Clausewitz famously maintained that war was the continuation of politics by other means. If the soccer World Cup had been around in the early nineteenth century, he would have worked football somewhere into his dictum. Almost every World Cup game is more than a sporting encounter: issues of national identity verging into national stereotypes, patriotic…
We take it for granted. It’s been described as the closest thing we have, now, to a national religion. It’s probably become politically untouchable. We have all either depended on it or had a family member or close friend who has depended on it. It remains a tribute to the genuinely visionary political leadership of…
Driving home from an evening out on Saturday, the radio was on, and we caught the end of a programme on Radio 4’s Listening Project. If you don’t know the Listening Project it does pretty much what it says on the tin: it eavesdrops on conversations between people about something important in their lives, and…
There’s an envelope, with government franking. You are obviously wary about what it might contain, so when you open it and the news is that you’ve been offered a knighthood, you really are flabbergasted. There’s a form to fill in indicating whether you would be willing to accept, together with a firm instruction on confidentiality.…
Imagine, for a moment, a global gathering of university leaders somewhere in rural England. The gathering is addressed by the Queen and by Nicola Sturgeon. Both talk in engaged and committed terms about the strategic importance of universities in economic growth, social cohesion and change leadership. There’s a reception after the event, and both remain…
Responses to the government’s consultation on the post-18 funding review have now been sent in. At Sheffield Hallam, we took the opportunity to draw together a comprehensive statement on our views of higher education funding. I’ve written about this issue several times, and the need to solve an obvious, but awkward problem: higher education costs…
Last Thursday, a new political entity came into being. There wasn’t much fanfare, and the election of the mayor for South Yorkshire elicited a low turnout typical of local elections, following a fairly low-key campaign which, I’d guess, many people in the region may not have noticed happening. Nonetheless, the new South Yorkshire mayor now…
As tends to happen in busy households, we were reading different bits of the newspaper over supper as a prelude to converging on the crossword. Nicky turned a page and, looking at a large photograph, exclaimed ‘I know him!’. The photograph was of a special needs assistant in the north London primary school Nicky taught…
I’m relying on the internet here, which as we all know is far from being the most trustworthy of information sources. A ‘promise of barmen’, a ‘bench of bishops’, a ‘rookery of clerks’, an ‘observance of hermits’, an ‘alley of clowns’: I can understand those collective nouns and they have a reassuringly eccentric feel. It…
Several years ago, I was at a large conference dinner in Beijing. In a break between courses, a choir of Chinese children sang to us – a medley of songs tailored for their global audience. Amongst the more culturally incongruous of songs was their rendition of ‘Danny Boy’. As it happened, I’d found myself sitting…