Open access academic articles on Politics and International Relations

The Taylor & Francis website site has a page of politics and international relations articles that have recently been published on an open access basis in Routledge Politics and International Relations journals, making them freely available to read online.

They cover everything from Bretton Woods to circumcision.

21-year-old to fight Derbyshire Dales for the Liberal Democrats

Ben Fearn has been chosen as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Derbyshire Dales constituency at the next general election.

The seat is currently held for the Conservatives by the transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin.

Ben also blogs at Views from the Centre-Left.

Sherlock Holmes, Malcolm Saville and Appledore

When the previous series of Sherlock invented a secret station on Dartmoor, I was struck by the parallel with Malcolm Saville's Saucers Over the Moor where just such an establishment also appears.

This evening Sherlock gave us a villain who lived at a house called Appledore, just as the villains do in the first of Saville's Lone Pine books, Mystery at Witchend.

But a little research shows the writers of Sherlock got the name Appledore from Conan Doyle - from his Sherlock Holmes short story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton".

Dave Christie: Penelope Breedlove

I can discover nothing about the singer of this very 1968 song. Even Marmalade Skies calls him "the mysterious Mr Christie".

John Barrett goes his own way on the Liberal Democrats and Scottish independence

John Barrett, who was Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West between 2001 and 2010, has an article in The Scotsman today. He has some uncompromising things to say about the direction the Lib Dems have taken and about the Scottish referendum debates.

On the Lib Dems he writes:

the fact that the party I joined over 30 years ago bears little resemblance in policy terms to the Liberal Democrats now in government at Westminster. I have not changed my views on opposition to university tuition fees, Trident nuclear missiles and the construction of new nuclear power stations. 

More recently ... the defeat of the government over military action in Syria was something I welcomed. I was stunned to see those party grandees who were at the heart of opposing going to war in Iraq now advocating military action – before inspectors had completed their work. My, how times have changed. 

In Scotland, I was at a Lib-Dem conference when it wholeheartedly opposed the bedroom tax, with not one MP in the room speaking up in favour of government policy, while it still remains something my party in government at Westminster supports. No wonder the public in Scotland drifted away in large numbers from the party at both the last set of Holyrood and council elections.

On the independence debate John says his instinct as a Lib Dem is to advocate a future for Scotland as part of a federal United Kingdom.

However, he is critical of the way the independence debate is being conducted by both sides:

The economic arguments from both sides are as expected and they are locked into positions which will not change. The separatists say we will all be better off and the Unionists say we will be worse off in an independent Scotland. They would say that, wouldn’t they? I don’t expect either side to admit the truth, which is that neither side knows exactly what the position will be after the referendum and following elections, regardless of the result.

And the poor quality of this debate is not just the fault of the politicians, John argues:

If in the run-up to the referendum they only ask “What is in it for me?”, they will be offered a range of unaffordable promises by both sides and should then not be surprised when those promises are not delivered.

Instead, he concludes:

What we should be getting from both sides is a clear picture of the Scotland they want to develop for generations to come. I want to see a fairer country at home, with access to a high quality health and education system for all, regardless of ability to pay; a compassionate and considerate country, where those who are able care for those who are less able; a greener country with sustainable energy production at an affordable price; and an internationalist country supporting peace-keeping obligations and those abroad less fortunate than ourselves, while avoiding any involvement in destructive military interventions, where civilians suffer more than anyone else. If this is the Scotland of the future, it is what I will vote for. It is also something that can only be delivered if Scots are prepared to participate in delivering that future: accepting increased personal responsibility will be part of the bargain. 

Unfortunately neither side in the referendum debate has convinced me so far. Many people like me are now undecided on the referendum issue and are waiting for an honest vision for the future of Scotland from both sides.

My vote is not up for sale – it is there to be won by those who can spell out their vision of a Scotland my grandchildren will want to grow up in.

Nationalism can easily turn to racism and there is something silly about making it the basis of a party's ideology in a modern Western democracy. Why is one health, education of social security policy more Scottish than another? If social democracy or socialism is bound up in Scottish national identity, as some argue, how come the Conservatives held more than half the seats in Scotland in the 1950s?

But, were I Scottish, if anything could convince me to vote for independence it would be being told that I could not afford it. I would be strongly tempted to vote Yes just to spite such a foolish argument.

The Summit Tunnel fire, 1984

The fire occurred at 5.50 a.m. on 20 December 1984 when a goods train carrying more than a 1,000,000 litres ... of four-star petrol in thirteen tankers entered the tunnel on the Yorkshire (north) side. One-third of the way through the tunnel, a defective axle bearing (journal bearing) derailed the fourth tanker, which promptly knocked those behind it off the track. Only the locomotive and the first three tankers remained on the rails. One of the derailed tankers fell on its side and began to leak petrol into the tunnel. Vapour from the leaking petrol was probably ignited by a hot axle box.

Read more on the Fire West Yorkshire site.

GUEST POST A new hole in the safety net

An anonymous reader calls on the Liberal Democrats to save what remains of the Social Fund.

Many people haven't heard of the Social Fund. It was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1987, following the so-called Fowler reviews of the social security system. Part of it covers regulated payments, some of which are familiar: winter fuel payments, cold weather payments and Sure Start maternity grants all come out of this side.

The other part has often been called the 'discretionary' Social Fund. When it was first brought in, charities and individuals argued against it, because it chiefly consisted of loans - crisis loans and budgeting loans - given to people on low or no incomes during periods of extreme need. These were then paid back out of dole money or other benefits later on. In effect, it loaded the poorest of the poor with debt payable to the state (although in both cases the debt was interest free).

In 2010/11, the Coalition government began a process of reform to cut down drastically the growth in discretionary social funding. According to Steve Webb, a Lib Dem minister in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), demand had risen sharply, particularly for Crisis Loans, due to the introduction of telephone claims in 2006. Webb therefore stated that it was the government’s intention to "manage crisis loan demand back towards pre-2006 levels," despite the obvious economic reasons why demand might also have increased.

The DWP duly went to work, doing what it does best, or perhaps worst. It tightened the rules for applications drastically over a 12 month period. This meant that gross expenditure on Crisis Loans fell from £228.3m in 2010/11 to £133.3 m in 2011/12, at a time when the economy had only regained a small amount of the ground lost over the recession.

However, that wasn't the end of the story. The government then decided that discretionary social funding, other than budgeting loans, would be 'localised' via the Welfare Reform Act 2012. This infamous Act contained so many other iniquitous decisions ('bedroom tax,' universal credit, disability living allowance etc.) that this vital, if flawed, niche in the social security system went unscrutinised and unlamented.

The government decided that it would devolve the funding to Scotland and Wales and allow the separate administrations to set up their own system for delivery. In England, however, the funding would be devolved to councils. Crucially, though, the funding would not be ring-fenced, there would be no statutory duty on councils to provide these services, and there would be no national guidance. The funding would be for two years initially, with DWP to review how councils had chosen to deliver welfare provision in early 2014.

The extent of central government direction on local councils was a short “settlement letter” from Steve Webb stating merely that "it is the intention of the Government that the funding is to be used to provide the new provision ... we expect the funding to be concentrated on those facing greatest difficulty in managing their income ... the funding is to allow you to give flexible help to those in genuine need". Beyond this short paragraph, no further guidance or suggestions have been given.

Unsurprisingly, at a time of drastic cuts to local government funding, councils have taken a patchy approach to setting up local welfare provision. Some councils have done almost nothing, and are now consulting on abolishing local provision entirely, such as Oxfordshire County Council, which includes the Prime Minister’s constituency. Others have set up commendable schemes which improve upon what had previously been offered by DWP. Many have settled for referring people to food banks and handing out the occasional voucher.

Yet even this patchy provision is preferable to what is to come. On the 3rd of January, the Guardian reported that DWP had made the decision - early - to simply cut the £172m from council funds entirely in 2015/16. This is despite the review of welfare provision being carried out as planned. So the government is now busily gathering evidence for a decision that has already been made.

Some councils may attempt to continue to provide some kind of local assistance. Indeed, many will have no choice from time to time: the recent flooding has seen strong and predictable demand for precisely this kind of support. But they will now have to balance this need - which is, lest we forget, not a statutory requirement - against the more pressing legal requirements to provide social services, transport, housing, and all the rest.

The tale is sad. It is a typical story: a government doesn't like a particular policy, so it first localises the funding simply to abdicate responsibility for its delivery, and then quietly scraps it entirely when everyone is still recovering from their New Year hangover.

As a former Liberal Democrat member, parliamentary researcher and sometime activist, my sympathies lie with the Yellow Peril, and most likely always will. But the silence on decisions like this is deafening. If such a capable, intelligent, and caring minister as Steve Webb can go along with this tearing apart of a vital part of our society’s safety net, fears that the party has lost its way seem very well founded.

I hope it is not too late for members, activists, councillors, MPs and peers to notice this small but extremely significant mistake – and try their utmost to reverse it. That is the sort of small but significant action that would bring a person like me back to the party.

The author of this post previously worked for Lib Dem MPs, but wishes to remain anonymous.

Midsomer Murders skewered

John Robinson writes in the Guardian:

Gentle, long-enduring and filled with familiar faces, Midsomer Murders has become Last Of The Summer Wine, but with a higher body count.

London Terminus (1944)

A vast national railway system radiates from London. The film shows the density of railway traffic at a London terminus. 1,704 trains enter and leave this station everyday - long distance expresses, suburban electric services on which a million workers depend for their daily transport to and from central London. An impressive picture of a complex organization - British Council Film Department Catalogue 1942-3.

Six of the Best 412

Armour-Plated Liberalism is right to point out that the debate over the origins and morality of the First World War is more nuanced than Michael Gove or his critics would have you believe. "This year will see many of these myths recycled on all matter of platforms by all manner of people. It is important that we challenge them when they make these assertions; not just because what they say is often wrong, but because those who fought in the war are no longer here to speak against them."

"By the end of this year, I believe, we will begin to see the true cost of the targets and compliance regime of the Blair/Brown years, and it will begin to explain why public services have become so expensive that we seem - at least according to the Chancellor - not to be able to afford them any more." David Boyle on the toll of targets in the public sector.

Mike Jay writes in Aeon Magazine about Geel, a little town in Belgium that has been treating the mentally ill for centuries.

Simon Lovestone on NIHR Biomedical Research pays tribute to the way the Archers treated Jack Woolley's illness.

How's your Hungarian. If, like mine, it is a little rusty, you can still enjoy these photographs of some of the world's most remarkable libraries on Positivnap.

Celluloid Wicker Man reviews Mark Gatiss's Christmas adaptation of M.R. James's ghost story The Tractate Middoth for the BBC: "Gatiss knows which of the classic adaptations work best but, perhaps more importantly, knows where their potential shortcomings were too.  His ghost was not to be seen running, or even barely moving unlike some of its predecessors.  It also remains ambiguous as to whether the hauntings are dreams or reality."

Rutland County Council are the Legal Bullies of the Year

It may be a tiny authority, but Rutland has triumphed in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs Awards 2013.

Here is the magazine's citation in the Legal Bullies of the Year category:

Winners Rutland county council,which set aside £90,000 of taxpayers' money to seek an injunction against three of its own councillors (the "Rutland Anti-Corruption Party") who had been asking awkward questions. 

The council tested the water by prosecuting another critic, blogger Martin Brookes, for "harassing and stalking" chief exec Helen Briggs. District Judge John Temperley found Brookes not guilty, declaring: "freedom of expression is an essential function of a democratic society. It is applicable also to those who offend and shock." A hero on the bench!

This blog has covered the cases of Martin Brookes and the Rutland Three, so I congratulate Private Eye on its choice of winner in this category.

Moose frozen solid in Norwegian lake

Our Headline of the Day judges did not award nul points to News in English.no.

A bereaved moose writes: What is so funny about this?

Leicester West Bridge railway station

Leicester's first station was West Bridge on the Leicester & Swannington line, which opened in 1832. It closed to passengers in 1928, but remained open for good traffic until 1966.

You can catch a glimpse of the station in its last days in a video I once posted and there are some photographs of it from the same era by Arthur Beyless.

Today the remains of West Bridge station form part of a little urban park called The Rally. Study photos from a few years ago and you will see the restored platform, track and signal were in good condition and looked ready to cope with any train that might arrive. When I saw them last summer the buddleias and scrub were taking over.

There is a surprising amount of derelict land near the old station site, and I found what looked like an old water column from the good yard here.

The Coalition should withdraw its sinister Annoyance Bill

Great news from the House of Lords this evening. The government has suffered a massive defeat over its plans to bring in injunctions against 'annoying' behaviour. Peers defeated the clause that would have introduced IPNAs - Injunctions to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance - by 306 votes to 178.

Alex Stevenson on politics.co.uk quotes some of the speeches made against the proposal, including Patrick Cormack:

"I find it difficult to accept a Conservative-led government is prepared to introduce this lower threshold in the bill," Tory backbencher Patrick Cormack said. 

"We are sinking to a lower threshold and in the process many people may have their civil liberties taken away from them."

And I find it difficult accept that a government of which the Liberal Democrats are a part is prepared to introduce it.

For years, when asked to explain what we stand for or even to justify our existence as a separate party, we Lib Dems have said that civil liberties are at the heart of what we believe. Yet, given a taste of government, we appear happy to make things worse in this area.

This measure also marks a retreat from the original Coalition agreement, which promised:

We will be strong in defence of freedom. The Government believes that the British state has become too authoritarian, and that over the past decade it has abused and eroded fundamental human freedoms and historic civil liberties. We need to restore the rights of individuals in the face of encroaching state power, in keeping with Britain’s tradition of freedom and fairness.

And on a more personal level, I spent years writing columns for Liberal Democrat News pouring scorn on New Labour's contempt for civil liberties.

It wasn't just the party's promotion of the concept of 'antisocial behaviour', which had the paradoxical effect of making the police feel they could turn their backs on some crimes, it was the extraordinary pettiness of their concerns.

The post Berlin Wall, pre 9/11 years of the 1990s, with their growing economy, now seem close to a political Shangri La, but that was not how New Labour saw them at the time. They were concerned about aggressive begging. They were concerned about noisy fireworks. Many of their backbenchers were obsessed with leylandii hedges.

Back in 2014, this bill is made worse by the fact that it is being piloted by one of my favourite Lib Dem MPs, Norman Baker. He has tried to justify IPNAs both on Lib Dem Voice and on his own website.

I do not find these articles reassuring, if only because - as Caron Lindsay points out - it is not going to be Norman Baker making the decisions on how this legislation will be used. I dread to think what uses it will be put to in the hands of Labour councils.

Caron also reminds us of the words of Nick Clegg to Henry Porter:

You shouldn’t trust any Government, actually including this one, full stop. The natural inclination of Government is to hoard power and information, to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good.

The headline on Porter's article is:

Why we should believe Nick Clegg when he promises to restore liberties stolen by Labour

I do hope this will not be another case of Nick wooing an interest group with almost exaggerated language, only to let them down when given a chance to do something about that issue.

Potato ambassador finds boob-shaped spud

Our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Leicester Mercury and, once again, the story below is about Market Harborough.

The marvellous Farndon Fields Farm Shop, to be precise. And, yes, the Mercury does have a photograph.

A forgotten corner of Market Harborough

Now watch some bastard remember it.

Trivial Fact of the Day with Roy Jenkins

Owen Hatherley has a good article in today's Guardian laying bare the shrinking size of modern houses and calling for a return to the 'Parker Morris' standards of the 1960s.

Sir Parker Morris was the author of the 1961 government report Homes for Today and Tomorrow. He called for minimum space standards for new accommodation, and these became mandatory in new towns in 1967 and in all public-sector housing two years later.

The Parker Morris standards were abolished by the new Conservative government in 1980. Thanks, Maggie.

When I became a councillor later in that decade, the phrase "Parker Morris standards" was still on the lips of council officers. Usually, this was in the context of pointing out that some new shared-ownership scheme we were looking at would have been illegal under them.

Sir Parker Morris was the town clerk of Westminster and is remembered in the name of the Parker Morris Hall, which is part of the Abbey Centre there.

A reader asks with mounting impatience: This is all very interesting, I suppose, but where does Roy Jenkins come into it?

Liberal England replies: Sir Parker's daughter Jennifer married Roy Jenkins in 1945.

Nick Clegg attacks Tories' planned welfare cuts

I am delighted that Nick Clegg has said this.

Children of activists less likely to share their parents' views as adults

Liberal Democrats tend not to approve of church schools, arguing that children should be left to form their own religious views later in life.

But, as I once pointed out in an article on the Guardian website, that is not how we behave when it comes to politics:

And it is not how Liberal Democrats behave in practice. One of the most important jobs on election day is getting the numbers from the tellers at the polling stations back to the committee room. And, having worked in many local byelections, I have come to the conclusion that the best people to do it are 10-year-olds on their bikes. They are quick and they insist on going back to the polling station every five minutes. 

You could say these children are too young to understand politics and should be kept out of it until they are old enough to make up their own minds. How can a 10-year-old be a Liberal Democrat or a supporter of any other party? 

But they have the rest of their lives to get cynical and bored by politics, to remain in the Liberal Democrats or rebel by joining the Trotskyites or the Young Conservatives. In the mean time let them enjoy being part of something larger than themselves.

I thought of this passage when I read a piece on the London School of Economics blog EUROPP. Elias Dinas argues that children from politically engaged homes are less likely to share their parents' politics when they are adults than are children from other homes.

He argues that while you may well learn a tendency to be involved in politics from your parents, your later views will owe more to the political and social climate that pertained when you were a young adult.

Dinas writes:

A typical context within which many young adults find themselves is the university – a left-leaning institution. Consistent with the argument presented here, it turns out that offspring from right-wing politicised homes are more likely to shift towards a more left-wing direction than children that stem from less politicised right-wing families. 

Furthermore, when an important political event takes place, be it a war or a scandal, young adults from more politically active families are more likely to update their partisan preferences accordingly. 

The evidence shows that parent-child divergence is not confined to instances in which the political context prompts young people to develop more liberal stances. For instance, during the 1960s, the civil-rights movement led the American South away from the Democratic party. Consistent with the hypothesis advanced here, it was the young Southerners growing up in politically engaged homes who primarily drove the shift away from the Democrats.

So enjoy those helpful Lib Dem children while you can.

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A Scottish Liberal dissects some myths about bisexuality.

"The arrangement by which the debt - now £30bn, soon to be £50bn - was kept off the government’s books was always one of those ridiculous artifices that plague the way that politics is conducted and make the functioning of the state so obscure and incomprehensible for the ordinary public." Christian Wolmar on the news that Network Rail’s debt will simply be lumped in with the government’s from September 2014.

The Daily Beast remembers Crass, the British punk band that fooled Reagan, Thatcher and the CIA.

IanVisits explores the remains of a strange tunnel near London's Embankment.

Never mind Australia whitewashing of England in the men's Ashes. The women's game is on the up here, reports Alison Mitchell on Cricinfo.

"Uncle Ern and his cronies are moving against Phil and Andy, and all the diaries and papers of mysterious Grandfather Ebenezer are being deciphered by an expert on antique railways who has conveniently moved into the area, when suddenly Phil begins dreaming, fair Philippa Pearceishly, of life in the time of Ebenezer, ‘like a play seen some time ago, then half forgotten,’ and talks to his ancestors, though his memories afterward are hazy. Is he a ghost to them?" A Pile of Leaves looks at one of my childhood favourites - The Viaduct by Roy Brown.