The proliferation of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic poses significant threats to public health and social cohesion. In order to determine the most effective response to these phenomena, policy makers need to understand their appeal. The historical record offers a powerful means of distinguishing between those responses that are rooted in human psychology and transcend contemporary circumstances, and those that are genuinely new. It suggests significant continuities with the past, and points to policy responses which are mitigative rather than preventative.
Working with the private sector to export British healthcare expertise abroad is nothing new. But history suggests that if the NHS is to be used as an expansive form of soft power and export earnings for 'Global Britain', more adequate safeguards and transparent avenues of public scrutiny need to be in place to ensure this process prioritises mutual healthcare improvement over revenue raising.
In the closing years of Elizabeth I’s reign, England saw the emergence of arguably the world’s first effective welfare state. Laws were established which successfully protected people from rises in food prices. More than 400 years later, in the closing years of Elizabeth II’s reign, the UK once again faces perilous spikes in living costs. Perhaps today’s government could learn something from its legislative ancestors.
The Conservative government insists that modifying the Northern Ireland Protocol will entice the Democratic Unionist Party back into Stormont and restore the devolved Assembly. But the current crisis highlights deeper unionist disillusionment with power-sharing.
A recording of the book launch After the Virus: Lessons from the Past for a Better Future by by Hilary Cooper and Simon Szreter now available.
H&P co-founder Professor Simon Szreter spoke at the Department for Work and Pensions conference on 5 October on the subject of "Incentivising an Ethical Economics".
H&P is working in partnership with the Prime Minister's Office and the National Archives to help revitalise the history content of the new History of Government Blog website.
H&P commissions and edits the No. 10 Guest Historian series, written by expert historians from the H&P network, as well as creating lively new biographies of previous Prime Ministers.
H&P is based at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, University of London.
We are the only project in the UK providing access to an international network of more than 500 historians with a broad range of expertise. H&P offers a range of resources for historians, policy makers and journalists.
