History & policy database
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.
Overseas Development Aid shock: Government sticks to historical commitment!
If International Development spending figures were of interest to headline writers, they'd have a genuine shock to report: Government Sticks to Historical Commitment. The UK's ODA, which was 0.52% of GNI in 2009, is forecast to stay constant at 0.56% (lower than previously budgeted), but will then jump – at the last minute, but permanently […]
Read MoreThe Government must remember Britain’s naval traditions
The defence cuts proposed by the Government are deep and strategically incoherent. The Prime Minister has said that 'we need to be more thoughtful, more strategic and more co-ordinated in the way we advance our interests and protect our national security' but the cuts to the Royal Navy will ensure that it is less flexible […]
Read MorePersonal reflections on new book, Sex before the Sexual Revolution
During the last two decades a good deal has been published by historians and sociologists on the history of sexualities in twentieth-century Britain, though very little of this has presented evidence on sex in marriage before the 1960s, while complementary studies of marriage have offered little first hand evidence on sex before the 1960s. Consequently […]
Read MoreCity Bankers – Spivs or Profiteers?
Positioning himself and the Liberal Democrats to the left of their Conservative allies, the business secretary Vince Cable attacked the 'spivs and gamblers' in the City at his party's conference last week. No doubt he hoped his rhetoric would chime with party activists and a wider public. An imagined audience that blames Britain's bankers for […]
Read MoreThe Browne Review: more questions than answers
There is much to applaud in the Browne approach. There will be no up-front payment. More fees will bring in desperately-needed resources, and quickly. These recommendations are marginally more progressive in terms of graduates' payments, for it raises the earnings floor at which graduates start to pay, and provides for more grants and loans for […]
Read MoreDoes delaying the State Opening of Parliament matter?
On 13 September 2010, the Coalition government announced a change to the expected date of the State Opening of Parliament from November 2011 to May 2012. This means that parliament is expected to be in session for a record length of two years. Sir George Young, the leader of the House of Commons, argued that […]
Read MoreWhat’s a ‘back office’ for? The case of policing
British police forces are regarded as among the best in the world. The (mainly) unarmed British 'Bobby', policing by consent, is still an attractive ideal – as shown by the demand for British officers in other countries. In current discussions of public spending cuts, the government insists that this 'frontline' service will be protected, if […]
Read MoreHistory offers no route-map: these spending cuts have no precedent
George Osborne's emergency Budget is the most important statement of a new governing ideology since James Callaghan's famous renunciation of Keynesian economics at the 1976 Labour Party Conference. In particular, the scale of the public sector cuts ahead are staggering – even to historians used to analyzing the roller-coaster of twentieth century economic growth. The […]
Read MoreMMR, autism and the history of medical controversies
Andrew Wakefield has been struck off by the General Medical Council for his research into a possible link between the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Although he will appeal the verdict, it is another strike against him and his controversial theory. This may be a good thing. Wakefield failed to provide evidence […]
Read MoreScrapping the police ‘stop’ form
In her address to Police Federation delegates at their Bournemouth conference, Home Secretary Theresa May, spoke in rather vague terms of the new government's intention to reduce the burden of 'stop and search' procedures, and of her intention to scrap the 'stop' form, which police officers are currently required to complete when a member of […]
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