A couple of things have caught my eye this week in the world of UK-EU relations, one relatively minor, the other potentially much bigger. However, they are linked by a common strand of thinking about how the UK acts and is perceived. The minor thing was an article at the start of the week by […]
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This post summarises the argument I presented at the roundtable of the same title convened by the School of Politics on the 24th February 2014. On the panel were Sam Cooke, Ciaran Gillespie, Nikos Gkotsis and Katharine A. M. Wright. You can join the debate via #SurreyPolitics. The argument that social media has increased political participation is one which has […]
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To look at Twitter (or the academic conference schedule), the European elections are almost upon us. With them comes the familiar litany of concerns about falling turnout, democratic deficits and all the other tropes. While these have some basis in fact, such debates tend to present a rather distorted view of the world (turnouts are […]
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For some time now, the Liberal Democrats (and other pro-EU groups) have been trailing the use of the #whyiamINhashtag as a hook for a campaign in favour of British membership of the Union. This week saw that step up a level with the launch of a new website (www.amillionjobs.org), with a centrepiece video by Nick Clegg used as […]
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At one level, the denunciation by UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, of the party’s 2010 General Election manifesto as ‘drivel‘ at the end of last week merely confirms the image of plain-speaking, see-as-they-find types, unafraid to change tack as they develop. Certainly, it’s almost impossible to imagine any other party leader (and not just in the […]
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This article was originally published at The Conversation. Recent images emerging from Ukraine reveal a country which in places resembles a battlefield, causing some to comment on the possibility of the country sliding into civil war. These fears were generated by the escalation in numbers taking to the street and of violence which resulted in the killing […]
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