As 2013 came to an end ‘9/11’ continued to cast a violent shadow in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the US response betrayed a failure to understand its origin.
A recent debate in the House of Lords on caste saw peers demonstrating a lack of understanding of key issues. What's the point in an unelected chamber if they don't even know what they are talking about?
The panic in Britain over prospective Bulgarian and Romanian immigration is based on misunderstanding of European rules. It is also at odds with the country's best traditions, says Dimitar Bechev.
We pretend that the university entry system is broadly meritocratic. But in Britain the privately educated child of a professional family is three times more likely to get into a top university than the child of poorer parents. It will take radical reforms to reverse that.
This tragic historic clash - the product of centuries of virulent European antisemitism at home and rampant imperialism abroad, crowned by double or, in this case, treble dealings - is the root of the conflict. Almost everything else has been grafted on retrospectively.
The British government feels obliged to make life hell for immigrants arriving in the UK. Another example of how in “Fortress Europe”, cruelty now appears routine.
The embrace of corporate partners by science and technology departments and the erosion of distinctions between the military and the police have been at the heart of disturbing security trends in the UK and elsewhere. The root causes of insecurity meanwhile go unaddressed.
Things are not as clear cut as one would like to believe: like war and peace, black and white, good or evil. As in real life, there are few obvious moral, or immoral solutions. Take Mali.
Inquests into military deaths away from the battlefield provide important opportunities for removing the carefully constructed veneer of PR that casts all soldiers as heroes.
