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Liverpool, Premier League champions: ‘A proud supporter of the Reds, I felt blue for 30 years. No longer’
What were you doing 30 years ago? Were you even born? Let me mark your card here. Research at CERN in Switzerland by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989-90 would eventually result in the World Wide Web, linking hypertext documents into an information system accessible from any node onContinue Reading
Why fairness matters more than equality – three ways to think philosophically about justice
Unrest in Chile in October 2019 over inequality of income, but some argue it was as much to do with fair opportunity. abriendomundo/Shutterstock In a sermon in 1956, Martin Luther King distinguished negative peace (as the absence of tension) from positive peace (as the presence of justice). It is certainlyContinue Reading
Boris Johnson’s political brand is in deep trouble
Boris Johnson has had a tricky time as UK prime minister of late. He faces criticism that he has mishandled the national response to the coronavirus crisis, leading to public confusion and a very high death toll. I would argue that part of Johnson’s struggle stems from his political brand.Continue Reading
Why don’t we hear about the low number of coronavirus deaths in Central Europe?
While the English language media gushes over how successful New Zealand has been in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, it has largely failed to report on another part of the world where both infection rates and fatalities remain low. Significant success stories in Central Europe are being overlooked. Slovakia, homeContinue Reading
Why some homeless people prefer sleeping rough to hostels or hotels
Thousands of rough sleepers accommodated in hotels as part of the UK government strategy to control the spread of coronavirus will be moved on as lockdown restrictions ease. The ambition is that people will be moved to alternative accommodation, although how this might be achieved for all remains uncertain. PublicContinue Reading
Past pandemics exacerbated disadvantages – what we can learn from them about the coronavirus recovery
Societies of the past were often better at dealing with problems than those of the present. It’s a sign of our complacency that early warning systems were not in place before COVID-19 struck. This was despite the fact that the past century witnessed four major respiratory pandemics – the 1918-19Continue Reading
What coronavirus success of Taiwan and Iceland has in common
Taiwan and Iceland have won praise for their effective responses to the coronavirus pandemic. They are among a group of countries which adopted a cooperative strategy early on in the pandemic, bringing together multiple organisations to tackle the challenges in containing COVID-19. A cooperative strategy is when organisations try toContinue Reading
Coronavirus: how Brazil became the second worst affected country in the world
The COVID-19 pandemic has stress-tested countries, economies and political systems like never before. Nowhere has the outcome been more devastating than in Brazil, arguably the country with the worst pandemic response in the world. Brazil’s vulnerabilities are visible in the mass graves in São Paulo and Manaus. The country isContinue Reading
Women leaders and coronavirus: look beyond stereotypes to find the secret of their success
Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, Tsai Ing-Wen of Taiwan and Angela Merkel of Germany have all been singled out for the way they have handled the coronavirus pandemic. They’ve been praised for demonstrating care, empathy and a collaborative approach. These skills – stereotypically described as “feminine” – have enabled themContinue Reading
Frank Lampard’s talk about ‘hard work’ will not help football tackle black under-representation
When Manchester City footballer Raheem Sterling challenged English football to do more when it came to tackling systemic racism in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, Chelsea manager Frank Lampard questioned his analysis of the problem. For Lampard, his success in coaching was simply down to hard graft.Continue Reading