New blog for AS and A2 Government and Politics launched
Giving political votes to 16 Year Olds
If you wanted to give your A level students something to talk about this week, why not show them this article from the BBC about arguments for and against giving votes to 16 to 18 year old young adults. The debate has been re-ignited by the announcement that any up-coming referendum on Scottish independence will allow 16 and 17 year old Scottish citizens to have a say as well as those who are 18 or over. The debate may be a little one-sided if your class is dominated by strong-minded 16 and 17 year old people so it may be an opportunity (before you give out the article) to ask them to sum up the arguments for and against and see how many of their own answers they find within the responses of the commentators in this piece.
David Cameron’s Conference Speech
If you missed the speech or want to find out how it's been received here are some pointers.
Ed Miliband’s Leader’s Speech
Was the speech as success? What do the media think? And what IS One Nation anyway?
Understanding the US Election
A must read for A2 USA students today!
An Apology for a Party Leader
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. But I just couldn't resist posting this superb lampoon of Nick Clegg's heartfelt (?) apology to the nation - which has now become a viral hit.
Of course, a promise is a promise. Clegg made a solemn promise during the 2010 General Election to oppose the introduction of higher tuition fees. He even signed a pledge. So this apology for breaking his promise and perhaps destroying for ever any trust that the student and parent population might have had in him, must have been hard to do.
But does will the public apology work? Can it rebuild trust in the Liberal Democrats? Or does it further undermine Clegg's standing? A great discussion point.
In the meantime, enjoy the video...
read more...»Making sense of the United States political system at A2:
Learning about a new political system for the first time can be confusing - help is at hand!
Six Principles of the US Constitution - Video Introduction
I'm grateful to Ben Fuller for spotting this great little video clip on the basics of the US Constitution. Nice!
read more...»Headsup - Political Debate for Young People
The Hansard Society have been in touch with us to let us know about a new project they're running this year designed to encourage and stimulate debate about key political and economic issues.
Headsup is an online forum for under 18's to debate political issues with their peers up and down the country, and with influential decision-makers. According to the Hansard Society, Headsup is:
read more...»a safe, student-oriented space where young people become more informed about political issues, improve their discussion skills and let adults with political influence know what they think. Debate topics are chosen by the young people and have included a range of subjects, such as; immigration, crime, the NHS, climate change and international aid
Politicans and Movie Stars - Welcome to the US Convention Season
With the first politics lessons of the academic year just days away, how nice of the Republicans to hold their convention just before and thus give us plenty of introductory ammunition. Even better, the most talked about speech is not one by some boring presidential or vice-presidential nominee, but none other than movie icon Clint Eastwood talking to a chair. Eastwood’s extraordinary speech has generated a great deal of twitter and internet chatter – largely negative – and even inspired an “Eastwooding” meme whereby twitter users post pictures of themselves interviewing – yes, empty chairs. More relevantly, the Romney and Ryan speeches have now been comprehensively analysed by supporters and critics alike.
read more...»Politics Teacher Resource Newsletter
Our Politics Teacher Newsletter provides email updates on tutor2u and other teaching resources of interest to Politics teachers. To add yourself as a recipient, please complete the form below and then respond to the confirmation email we send you.
read more...»Romney vs. Obama: Profiles of Paul Ryan
Lots of coverage recently following the selection by Mitt Romney of Paul Ryan to be his running mate in the 2012 Presidential Election. Here are some links to useful profiles of Paul Ryan which help provide an overview of his views and the effect his selection might have for the Romney/Ryan ticket.
read more...»Romney vs. Obama: Keeping Track of the Polls
The RealClearPolitics poll tracker is renowned as a superb source of up-to-date polling for US Presidential elections and 2012 should be no different. Embedded in this blog is the latest polling data which will update as new polls are published.
Political Parties in the UK: The Fragmentation of the “Far Right”
Whilst the vast majority of political media coverage outside of election periods focuses on the main UK political parties, it is still worth it for students and teaching colleagues to keep track of activity on the outer fringes of the political spectrum.
read more...»Mapping out your politics
Where do you stand on the political spectrum? How do you work out what is left and what is right? You have read about The Right or The Left, but how do you try to differentiate between them.
read more...»Global Issues: Human Rights: War Crimes Tribunal Hands Down Taylor Ruling
The guilty verdict by the judges of the Special Court for Sierra Leone against Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor is important for both Africa and the international community. The unanimous finding by the Special Court for Sierra Leone that Liberia’s former President Charles Taylor is guilty of aiding and abetting and planning war crimes and crimes against humanity during the civil war in Sierra Leone, constitutes the first conviction of a former head of state before an international tribunal since the conviction of Karl Doenitz (the 23-day day President following Hitler’s suicide) at the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946. This is a significant achievement for international criminal justice.
This ruling is of obvious interest for the ‘Human Rights’ topic of the Global Issues paper in terms of illustrating both the importance on of rights on the international stage but also the fact that the human rights regime is enforceable. Nonetheless, the case has not been without controversy since its inception.So has international justice been vindicated?
To follow up on the story here are a few articles:
Telegraph: Charles Taylor found guilty of ‘aiding and abetting’ war crimes
Guardian: Charles Taylor is guilty – but what’s the verdict on international justice?
House of Lords Reform: Do we do away with the buffoons?
Walter Bagehot once wrote “The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it,” This week the debate over whether the House of Lords should be reformed is boiling up once again. Until recently most articles appearing in the press have tended to side with keeping the House of Lords as is, and highlighting the merits of its cantankerous but independent minded ‘appointed’ Life Peers. However, a wider range of views are now being canvassed in the press. Here is a quick survey of articles reflected roughly the different positions:
In favour of an elected upper house:
1. In the Guardian Andrew Adonis puts forward a strong case for reform in an article:Reform the House of Lords now and it can survive. He argues:
The second chamber is costly and unrepresentative. Only radical change will head off the abolitionists
2. And, a bit earlier in the Observer there was an article Lords reform: Will nobody finally rid us of these bumptious buffoons? It asserts:
As bishops remain in the upper house, hopes of any substantial change in this antiquated chamber are dying fast
3. Steve Richards in the Independent has The Lords is undemocratic and increasingly silly, and argues:
Clegg is right to push on. Nearly all opposition is on Machiavellian grounds rather than principle
In favour of the status quo [i.e. an appointed upper house]:
3. Philip Blonde [a.k.a The Red Tory] has an article in the Independent: Electing the Lords would undermine its value. Its thrust is:
It would be the greatest extension of executive power since Charles I dissolved Parliament
And finally the are those who advocate the complete abolition of the House of Lords:
Here cue Polly Toynbee in her Guardian article: Lords buffoonery has to end. So why not abolish them? in which she asserts:
Reform opens deeper questions about where power should lie than this cabinet looks willing or capable of confronting
An interesting blog post from James Cleverly AM: Elected House of Lords, what would we lose? has a list of some of the cross benchers and their expertise which would be lost if they were replaced by elected peers. Some include:
Psychiatric social worker and chairman of the Harold Shipman inquiry and the Baby P inquiry
Former Chief Constable of West Midlands Police
Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford, former chair of the Food Standards Agency
Former Permanent Secretary to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Head of the Diplomatic Service
Former Permanent Secretary to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Head of the Diplomatic Service
Former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
Former Chief of the Defence Staff
Human rights lawyer and former Chair of Oxfam
Professor of Surgical Sciences at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University
Professor of the psychiatry of learning disability at St George’s, University of London, former president of the Royal Society of Psychiatrists
Professor of Law at Queen Mary College, University of London
Not your ordinary buffoons!
Inside Obama re-election headquarters for 2012
A useful video here from the FT provides an insight into how well organised and active the Obama 2012 campaign is. As the Republican primary season drags on, the Obama re-election campaign has fired up its engines. Ed Luce from the FT takes us inside the Chicago headquarters and speaks with Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt
read more...»PM: ‘Come Dine with me’ Cameron’s authority on the wane?
Are Cameron’s political fortunes beginning to wane? The difficulty and unpoluarity in passing the Health and Social Care Act 2012 , Osborne’s budget, the Craddus affair involving for ‘Cash for Access’ at No. 10, the leak of the controversial ‘NHS Risk Register’ document the and the shambles over petrol in the face of a possible strike by tanker drivers have all added up to tarnish Cameron’s authority.
Cameron’s tendency to rely on a small clique of trusted confidants, instead of the Tory Party as whole has seen David Cameron’s Coalition, his leadership ability and his choice of associates have taken something of a political kicking.
Two interesting articles to follow up on this:
1. Daily Mail’s The knives are out for David Cameron. He should watch his back Which includes the line:
‘In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way’.
2. Peter Oborne in The Telegraph: The Conservative Party can save Cameron, but only if he lets it. Which asserts:
The Prime Minister’s proxies and cronies must go if he is to re-establish confidence.
The article starts:
For many governments there comes a desperately sad moment after which nothing is ever quite the same again, when trust and confidence evaporates and all that remains is a long battle of attrition.
For Harold Wilson, that moment struck with the devaluation crisis of 1967; for John Major, it was Black Wednesday in 1992. Tony Blair’s came with the realisation that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction and that his casus belli for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a lie.
There is now a strong possibility that historians will identify the events of the past two weeks – the lethal combination of George Osborne’s shambolic Budget with the shocking revelation that access to the Prime Minister and government policy is up for sale – as the climacteric of the Cameron/Clegg Coalition.
Oborne puts this reverse in the PM’s fortunes down to:
There are only two reasons for the collapse of this Government’s fortunes: the first is Cameron and Osborne; the second is the decision made in 2005, when Cameron was elected leader, to govern as much as possible without the Conservative Party.
Global Issies: Conflict ~ Afghanistan: A war that can never be won?
‘Why are asymmetrical wars difficult to end?’, was a recent exam question for Unit 4. Tying in with that theme is an excellent recent article in the Scotsman entitled Afghanistan: A war that can never be won? where Dani Garavelli [amother Italian Scot?] writes “One fatal disaster after another has left the coalition’s hopes of succeeding in Afghanistan at an all-time low”. The article hits the nail on the head, especially in terms of grasping the nature of dealing with a full blown insurgency and the issue of creating a viable and resilient state in Afghanistan.
A must read, but few significant exerpts are:
Do we now have to confront the possibility that withdrawal may ultimately be synonymous with defeat? Have allied forces done enough to ensure the gains made in Afghanistan will be sustained, or will the troops’ departure signal the country’s implosion into civil war? And, as Nato is met with a cascade of unexpected challenges, is the much-vaunted exit strategy – in the words of Henry Kissinger – “all exit and no strategy”.
One of the difficulties with assessing “victory” or otherwise in Afghanistan is that the endgame has never been precisely defined. Initially, a war of reprisal, aimed at ridding the country of al-Qaeda, punishing the Taleban for giving them quarter and ensuring they could never flourish there again, the emphasis has shifted over the years to counter-insurgency and securing a better future for the people of Afghanistan – a concept that has been increasingly difficult to sell to the US and British publics, especially as the death toll has mounted.
AND
The academic recounts the Taleban slogan that dates back to the Soviet invasion: “‘While you have the watches, we have the time.’ In other words, while you have great firepower and technology, we have all the time in the world,” she explains. “While for you this is just a misadventure, for us it’s a serious war for political gain, for political survival.”
The truth of this may become all too apparent in the next few months. “The snow is melting across the Hindu Kush now – this is the fighting season opening,” Crow points out. “The Taleban commanders will come in from neighbouring Pakistan ready to fight – and I don’t know to what extent our domestic public’s going to be willing to put up with many more losses.”
The Special Relationship Renewed?
It’s been a breathless few days for devotees of the ‘Special Relationship’. The Sunday Times’ perceptive columnist Andrew Sullivan describes its warm dynamics in his column today (behind the paywall here.) Who can doubt that, once again, the US president and the British prime minister get along famously. And it can’t have hurt that David Cameron’s visit came just after a distinctly less comfortable summit with the distinctly more prickly Israeli prime minister. You couldn’t really see Obama and Netanyahu heading over to a college basketball game to discuss the pros and cons of bombing Iran after all. But as David Cameron returns to the realities of domestic politics, having effectively endorsed Mr. Obama and heard giddy words of political love in return, he may want to cast an eye over the fate of previous British prime ministers who thought they, too, had a special relationship.
read more...»The Presidency and the Power To Persuade
There is no “power to persuade” for a US president. That is the conclusion in Ezra Klein’s fascinating recent New Yorker article, drawing heavily upon data-heavy research by George Edwards of Texas A and M University.
read more...»Politics resource sharing group in Bromley area
Colleagues teaching A Level Politics in the Bromley area might like to get involved in a new group which Sarah Murphy (HOD at Hayes School) is organising. Sarah suggests that the group should operate informally, sharing ideas and resources for the teaching of Government and Politics. Sounds like a great idea - If you would like to get involved, then contact Sarah directly
Global Issues: Human Rights: ICC’s bench mark ruling convicting Congo War Lord
The conviction of Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo by the International Criminal Court is a milestone in the search for international justice. Chatham House’s Elizabeth Wilmshurst provides some expert comment and analysis - [click here]. The trial ends a 10 yesr legal process and is the ICC’s first conviction. Wilsmhurst writes:
Lubanga was convicted of the war crime of conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15 years and using them to participate actively in hostilities. Lubanga was the commander of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) and its armed wing, the Forces patriotiques pour la libération du Congo (FPLC), at a time when many armed conflicts were taking place in the mineral-rich eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The trial chamber, presided over by British judge, Sir Adrian Fulford, found that Lubanga had encouraged children to join the army and had personally used them among his bodyguards. He and others had participated in a common plan to build an army so that the UPC/FPLC could maintain political and military control over Ituri, a plan which resulted in the recruitment of children, whether voluntarily or by coercion, and their use in various ways in the hostilities.
However, does this herald a new dawn in upholding and enforcing international justice. Well enthusiasm needs to be curbed…some critical comment is proved in the Econmist, which argues that:
Since it was set up in 2002 to try genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, the court has been lambasted for its glacial slowness. Some critics cry bias, too: all 15 cases now before it concern African countries: Uganda, Congo, the Central African Republic, Sudan (Darfur), Kenya, Libya and Côte d’Ivoire. Yet—except in Kenya—the court intervened either because the countries themselves asked it to, or because there had been a UN Security Council resolution.
The court’s statutes say it may take on only those cases where the country concerned is either unwilling or unable to do so. That, sadly, applies to many African states, where courts are still woefully partial, corrupt or otherwise inadequate. And Africa is also the scene of the sort of wars that bring the atrocities over which the ICC has jurisdiction. Of the 120 countries that have now signed up to the court 33—the biggest single group—are from Africa.
One of the difficulties faced by the court is its lack of any kind of enforcement mechanism. It has to rely on its individual members to arrest and hand over suspects, as required under its statutes. Some African states have proved unwilling to do so, however. Indeed, the African Union has specifically ordered its 54 members not to co-operate with the allegedly pro-Western ICC’s arrest warrant for Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, one of only two sitting presidents ever charged by the court. The other was Libya’s Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.
Further comment can be found here:
Economist: Bench mark: ICC’s first verdict
PM and Exec: All hail President Dave?
Steve Richards in the Independent has penned a speculative article, which might be funny except it seems to ring rather true:
Coalition will be harder now for a PM who yearns to be a President He asserts:
There is nothing quite so intoxicating in its theatricality. Cameron has had a ball in the US
Richards argues that Cameron will love to recaste himself into a more presidential mould - he starts:
David Cameron will return from the United States a slightly different leader from when he left. The Prime Minister has never been one for the hard grind of policy detail but has always displayed a fascination with the choreography and theatre of power. To some extent, he shows a mastery of both, too. There is nothing quite so intoxicating in its choreographed theatricality than standing shoulder to shoulder with an American president laying on the biggest of big welcomes. Cameron has had a ball.
Ad another excerpt is:
The change that will arise from this visit relates to Cameron’s outlook when he returns to the UK. For three days, Cameron has been a prime minister unencumbered. He has been hailed and revered by a president, rock stars and on the US news networks. Briefly, he will forget that he is the first British premier since Harold Wilson in February 1974 to fail to win an overall majority. For a time, he will feel fleetingly presidential and, being human, will enjoy the sensation.
And a nod to the fact that underneath it all a PM is still subject to the usual constraints no matter how Presidential in style they may wish to appear:
In his joint press conferences with Bush, Tony Blair seemed to forget altogether that he was not a president and was, in humdrum reality, a mere prime minister dependent on the support of parliament, a fuming Chancellor breathing down his neck and his party. Similarly, in a different international context, Cameron could almost forget briefly about Nick Clegg and the constraints of coalition as he was treated like a prime ministerial superstar
Worth reading in full….
:
Global Issues: Humanitarian Intervention ~ R2P: RIP?
The ongoing and bleak situation in Syria is calling into question the doctrine of humanitarian intervention and its hand maiden doctrine of the ‘responsibility to protect’. After the the 2003 intervention in Iraq by the US, some argued quite unequivocally that humanitarian intervention was dead, and we killed. However, subsequent interventions in Cote de Ivoire and Libya seemed to breathe life back in the doctrine and more importantly its practice. Yet in Syria the stakes are high, the regime is entrenched and international positions and opinion are spit. So has the doctrine once again run out of steam?
Elliot Abrams, analyst of the US international affairs think tank CFR seems to think just that in a pithy article: R.I.P: R2P. Is starts:
read more...»It was during Kofi Annan’s tenure as Secretary General of the United Nations (1997-2006) that the “Responsibility to Protect” became a major item on the international scene. That is no feather in his cap, because the urgency of “R2P,” as it came to be called, reflected the various mass murders that had taken place during his watch ( Darfur, 400,000 dead; Kosovo, 800,000 displaced and 12,000 killed) or just before it (Rwanda, 800,000 killed) when he was an Under Secretary General and latterly the Special Representative for the Former Yugoslavia.
What is R2P? A resolution adopted at a world summit in 2005 and then by the UN Security Council in 2006 holds that governments must protect their people, not commit war crimes and genocide against them, and further than other nations may intervene in extreme cases, through regional bodies and the UN.
This week several UN officials and one former official spoke about the slaughter in Syria. Here is a BBC item about the UN’s chief of humanitarian affairs, Valerie Amos, who had just visited Syria:
“The devastation there is significant, that part of Homs is completely destroyed and I am concerned to know what has happened to the people who live in that part of the city,” Baroness Amos told Reuters news agency.
Activists said troops committed massacres after they went in to the district, but Damascus blamed the rebels for many deaths.
The BBC’s Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon says activist groups continue to report the summary execution of men from Baba Amr, the butchering of entire families, and the systematic mass rape of women.
In counterpoint this is what Mr. Annan had to say, before visiting Syria in his new role as peace envoy of the Arab League and the UN:
“I hope no one is thinking seriously of using force in this situation,” Annan said. “As I move to Syria, we will do whatever we can to urge and press for a cessation of hostilities and end to the killing and violence.”
Whatever happened to the responsibility to protect, one wonders.
Global Issues: Changing Nature of Conflict ~ The changed psychological dimension of modern conflict
The unfortuante killing of 16 Aghan civilians (including 9 children) in their homes by a ‘rogue’ US soldier has prompted a thought provoking article by Giles Fraser in the Guardian - Afghanistan and the soldiers without a safety catch . He argues that:
We should think harder before we deploy troops. They are dehumanised by training, and made to kill
Fraser points to the psycholical conditioning that modern soldiers undergo to break down the in built human aversion to killing and in effect create ‘killing machines’. He asserts:
The enemy is demeaned as less than human and their culture is ridiculed. And since the second world war two psychological categories in particular have been folded into the design of military training: desensitisation and conditioning
Thus a key new aspect of modern conflict is the psycholical dimension:
“A new era has quietly dawned in modern warfare: an era of psychological warfare – psychological warfare conducted not upon the enemy, but upon one’s own troops,” writes Lt Col Dave Grossman, a former psychology lecturer at West Point.
And in conclusion:
Following this latest massacre in Kandahar there will be much talk of a lone gunman going off the rails. But the truth is more disturbing. One cannot set in place the conditions for easy killing, removing the inbuilt human safety catch, and then simply blame an individual soldier who flips out. And there is no way to ensure that such things do not happen again. This is what happens when soldiers are subject to a systematic process of dehumanisation. The modern idea of a clean and humane war is a total myth. Which is precisely why we ought to think a great deal harder before we start them.
For background the following article might be helpful: Afghanistan killings: gunman hunted families as if they were military targets.
This is blog is dedicated to Mystic MAG…
Ideologies and Parties: New Labour and Liberalism
Really interesting article in today’s Guardian by Patrick Diamond [author of ‘Reassessing New Labour’ and a former head of policy planning at No.10] and Patrick Kenny entitled “Labour’s Lost Liberalism “ in which they assert that:
Now that Blue Labour has come unstuck, the party should reconnect with its orange heritage.
The Labour Party needs to reconnect with ideas pertinent to liberal social democracy if it is to have traction and relevance to the arguments been raised by the curretn government.
Certainly worth a read from an A2 Ideologies perspective in term’s how how the various ideologies impact on contemporary politics and inform the ideological and policy make up of the various parties. Also, from an AS Unit 1 perspective it gives a valuable insight into the current dilemmas facing New Labour in terms of setting out its ideological stall.
The article goes on to say:
What do the health bill, David Cameron’s veto at the European summit, disagreements over the forthcoming budget, reform of the House of Lords, and the battle over a Scottish referendum all have in common? The answer is that these issues of major significance are defined by arguments occurring within the coalition government. Labour may have interesting insights to contribute to each, but very few of us, it appears, are listening.
And concludes:
The real “values” question which Labour needs to tackle is not communitarianism versus liberalism – that most overplayed and false of philosophical choices. It is what kind of liberal social democracy the party wants to espouse. It ought to rediscover the insights of early 20th century progressivism: welfare and equality as the basis of a society where all have the freedom to flourish; redistributing power from corporate and bureaucratic elites. On the questions of our age, – how to reform British capitalism and redefine the role and purpose of the state – progressive forces must work together to forge a new “coalition of ideas”. Circumstances can always conspire against the best ideas – but without ideas, there is no hope.
There is a further article, also in the Guardian, which is worth cross referencing: Labour must steer clear of vapid form of leftism, warns manifesto author Former Blair adviser Patrick Diamond says Labour is making a negligible impact on the major issues of the day. The article states:
Labour will be shut out of power for a generation if it succumbs to “a vapid form of leftism” that appeals only to its core supporters, one of the main authors of its manifesto for the 2010 general election has claimed.
In a powerful critique of the party, Patrick Diamond warns that Labour is making a negligible impact on the major issues of the day and is pointing “in different directions simultaneously”.
Diamond, a former No10 adviser to Tony Blair who worked with Ed Miliband on Labour’s manifesto for the election, writes: “If Labour detaches itself from the complex and contradictory currents of popular sentiment, it risks drifting towards political irrelevance and repeated defeat.”
Different Back Bench Factions within the Conservative Party
The Sunday Times recently ran an interesting article outlining a number of different back bench groups within the Conservative Party. These groups range from those seeking a new approach to Europe, a return to traditional conservative values and ultra modernisers.
read more...»Anarchism: The Shopping Riots and Anarchy in the UK?
Here is a useful article on Anarchism - given that it was penned at the time of the ‘shopping riots’ it is not too current, but interesting none the less. Its author is none other than ‘Boff Whalley’ self proclaimed anarchist and lead singer of Chumbawumba, that anarcho-collective who threw a bucket of water of John Prescott’s head at an award ceremony [if you recall they got knocked own but they got up again - or just click here!]
Writing in the Independent under the title of ‘In defence of anarchy’ Boff argues that although the term Anarchy has been used as a catch all to describe the week’s riots, he asks “But is this really anarchy?”. and the answer ... Not even close!
Here is a quick excerpt where Boff shows he knows his stuff [even so far as being able to draw a theoretical divide between a ‘hoodie’ and a proper anarchist]:
The latter is now used to denote those opportunist consumers who are, according to The Sun, “anarchists”, despite not having the slightest idea of who Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was. He was the first self-declared anarchist, who in 1840, in What Is Property, defined anarchy as “the absence of a master, of a sovereign”. Later, in The General Idea Of The Revolution (1851), he urged a “society without authority”. See, no mention of disorder or chaos. Whatever we might think of our latter-day looters, they’re not anarchists. But this current crop of masked lads is not the one bandying the word “anarchy” around, after all. All they want is to do some free shopping and have a laugh. Perhaps it would be a good thing if these disenfranchised, disengaged kids did learn a bit about the brush they’re being tarred with – anarchist? Wot, me? Then again, they’re growing up under a government that seems to actively dissuade poor families from pursuing higher education.
Worth a read. discussion wise also might be worth cross referencing with a previos post: London Riots: Liberals to blame?
