Theresa May’s first PMQs had the political columnists reaching for the superlatives – and it was indeed a performance worthy of praise. She was clear, confident, and commanding, and made Jeremy Corbyn look like an understudy who’d barely learnt his lines. Unfortunately her performance also had many male commentators reaching for the clichés, and making […]
It seemed to David that the toys in the toy box had been arguing for a long time about the Looking Glass. “We would so like to live in a Looking-Glass house,” said half of the toys. “We want to stay in the real house!” shouted the other half. One afternoon, just before tea David […]
For over two thousand years political philosophers have grappled with the concept and nature of ‘political responsibility’. In Plato’s Crito, in which he narrates one of Socrates’ final conversations before his execution, he describes how Socrates declares that he cannot go along with the escape plan that Crito and other of his friends have arranged. […]
Every so often a French farmer still turns up a bit of human bone while ploughing the fields of the Somme valley in Northern France. Pieces of shrapnel, shards of shell casing, the odd drinking mug – they all turn up, are picked up and thrown away, or kept and classed as “finds”. It’s all […]
Reading Daniel Hannan’s piece in response to the announced aspiration of Emma Rice, the incoming Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, to achieve “parity” in terms of male/female casting of Shakespeare’s plays, in which he outlines his difficulties with women playing male characters in Shakespeare’s plays, I found myself experiencing a familiar sinking feeling. It’s the same […]
