Suchergebnisse

In 1962, the late Professor Sir Bernard Crick published his seminal work In Defence of Politics. Fifty years on, formal political processes have never been in greater need of defending. In this article, former Home Secretary David Blunkett MP argues that in order to defend politics we need to change the way in which we 'do' our politics. In a 21st century response to Professor Crick's challenge to defend the role of politics in providing a counterweight to the financial markets and economic imperialism, Blunkett considers how it is possible to renew political democracy as a force for progressive change. The last five years of political and financial turmoil have seen politics smeared and even, in the case of Greece and Italy, elected governments removed and replaced by technocrats. With the power of government behind the people, it would be possible to foster a whole new spirit of seeing the political process as a way of organising, advising and yes funding a demand for something better from big institutions both public and private.

In this response to Cris Shore's (same journal issue) comments, David Blunkett evaluates Shore's arguments about the ethics of spying. Adapted from the source document.

When former Home Secretary David Blunkett agreed to take part in a UK television documentary exploring ways to tackle youth crime, he found himself embroiled in a controversial experiment…But did it work?

The following article is an edited version of the SRAB Annual Lecture given at the National Westminster Hall, London, 19 November 1992. There is still substantial progress to be made if visually impaired people are to work and live on equal terms with sighted members of the community. Appropriate facilities and equipment must be available; and even more importantly, a true understanding of the problems and a realistic attitude to visual impairment must be promoted. The speaker illustrates these points with reference to his own personal experience.

This article is a commentary-style piece on the last Labour administration, reflecting on the relationship between ideas, actors, structures and events in shaping political practice. It is organised around two core but not mutually exclusive themes: the translation of ideas into political practice and the role of the British political tradition in shaping this process. The view offered within is that the British political tradition provides a useful analytical framework to help explain the gap between the devolution-ideational aspirations of New Labour's Third Way and the empirical reality of a centralised public policy programme pursued between 1997 and 2010. It concludes by considering the relationship between the British political tradition and the Big Society programme currently being rolled out by the coalition government.