politics, economy and employment & labour
In the 1980s, when I was teaching at the University of Exeter, my late wife and I often spent fine summer weekends on the pebbly beach at Budleigh Salterton. In addition to its splendidly evocative name there was something wonderfully retro and English about Budleigh Salterton. Tea rooms and bowling greens, gentleman’s outfitters selling striped […]
Although West European policy makers have been slow to recognise the fact, the Iron Curtain was never the only or necessarily the most important feature dividing the continent. As governments in Hungary and now Poland neutralise many of the key institutions of liberal democracy – robust and impartial courts with far-reaching powers of constitutional oversight, […]
Visiting the UK, after eighteen months in Eastern Europe, I have been struck by the easy-going multiculturalism that is Britain. Whether in London, Bristol or Liverpool, the three cities on my itinerary, recent immigrants from the European Union – from France and Spain as well as Poland and Romania – mingle comfortably with Black, Asian […]
As European leaders grapple with the unprecedented influx of asylum seekers, Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has repeatedly expressed his belief that the mostly Middle Eastern and predominantly Muslim refugees represent a grave threat to Europe. Orbán has argued that the ‘migrants’ (he refuses to acknowledge that most of them may be genuine refugees) represent […]
