Society & Culture

UKIP, a political party whose polices are based on a profound fear of immigrants, has just had their first  MP elected by the people of Clacton, a town which is over 90% white British, with hardly any immigrants.  Yet in London – one of the world’s most diverse ethnic cities, where less than 50% are white British […]

30 years ago, the photo of François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl holding hands in Verdun, the emblematic battlefield of World War One, went around the world. It is true that their gesture – which Kohl always insisted was a very spontaneous one – was quite unusual. Still, it was appropriate. After all, reconciliation between France […]

The Press Complaints Commission has upheld three of my complaints against the Daily Mail. The commission ruled that the newspaper breached The Editors’ Code of Practice on accuracy with its story about buses and planes from Romania and Bulgaria to the UK being full-up and sold-out. On New Year’s Eve last year, the Daily Mail […]

The designers of a new ‘social atlas of Europe’ hope it will help Europeans to view their continent as their homeland.  The maps below look at Europe in a different way to usual cartography – they are part of a collection of ‘social maps’ of Europe being launched at the Royal Geographical Society on Wednesday […]

Making the case that the United Kingdom (UK) needs the European Union (EU) and vice versa is at the forefront of current electoral debates in the UK. During a passionate electoral hustings event at the University of East Anglia last night, candidates clashed over visions for a federal European Union (Andrew Duff, MEP, Lib Dem), […]

Ignored by the PCC: My 13 reasons  Tonight the Press Complaints Commission ruled that one complaint it received about the Daily Mail was now ‘resolved’ and so a ruling would not be necessary on the other 82 complaints.  The PCC received at least 83 complaints about the Daily Mail story which falsely claimed  buses and […]

The PCC has rejected 81 complaints against The Daily Mail Note: scroll down for updates – this is a breaking story Over 80 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission against the Daily Mail’s story that incorrectly claimed buses and planes to the UK from Romania and Bulgaria were ‘full-up and sold-out’ have been rejected and […]

British Prime Minister, David Cameron, yesterday gave an impassioned, personal speech for a pro-Union vote in the forthcoming referendum.  No, not the referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Union, but this year’s referendum on whether Scotland should stay in the Union of the United Kingdom. Most of the strong arguments presented by […]

In this article, Soeren Keil looks at the EU’s more active role in the process of state (and nation) building in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. He argues that the EU’s technical approach to highly political issues has led to misconceptions between the EU and elites in these countries, and has in turn alienated citizens. He lastly offers some ideas as to how the EU might change its approach to enlargement to meet these challenges.

The Daily Mail last night refused to apologise for their story that claimed buses and planes from Romania and Bulgaria to the UK were full up and sold out, or to agree that their story was inaccurate. The world’s most popular online newspaper had reported that many Romanians and Bulgarians were coming to the UK […]