Politics (Page 303)

A makeshift memorial to the children buried at the Tuam mother and baby home, whose identification in 2013 led to the mother and baby homes inquiry. Niall Carson/PA Mother and baby homes were institutions where unmarried women were sent to have their babies, often arriving destitute having been denied support by the child’s father, and even their own family, simply for falling pregnant outside marriage. The Irish government has recently published an inquiry into conditions at these homes, where 56,000 women spent time between 1922 and 1998 when the last closed. A report on similar homes in Northern Ireland is also due to be published. The Irish government’s inquiry is the latest investigation into institutions that together constituted what weContinue Reading

The Cadaver Synod (897): Seven months after his death, the corpse of Pope Formosus was found guilty of perjury. Jean-Paul Laurens (1870) via Britannica Donald Trump will face impeachment in February 2021, the first time a US president has been tried twice for “high crimes and misdemeanours”. A single article of impeachment will be passed to the Senate on January 25, accusing Trump of “inciting insurrection” before his supporters attacked the US Capitol building on January 6. Formal arguments will begin in the Senate in the second week of February. But a media campaign is already well underway, as supporters of the former president – and his political enemies – take to the airwaves to put their case. Prominent amongContinue Reading

The Cadaver Synod (897): Seven months after his death, the corpse of Pope Formosus was found guilty of perjury. Jean-Paul Laurens (1870) via Britannica Donald Trump will face impeachment in February 2021, the first time a US president has been tried twice for “high crimes and misdemeanours”. A single article of impeachment will be passed to the Senate on January 25, accusing Trump of “inciting insurrection” before his supporters attacked the US Capitol building on January 6. Formal arguments will begin in the Senate in the second week of February. But a media campaign is already well underway, as supporters of the former president – and his political enemies – take to the airwaves to put their case. Prominent amongContinue Reading

GarethWilley/Shutterstock Under new government proposals, police in the UK will be allowed to seize homes and arrest Travellers who refuse to move from unauthorised camps. A new law which effectively criminalises intentional trespass and imposes sentences of up to three months and fines of up to £2,500 will disproportionately affect Travellers, who are recognised as an ethnic group under the Race Relations Act. Police will direct Travellers to leave sites on which they have no permission to stay, even when there are no alternative stopping places for them. The number of caravans that’s deemed to constitute an unauthorised encampment has been reduced in the new proposal from six to two. The government justified the legal change in a 2019 consultationContinue Reading

Pitting authoritarianism against democracy has become common during the pandemic, with the former often being painted as a more effective regime type in handling COVID-19. The Chinese Communist Party’s own narrative promotes a version of this argument, equating China’s success in keeping cases and deaths low with the “superiority” of its political system. This is in spite of successful containment by some democracies. But arguing that the world should ignore governing style and instead focus on learning from China’s policies is problematic – it depends on the assumption that policies can simply be grafted from one political system into another. Introducing policies from a different type of regime requires adapting those policies to fit the systems they are absorbed into.Continue Reading

Then and now: how the outside world has watched American politics over the past four years. Der Spiegel The election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States was received across much of the world with a mixture of relief and exuberance, though often laced with apprehension. A common theme in news headlines and Twitter feeds was that normal service was being resumed in the US and in international affairs. In France, the newspaper Le Monde ran with the headline: “American Elections 2020: Joe Biden’s victory sparks huge relief in Europe.” On Twitter, Paris’ mayor, Anne Hidalgo, tweeted out: “Welcome Back, America.” In Germany, the cover of the news magazine Der Spiegel depicted Biden putting the severedContinue Reading

The coronavirus pandemic has been extremely distressing for those who are bereaved and grieving, regardless of whether COVID-19 was the actual cause of death of their loved one. We know anecdotally and from emerging research that people who have lost someone during the pandemic were less likely to have visited them before they died or able to attend the funeral. Our Bereavement Diaries project, which gathered pandemic diaries of people supporting the bereaved in assisted living and retirement villages, or who trained as Cruse bereavement volunteers, adds nuance to this narrative. The 43 diary entries we received between May and September 2020 offer some important, real-time insights into how grief and bereavement have been experienced during the pandemic, and theContinue Reading

Lee Bryant Photography/Shutterstock Charity shops are part of the rhythm of everyday life: vibrant social hubs where people can work, volunteer, donate and spend. Older people make up the fabric of charity retailing. Their experiences, skills and knowledge are built into the foundations of these shops. The sector has an established role among this group – it has long been associated with the stereotype of the “post-retirement” volunteer – the older woman selflessly giving up her time to “do good”. Years ago, charity shops were run and managed on a purely voluntary basis, staffed almost entirely by older people. However, the sector has undergone a significant transformation since its inception. It has been progressively “professionalised” and is increasingly driven byContinue Reading

Cheese and witches: a potent combination. apolonia via Shutterstock As I was scrolling through Twitter recently, a viral tweet caught my attention. It was an image from a book of spells claiming that: “You may fascinate a woman by giving her a piece of cheese.” The spell comes from Kathryn Paulsen’s 1971 book, The Complete Book of Magic and Witchcraft – and, while proffering a lump of cheddar may seem like an unusual way of attracting a possible mate, Paulsen’s book draws on a long history of magic. It’s a history that has quite a lot of cheese in it. It’s not entirely clear why cheese is seen to have magical properties. It might be to do with the factContinue Reading

Students protest over A-level results, summer 2020. Ilyas Tayfun Salci/Shutterstock Throughout the pandemic, decisions made by adults have had a significant impact on all aspects of young people’s lives, yet some teenagers feel their voice and experiences during the pandemic have not been heard. The political has become personal for many, leading some young people to become increasingly engaged with politics and involved in community action. Research undertaken by my colleagues and I at the University of Huddersfield and consultancy Ecorys, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, has been exploring young people’s experiences during lockdown, including their engagement and involvement with politics. The research project, Growing up under COVID, involves 70 young people aged 14-18 in the UK, Italy, Lebanon andContinue Reading