archive

Britain’s got talent

Iain McLean (Oxford): The 1909 budget and the destruction of the unwritten British Constitution. From Standpoint, Geoffrey Robertson on why we need a British Bill of Rights; how European are the British? Piers Paul Read and David Heathcoat-Amory debate; and Nick Cohen on a reader's guide to Thatcherism. If Britain's got talent, why are we being run by foreigners? Big Bother: How a million surveillance cameras in London are proving George Orwell wrong. A review of The Best of Punch Cartoons: 2000 Humor Classics. From TLS, a review essay on Georgian London. A look at the unlikely origin of fish and chips. From Red Pepper, a review of Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer by Michael Mansfield (and an interview). Does British foreign secretary David Miliband, the child of Holocaust survivors and New Labour wonk, have the “icicle in the heart” it takes to become prime minister? A review of The Cult of St George in Medieval England by Jonathan Good. Daytime TV, ties civic and sexual: Gary Day learns how Britons made a modern nation and made love, not least on campus. A review of The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew (and more). From Spiked, a review of Why England Lose by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski; a review of The Bully State: The End of Tolerance by Brian Monteith; and the barriers to a Republic of Britain: Brendan O’Neill says republicans face two problems today — the elite’s continuing distrust of the electorate, and the electorate’s distrust of itself. A review of Jolly Wicked, Actually: The 100 Words That Make Us English by Tony Thorne.