Opinion Articles
H&P encourages historians to use their expertise to shed light on issues of the day. If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece for publication, please see our editorial guidelines. We currently have 342 Opinion Articles listed by date and they are all freely searchable by theme, author or keyword.
Trump 2.0 and the US-UK Special Relationship: A Role still for History and Memory in the Diplomatic Strategy?
How should the government of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer approach US-UK relations in the light of the recent electoral victory of Donald Trump? Dr Sam Edwards argues that despite the president-elect’s famously ‘transactional’ nature, British diplomats might still find the ceremony and ritual of ‘memory diplomacy’ useful. He also outlines a potential long term diplomatic strategy for the UK government based on the continued importance to the US military of British real estate, a careful diplomatic pivot to Europe, and keen attention to the likely future leadership of the Republicans.
Read MoreThe Next judgment: a landmark in the history of equal pay?
Despite the approach of the 55th anniversary of the 1970 Equal Pay Act and the 15th of the 2010 Equality Act, the recent employment tribunal ruling in favour of female workers at Next points to the continuing difficulty workers face in proving unfair treatment, particularly those in the commercial sectors. And more broadly, argues Susan Milner, society still needs properly to address the question of why women's work has been devalued for so long.
Read MorePolicy and attitudes: historical roots of the stigmatisation of children in care today
The government's new Children's Wellbeing Bill, announced in the King's Speech, represents a welcome move to improve child protection. But Annie Skinner argues that the measures proposed do not address the long-standing issue of the stigmitisation of children in care.
Read MoreMobilising the Environmental Humanities
In March 2024, History and Policy hosted a workshop on Environmental Humanities which brought together academics, policymakers and practitioners and was organised as part of a British Academy funded project led by Henry Irving of Leeds Beckett University. Reporting on the findings of the workshop, Andrew McTominey argues that at a time when the political world seems unwilling or unable to respond sufficiently rapidly to the climate crisis, Environmental History can help to open up some urgent and difficult conversations.
Read More“Prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs”: More questions for TNA on FOI and Reclosure.
Earlier this year, Alison McClean and Andrew Lownie used separate History & Policy opinion articles to raise concerns about the reclosure of files in the National Archives (TNA). In this update of the situation, Alison suggests that the TNA has been unwilling to engage with its critics and notes a worrying trend to remove from the online catalogue the titles and descriptions of reclosed files, making it difficult to trace what has been removed from public access.
Read MorePolitical Betting in Historical Context
An unexpected feature of the 2024 general election has been the scandal around political betting. As Laura Beers explains, however, betting on political outcomes is hardly a new phenomenon. Indeed, in the early decades of the twentieth century it was even a feature of some transactions in the London Stock Exchange.
Read MoreAn Unlikely Ally? Advocating for Board Representation
The 2024 general election campaign has seen Labour revive the idea of worker representation as a means of making business more productive and responsive. Sophia Friedel notes that a similar agenda was advanced by Theresa May in 2016 in the wake of the Brexit referendum. The debate over May's proposals, and her subsequent partial retreat from them, points to the continued sensitivities around ideas of democracy in the workplace.
Read MoreHistoricising ‘Birth Trauma’ and ‘Birth Experience’: Lessons for an Incoming Government
In May 2024, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Birth Trauma published their report, ‘Listen to Mums: Ending the Postcode Lottery on Perinatal Care’. It raised concerns about a range of issues including inadequate resourcing of midwifery, maternal mental health, and post-natal services, racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes and the economic costs of birth injuries. This policy article notes there have been complaints about maternity care since the inception of the NHS. It suggests we need to think about birth trauma in the broadest possible terms: as reflecting issues with culture, relationships, and power, as well as related issues of understaffing and underfunding.
Read MoreThe history and future of televised election debates in Britain
Ahead of tonight's BBC 1 Question Time Leaders' special, Professor Jon Lawrence suggests the frequency and significance of leaders' debates are bringing Britain closer to a US model of head-to-head presidential showdowns.
Read MoreA Modest Proposal
In a letter in the current edition of the satirical magazine Private Eye, the director of History & Policy, Philip Murphy, suggests that Buckingham Palace should create its own constitution unit to advise the King. In this new opinion article, Murphy explains why.
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