction is very difficult’, said Niels Bohr, ‘especially if it’s about the future’ – and it’s always potentially embarrassing when you revisit things you wrote and in which you had … Read the rest
Month: January 2012
The Iron Lady has been a great success with cinema audiences. It has also provoked much comment about what it says about Thatcher and Thatcherism and also provoked speculation about … Read the rest
I recently spoke at the book launch for Paul Flynn’s latest book How to be an MP. It was, people think, the first book launch held in the Speaker’s … Read the rest
On 3 July 2012, I am hosting a one-day conference, exploring the contradictory and shifting meanings of the word ‘progressive’ in modern British history.
Over the past few years, this … Read the rest
One hundred years ago today the International Opium Convention was signed at The Hague.
The original 11 signatory countries agreed to introduce national legislation banning a particular menu of … Read the rest
In the end, the result of the combined presidential and legislative elections looks like a comfortable and routine win for Ma Ying-jeou and the KMT. Sitting presidents who successfully steward … Read the rest
In a recent speech in the City of London, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg called for more firms to follow the example of John Lewis by making their employees shareholders … Read the rest
The joint presidential and legislative elections in Taiwan are over and it is time to sum up the results. Without doubt, there will be plenty of opinions why the result … Read the rest
This is the second Taiwan Presidential election I have had the pleasure to observe on site. In 2008 I spend more than two weeks on the road and managed to … Read the rest
By Philip Cowley.
It is now more than four years since Gordon Brown decided not to have an election in late-2007. No election in post-war history has come so … Read the rest