Politics (Page 258)

Richard Ratcliffe’s efforts to secure the release of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from Iran, where she has been detained for over five years for “national security-related” offences, have failed to bear fruit, despite his recent 21-day hunger strike outside the UK Foreign Office. The sticking point, according to many observers, is the UK’s continuing non-payment of £400 million owed by the UK to Iran as a result of the UK’s incomplete fulfilment of a 1970s defence contract. Iran has long sought repayment of the sum, and the debt was confirmed in international arbitration in 2001 and again in 2009. Former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt and current defence secretary, Ben Wallace, have also acknowledged the debt. Even so, the Foreign OfficeContinue Reading

Stefano Buttafoco / Shutterstock Not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away… democracy was in danger. Our current political environment is filled with threats to democracy, from the rise of authoritarian populism around the world, to the massive expansion of state power during the COVID-19 pandemic that may never fully be undone. As constitutional law researchers, we are interested in how these threats emerge and what can be done about them. We argue in a recent paper, that several useful lessons can be drawn from a surprising source: the Star Wars films. You might fairly ask why we draw these lessons from Star Wars and not Weimar Germany or ancient Rome. But we think that there isContinue Reading

Pupils from a German 'Napola' at Ballenstedt before a football game with a visiting side from an English public school. Author provided In spring 1936, teenage schoolboy – and later war hero – Dick Hargreaves was given the chance to go on an all-expenses-paid exchange trip to Germany. But this was no ordinary school exchange – Hargreaves’ destination was Oranienstein, one of a system of new elite boarding schools known as National Political Education Institutes (“Napolas” for short). These Nazi colleges were explicitly modelled on an amalgam of the British public schools, the Prussian cadet corps, and the harsh educational practices of ancient Sparta. The schools educated boys from the age of ten upwards, training them as future leaders ofContinue Reading

Artist's impression of HS2 train. HS2 Following leaked reports that the UK government would be scrapping plans for the UK’s long-awaited high-speed rail network to extend to Leeds, transport secretary Grant Shapps has announced in the House of Commons that the eastern leg of HS2 will now reach only from Birmingham to the east Midlands, and that an additional high-speed line between Leeds and Manchester would no longer be built. Instead, the newly published Integrated Rail Plan for the North and the Midlands, sets out proposals to upgrade existing lines to reduce journey times between the cities sooner (although not by as much). This contrasts with previous statements made in February 2020 committing the government to building the full HS2Continue Reading

Children have suffered during the pandemic. fizkes/Shutterstock During the COVID-19 pandemic children have been the target of dehumanising language and of policy which prioritises the needs of adults over theirs. While we still do not know the long-term effects of COVID-19 on children, research from early in the pandemic suggested that children were much less likely than adults to suffer severely with the symptoms of the virus. Discussions of children revolved around their role in transmitting the disease to adults. Soon, children were being referred to as “vectors” of the disease. This phrase has been used to control the movement of children. Shops in Ireland referred to children as “vectors of disease” as a justification for limiting their entry toContinue Reading

As winter sets in across Europe, COVID-19 cases are beginning to rise, despite the vast roll-out of mass vaccination programmes earlier this year. Austria’s government has pointed the finger of blame firmly at the unvaccinated, announcing a new lockdown only for those who have not had the jab. Like other pandemic policy decisions, this lockdown raises questions about how far states can take emergency powers, and whether they will violate human rights law in doing so. What might the European Convention on Human Rights say about this particular case? In justifying his country’s new policy, the Austrian chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, said: “My aim is very clear: to get the unvaccinated to get vaccinated, not to lock up the unvaccinated.” TheContinue Reading

The recent political scandal in the UK involving Owen Paterson, a Conservative MP who was found to have broken parliamentary standards by repeatedly lobbying the government on behalf of two companies which paid him a large regular monthly fee, presents a classic case of a media scandal. Paterson’s lobbying work was revealed by an investigation in The Guardian newspaper in 2019. Allegations of wrongdoing were followed by an inquiry by the parliamentary standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, and a damning report from the House of Commons committee on standards, which recommended a 30-day suspension for the MP. The Johnson government then tried to overturn the process, leading to a political and public furore, forcing a U-turn. Paterson subsequently resigned as anContinue Reading

Shutterstock The ability to remain anonymous when commenting online is a double-edged sword. It is valuable because it enables people to speak without fear of social and legal discrimination. But this is also what makes it dangerous. Someone from a repressive religious community can use anonymity to talk about their sexuality, for example. But someone else can use anonymity to hurl abuse at them with impunity. Many people focus on the dangers of online anonymity. Back in 2011, Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Mark and (then) marketing director of Facebook, said that for safety’s sake, “anonymity on the internet has to go away”. Such calls appear again and again. Behind them is a common intuition: that debate would be more civilContinue Reading

Shutterstock/Anna Berdnik In a recent 12-month period, police in England and Wales made just under 60,000 arrests of children. Of these cases, which involved crimes including theft and antisocial behaviour, nearly 27,000 ended up in court. Some of these defendants were just ten years old – the minimum age at which a child can be prosecuted and punished by law for an offence in these countries. In Ireland and Scotland it is 12, while in Sweden and Denmark it is 15. The age age of criminal responsibility is hardly ever discussed by the mainstream media or politicians in the UK. When it is, the debate often goes hand in hand with reference to homicides by children. But the rarity ofContinue Reading