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Things I have posted recently
- The Year of Covid: Political religion and the Cultural Wars. Part 2.6. The Utilitarians: the birth of economics as a science. 18/04/2023
- The Year of Covid 19: Political Religion and the Culture Wars. Part 2.5. The Utilitarians I: Elie Halévy and the Philosophical Radicals 1750-1867. 12/02/2023
- The Year of Covid 19: Political Religion and the Culture Wars. Part 2.4. The EU’s legacy: 1789-1914: Science, Nature, Necessity. 29/03/2022
- The year of Covid 19: Political Religion and the Culture Wars. Part 2.3: The EU’s legacy, 1492-1789: Europe enters into the Devil’s Anus. 03/02/2022
- The Year of Covid 19: Political Religion and the Culture Wars: Part 2.2: The EU’s Legacy from the Middle Ages. 30/06/2021
- The Year of Covid 19: Political religion and the culture wars. Part 2. 1. Europe’s legacy: the first fifteen hundred years to AD 410. 26/02/2021
- The year of Covid-19: political religion and the culture wars.Part 1. 16/12/2020
- The UK Internal Market Bill: Supranational v. International law 14/09/2020
- China in the World: Chapter 3 Sino-US relations – a stable instability. 11/07/2020
- China in the World: Chapter 2 China becomes the prime global manufacturing and trading platform. 27/06/2020
- China in the World: Chapter 1. From backwater to world power. 16/05/2020
- China, coronavirus and the politics of paranoia 25/04/2020
- Brexit and the British Constitution: Part V. Modernisation or Vandalism? 09/04/2020
- Brexit and the British Constitution: Part IV. The pre-1945 Roots of British Supranationalism. 10/01/2020
- Brexit and the British Constitution: Part III. Efficiency, Parliamentary Sovereignty, Bureaucracy. 02/12/2019
- The Supreme Court’s judgement on Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament: Part IV. New law or constitutional aberration? 06/11/2019
- The Supreme Court’s judgement on Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament: Part III. Assessment. 06/11/2019
- The Supreme Court’s judgement on Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament: Part II. The Arguments for and against. 06/11/2019
- The Supreme Court judgement on Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament: Part I: Definitions and timeline. 06/11/2019
- Apocalypse and Guilt: Why Savonarola and Greta differ. 01/10/2019
Category Archives: France and Germany
The UK Internal Market Bill: Supranational v. International law
On 6 September, the FT and The Guardian reported that the UK government planned to draw up new legislation regarding the UK’s internal market. The FT headline asserted that the government’s bill was intended to “bypass the withdrawal agreement’s … Continue reading
Brexit and the British Constitution: Part IV. The pre-1945 Roots of British Supranationalism.
The photo on the front is of David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1916 to 1922. His Liberal-Conservative government fell part in late 1922, and the Liberal Party remained out of power for nearly a century. Now … Continue reading
Brexit and the British Constitution: Part II. The Whig spirit of the Old Constitution.
The frontispiece is from the first “Whig” History of England-by a Frenchman. The spirit of the Old Constitution How history is recorded plays a central part in Britain’s uncodified constitution. Rules and conventions remain subject to interpretation, precedents are by … Continue reading
May’s trajectory: Part II. from Prime Minister to the EU’s Governor in the province of Britain.
Party first, country second. As a Tory tribalist, May’s priority was to prevent a party split, while locating herself on the party spectrum as a soft Remainer with her prime sympathies going to the majority Remainer MPs. This was evident … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, United Kingdom
Tagged European integration, France, Germany, supranationalism, the EU, UK
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May’s trajectory from Prime Minister to the EU’s Governor in the province of Britain Part I. The EU and the UK hand-in-glove
The EU27 is triumphant. That’s the narrative now being spun out of Brussels about how its super-smart negotiators have outfoxed the “Rolls-Royce” brains of the Foreign Office, reducing the UK to a province of the new empire, and its government … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, United Kingdom
Tagged Brexit, EU, France, Germany, UK
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The UK’s Golden Opportunity: The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square
The May-Barnier deal is in deep trouble. After two years of negotiations, and signed up by 27 member states, it has been vetoed twice by the largest and fourth largest defeat in parliamentary history. Prime Minister May has returned to … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, The United States, United Kingdom
Tagged European disintegration, France, Germany, supranationalism, the EU, UK
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Germany on top, Europe in trouble. Discuss. Part 2. European Disintegration?
Douglas Webber’s is a very different book, but it is also very complimentary to Bulmer’s and Paterson’s Germany and the European Union. Both hold a question mark in the title, and both place Germany centre stage, but Webber’s subject is … Continue reading
Posted in disintegration, Europe, France and Germany, Ukraine, United Kingdom
Tagged comparative politics., Euro, European integration, France, Germany, Greece, power politics, Russia, supranationalism, the EU, UK
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Germany on top, Europe in trouble? Discuss. Part I.
A casual answer to the essay question in the title of this book review may suggest that the two statements are causal, and that the prime cause is that Germany is top dog. Both books under review do not rush … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany
Tagged comparative politics., EU, Euro, European integration, France, Germany, globalisation, Greece, interdependence, supranationalism, UK
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British ideas of Europe: PART 4. The UK’s view of a sustainable regime for Europe.
From the perspective of 2016, British voters in the referendum could be forgiven for thinking that the EU was not very sustainable. The Euro crisis was in its sixth year; Chancellor Merkel’s decision to welcome mass immigration into Germany undermined … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, United Kingdom
Tagged Brexit, comparative politics., democracy, Euro, European integration, France, Germany, interdependence, supranationalism, the EU, UK
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British ideas of Europe: PART 3. The European Union in Crisis.
In his book, COLLAPSE : Europe after the European Union,(Biteback, 2018) Ian Kearns issues a warning to Euro-optimists to cease dreaming of a brighter future. Get real, learn about your continent’s history, and smell the coffee. The fate of the continent … Continue reading
Posted in disintegration, Europe, France and Germany, United Kingdom
Tagged Euro, European integration, France, Germany, globalisation, immigration, interdependence, Russia, the EU, UK
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Writing about history, politics & economics 