Astonishingly, Tim was not familiar with Reagan’s greatest speech. Here it is:
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This Sceptred Isle – pupils will now learn the history of the United Kingdom
N.B. The author is Tim Hewish – my Parliamentary Researcher. As a Historian, I welcome the Education Secretary’s announcement at conference today that History, as a discipline, will be at the core of the curriculum. For too long, Labour had been allowed to reduce the significance of our history, preferring to re-write […]
Read MoreOmnipotent Government – The Rise of the Total State and Total War (1944)
I find most accounts of the Second World War unsatisfying. They usually focus on the events of the war and the actions and speeches of individuals. Rarely does an account consider the ideas which prompted particular courses of action. In a previous post, I excerpted sections of Omnipotent Government: The […]
Read MoreThe American Museum in Britain, Bath
This past weekend, we visited the American Museum in Britain. It was thought-provoking: America was of course conceived in liberty but American history, like every nation’s, is filled with examples of man’s inhumanity to man. The exhibition began with a wall of quotations from significant figures. These particularly stood out: […]
Read MoreThe Apostle of Free Trade: Richard Cobden
I just finished Gowing’s 1885 biography of Richard Cobden, whose doctrine was that free trade would lead to world peace through interdependence and mutual cooperation. Cobden was a leader of the Anti-Corn-Law League — a substantial feat of political agitation — which was established to oppose protectionist measures on corn […]
Read MoreSome Costs of the Great War: Nationalizing Private Life
Following comments on the immediate astronomical human cost of the Great War: Yet this essay has to do less with numbers of ended lives than it has to do with altered lives, or rather, with changes in the status of the private life of the modern individual, the modern family, […]
Read MoreHistory with Grandma
Beth’s Grandma talked us through some key memories today, from a life lived in just two central Birmingham streets: The earthquake, which rearranged the furniture, despite people sitting on it. The tornado, which filled the lounge with electrical fire, burning out the TV, before moving on to destroy in adjacent […]
Read MoreIndependence from the state
From 1968: To return to the personal theme, if we accept the need for increasing responsibility for self and family it means that we must stop approaching things in an atmosphere of restriction. There is nothing wrong in people wanting larger incomes. It would seem a worthy objective for men […]
Read More‘Summary justice’ soars as courts bypassed – Times Online
From the Times: Out-of-court punishments accounted for more than half of all offences dealt with by the criminal justice system last year, according to figures published today. As food for thought, compare to the 1689 Bill of Rights which provided for freedom from fine and forfeiture without a trial. read […]
Read MorePitt the Younger, Gladstone and Disraeli
(Bumped up from 9 May 08, as I found it while reflecting on Britain today.) On the basis that those who are not familiar with history are condemned to repeat it, I have begun to study Pitt, Gladstone and Disraeli. Here are some quotations, which seem apt in the present […]
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