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Research by the Trades Union Congress has shown that 3.7 million workers in the UK – one in nine of the total workforce – are in insecure work. Zero hours contracts have proliferated across the last decade, while the recent P&O scandal has highlighted the importance of security at work. What would a Labour government do differently? The party has set out proposals for a New Deal for Working People. What impact would this New Deal have, and what does the experience of previous attempts by Labour to extend employment rights suggest for the prospects of change?

Panel:

• Justin Madders MP (Shadow Employment Rights Minister)
• Professor Keith Ewing (King’s College London and President of the Institute of Employment Rights)
• Verity Davidge (Director of Policy, Make UK)

Chair: James Parker (Department of History, University of York)

The scale and severity of the financial and political crisis triggered by the Truss administration’s ‘mini-budget’ of 23 September 2022 have left commentators searching for comparable emergencies. ‘Black Wednesday’ 1992 has frequently been mentioned. Those with longer memories have cast their minds back to the Sterling Crises of 1967 and 1976 or the reversal of the 1972 ‘dash-for-growth’. Comparisons have even been drawn with the Suez Crisis of 1956, when a sudden and humiliating reversal of foreign policy led to the downfall of prime minister, Anthony Eden. 

In this special discussion co-hosted by History & Policyand the Mile End Institute, an expert panel discussed the historical precedents and try to identify the lessons they might offer to contemporary policy-makers.

Panellists:

• Duncan Weldon (British economics correspondent for The Economist)
• Tim Bale (Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary, University of London)

Chair: Philip Murphy (Director, History & Policy)

This event took the form of an online round-table discussion focusing on the connections between History and print Journalism and how each field can benefit from collaborating with the other. The event aims to bring together practitioners from both fields, especially those with experience of bridging the divide. Our distinguished panellists aim to address the following questions:  

1. Philip L. Graham, former President and Publisher of the Washington Post said, “Journalism is the first rough draft of history.” What does this mean in practice and what similarities and differences are there between the work of the historian and the journalist? 
2. History-making is a recurrent theme in today’s journalism, with frequent resort to words like ‘historic’ and ‘unprecedented’. To what extent does this suggest a genuine interaction with History, and does it risk distorting our understanding of the past? 
3. Could both journalists and historians benefit from acquiring some of each other’s professional skills? 
4. Journalists are increasingly drawn to so-called 'culture war' topics - legacies of slavery, statues, national memory/ identity, gender/ sexual identities etc: how should historians engage with this and what are the dangers of being drawn into polarised or stereotyped positions, or even becoming the target of attacks?

Chair: Philip Murphy (Director of History & Policy).

Confirmed Speakers:

• Alan Rusbridger (Formerly editor-in-chief of The Guardian and Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, he currently serves on Meta’s Oversight Board).
• Anna Whitelock (Historian. Executive Dean of the School of Communication and Creativity, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Modern Monarchy, City University of London)
• Adrian Bingham (Director of Sheffield University’s Centre for the Study of Journalism and History).
• Simon Heffer (Historian, journalist, author and political commentator).

Corruption and Standard in British Politics: The launch of The Many Lives of Corruption: The reform of public life in modern Britain c. 1750-1950 edited by Ian Cawood & Tom Crook

How has corruption shaped - and undermined - the history of public life in modern Britain? We take this new collection of essays as the starting point for an examination of this question. It will consider two and a half centuries of history, from the first assaults on Old Corruption and aristocratic privilege during the late eighteenth century through to the corruption scandals that blighted the worlds of Westminster and municipal government during the twentieth century. And it will reflect on the emergence of the concept of standards of governance in modern Britain and identify potential parallels between the challenges of the era which the book covers and those facing UK politics today.

Joining the editors Dr Ian Cawood (University of Stirling) and Dr Tom Crook (Oxford Brookes University) to discuss the book was:

• Anneliese Dodds MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities)
• John Penrose MP (United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion at the Home Office 2017-2022)
• Prof Mark Knights (University of Warwick. Specialist in the history of corruption in Early Modern Britain)
• Dr Kathryn Rix (Assistant Editor, House of Commons 1832-1945, History of Parliament)

This event was chaired by Professor Philip Murphy, Director of History & Policy.

2022 marks the 150th anniversary of the passing of the 1872 Ballot Act which introduced the requirement for a secret ballot in British parliamentary and local elections. Our symposium will take this as the starting point for a broader examination of the history of voting reform. It will consider the culture and conduct of Victorian elections and the circumstances that led to the passing of the Act; it will deal with the debates around the secret ballot, the impact of the Act at home (especially in Ireland), its influence abroad, and the subsequent history of electoral administration, relating some of these issues to currently debated questions of electoral fraud and voter identity.

The symposium seeks to bring together historians, political scientists and representatives from organisations such as the Electoral Commission and the UK Boundary Commissions. It is being held in honour of Valerie Cromwell who was Reader in History at the University of Sussex and Director of the History of Parliament Trust between 1991 and 2001. It is being jointly organised by History & Policy at the IHR and the History of Parliament, and has been made possible thanks to a generous donation by Lady Valerie’s husband, Sir John Kingman.