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.
‘History suggests “boom and bust” won’t go away’
On the Today programme on Thursday 8 April, Gordon Brown was challenged by John Humphreys over his oft-repeated claim as Chancellor of the Exchequer that he had “put an end to boom and bust” in the UK economy. From a man once hailed as a brilliant economist, this was always an astonishingly naive, ahistorical assertion. […]
Read MoreA return to Victorian levels of railway building?
The Liberal Democrats argue that investing in Britain's railways should mean more than building new high-speed lines. By spending 'nearly £3 billion' to reopen 'thousands of miles of track' closed in the 1960s and earlier, they want to promote the 'biggest expansion' of the network since the Victorian age' to 'make our railway great again'. […]
Read MoreHistorians respond to the Budget 2010
Glen O'Hara of Oxford Brookes University, puts the public debt in historical perspective “During the budget debate, the Leader of the Opposition said that the £167 billion being borrowed by the government this year is 'more than every single Labour Government in history ever borrowed, added up together'. The key here, of course, is that […]
Read MoreChoosing your history: Wave energy development in the UK
Last week the news headlines were dominated by the Crown Estates' announcement of the winning bidders for a selection of wave and tidal energy sites in the Pentland Firth. Undoubtedly, most people would have been blissfully unaware that such an auction was even taking place. However, the stirring sight of the swelling seas around Orkney, […]
Read MoreCameron and the renewal of the ‘property-owning democracy’
The Conservative Party has recently won considerable publicity by renewing a pledge to allow workers' co-operatives to own and run public services. In so doing, the party has been accused of 'stealing political clothes that will never fit them'. Co-operatives, it is alleged, are an intrinsically left-wing concept and will never be natural Conservative terrain […]
Read MoreRecreating our political history
If journalism is the first draft of history the biopic is now a close second, having become the staple output of many television drama departments. Recently figures as diverse as the Queen, Margaret Thatcher and Winnie Mandela have been given the treatment. Historians undoubtedly ground their teeth as these accounts gave the protagonist undue importance […]
Read MorePolitical posters in history
Why does a huge image of David Cameron dominate the Conservative's new election poster? Is it because, with his shirt-unbuttoned, this Man of Action is telling us that he personally will crack the deficit problem? Or is this just another example of Cameron aping the former Labour leader Tony Blair, another instance in which he […]
Read MoreSlavery and climate change: lessons to be learned
In a recent interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, one of the world's best-known climate scientist suggested that it would be better for the planet and for future generations if the Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse, rather than a flawed deal. Hansen claimed that dealing with climate change, 'is analogous to the issue […]
Read More‘Hijacking’ history
'Given that the Second World War was fuelled by the need to disarm oppressive and racist regimes, is it fair that the BNP has hijacked Churchill as its own?' Such was the first question posed to the panellists gathered for the BBC's Question Time transmitted on the 22 October 2009. Because of the furore caused […]
Read MoreMore sex, lies and trafficking
The Guardian's headline of 20 October 2009 announcing that the UK's 'Biggest Sex slavery inquiry failed to net single trafficker' was certainly designed to surprise if not shock the paper's readership. Journalist Nick Davies argues that there is something familiar in the 'sexing up' (to excuse the pun) of the evidence on sex trafficking and […]
Read MorePopular Articles
News RSS Feed
How to Use RSS Feeds
To subscribe to the History & Policy News feed in your feed reader, copy the URL and paste it in your RSS Aggregator.
COPY URL TO RSS READER
http://www.historyandpolicy.org/news/rss
About Us
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.
