In the latest edition of Textures du temps, a historian’s eye is brought to bear on the discourse prevailing in recent British media coverage of the intervention of Algerian forces in the hostage crisis of In Amenas - the neo-orientalist concepts typically invoked when the subject of Algeria’s his
It's a class with few friends in Britain: dismissed by the left, and sidelined by liberals and conservatives chasing big business. But with the surge in self-employment, the state needs to recognise that the needs and demands of the petite bourgeoisie may be growing.
Honest mistakes, personal fraud, organised crime. Where does one end and the next begin?
Postcolonial nationalism is a strange phenomenon. Brought up to despise everything British (as Jonathan Swift put it two centuries earlier, ‘burn everything English except their coal’), we were also imbued with a sneaking suspicion that British was somehow better.
A new manifesto, 'Fresh Start', has been published by a group of Conservative MPs proposing a new relationship between the UK and EU. The (not so hidden) agenda: sweeping away many of the rights that protect British workers from exploitation.
Changes to the contentious test designed to judge whether seriously sick or disabled people in Britain are fit for employment are being proposed without debate, despite evidence to show they will have a "huge and damaging impact".
As more evidence of royal interventions in the British political system emerge, we should consider how public support for monarchy could be reconciled with radical constitutional change. What would a republican monarchy look like?
Why is the Home Office continuing a cruel and ludicrous campaign against a woman who they have accepted will definitely die if returned to Nigeria?
The old welfare state cannot survive the global financial crisis. Beneath the Punch and Judy debate, what is the Coalition putting in its place? And what is the alternative?
Strivers vs skivers. Last week saw a game show-like battle between our politicians over the proposed benefit cap. What do they know? Here, a Citizen's Advice Bureau adviser maps the predicament of Britain's dying welfare state through the lives of those living in the system.
Why has Britain's welfare state lost the popularity it once enjoyed? How can it regain this role and where does Labour fit in?
