Is the European Union doomed to fail? So far it looks like the member states of the European Union (EU) have chosen to widen their borders instead of further deepening their economic and political integration. Though the Euro, the region’s monetary system, did well for a while, its future has been threatened since the world economic crisis of 2008. The region’s largest economies, like Germany, have been throwing money at Greece in order to stave [...]
In May 2010, after the general election when the Coalition government was being created, the British public were told that things were going to be difficult for a long time and that for the country to recover from thirteen years of mismanagement a huge number of changes and reforms would have to be implemented. In terms of the economy, some progress has been made to reduce the rate at which the country is spending beyond [...]
In April 1982, days after the invasion of the Falklands by a fascist Argentine regime, the Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington resigned. He was the last minister to take responsibility for his department’s failure in this way. Doing so was not an heroic act. It should be the normal course of action. The current Home Secretary, whose department permitted a breach of the British border, continues to cling to her role. Of course, unlike many of [...]
More trouble at the Home Office. The position of Home Secretary – or Her Majesty’s Principle Secretary of State for the Home Department, to give the full title – is considered one of the Great Offices of State, the top four most prestigious offices in the British Cabinet (along with the Foreign Office, Exchequer and the Premiership itself). In recent years, however, the epithets ‘poisoned chalice’ and ‘political graveyard’ have increasingly become attached to the [...]
The UK coalition government has suffered a severe embarrassment over the last couple of days as details have gradually emerged over a supposed error which allowed thousands of immigrants to enter the UK over the summer without proper background checks. The apparent misunderstanding occurred after Home Secretary Theresa May introduced a trial policy of loosening checks which she now claims only applied to people entering the country from EU states. However Brodie Clark, the then [...]
The August riots prove that David Cameron is right: Britain is broken. The question is this: how do our politicians fix it? David Vaiani reports. Judging by the scenes of mayhem on our television screens, it is probably safe to assume that David Cameron will not be feeling the urge to hug a hoodie any time soon. Nor, one suspects, will he be exhorting others to do so, as he once did. All the same, [...]
It is a little known fact that, while technically illegal in Britain, bigamous and polygamous marriages exist. State benefits make provisions for those in bigamous and polygamous marriages. If we continue to make concessions to other cultures’ illegal marital practices, there will be unintended consequences for our society that even liberals and cultural relatives will not enjoy. Olivia Jackson investigates.
With all the media smothering us in the phone-hacking scandal, other stories are being under-reported. Harry Raffal casts his eyes about the lower reaches of the newspapers to bring you five stories you may have missed. With the fallout from the hacking scandal continuing to dominate the news, only briefly broken to inform us that a fat couple from Scotland have won over £160 million on the lottery and that the Beckams have provided a [...]
Hartz IV is Germany’s divisive welfare programme. It involved the consolidation of unemployment and welfare benefits. Some argued the new singular benefit was too low. However, the programme still encourages people to live off benefits when they are able to work. What with bailing out Greece, can the Germans also sustain its current benefits system, asks Helena Miteyko. The Hartz concept is a term for the Commission’s proposals “Modern Services in the labour market” which [...]