United Kingdom Archives - Public Seminar

Labor

The Orchids That Bloom in the Dark

The migrant domestic workers of the U.K. organization Waling Waling are fighting for their dignity and human rights

November 17, 2021 • by Annelise Orleck

On a warm, wet London Saturday, a group of Filipina women meet in Regent’s Park. They are joined by a few friends from North and West Africa, several small children, and a couple of men recording the event on camera. They spread blankets on the grass which they quickly cover ...

Literature

Re-reading C. P. Snow

What the mid-century novelist and man of letters understood about being human in an uncertain world

July 30, 2020 • by Anthony Grafton

Rather like the legendary couple of whom someone, struggling to understand their mutual attraction, cracked, “Well, they are both carbon-based life forms,” these books seem pretty disparate. But all of them help me find calm at night, particularly now, when the shadows gather and the future looks even darker than ...

Europe & Central Asia

A Year of Boris Johnson

Only a handful of people would be mad enough to covet being prime minister at this particular point in British history, and one of them now inhabits Downing Street

July 27, 2020 • by Simon Jones

Thursday saw the United Kingdom pass an important milestone: one year of life under the leadership of Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson. What was supposed to be a fascinating year of unpredictable political events has been rendered utterly dystopian through the COVID-19 crisis. Still, it’s worth looking back on what ...

Politics

The U.S. and UK Are a Wrecking Ball Crew Against the Pillars of Internationalism

They have undermined the sovereignty of nations and mutilated international law

July 13, 2020 • by Vijay Prashad

Ambassador Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, spoke at the same meeting. She praised the charter and called upon the member states of the UN to bring its values into the world. However, Ambassador Craft said, “On far too many occasions, we have seen nations that are parties ...

The U.S. and UK Are a Wrecking Ball Crew Against the Pillars of Internationalism

Politics

Is Social Democracy Viable?

If it is, it will need better arguments, organization, and leadership, according to a U.K. Labour Party post-mortem

June 24, 2020 • by Simon Jones

The U.K. Labour party recently released a report that analyses their defeat in the 2019 election. The results should alarm anyone interested in the future of social democracy. The report concludes that the crushing failure of the 2019 Corbyn campaign had been years in the making. Shifting electoral demographics, organizational dysfunction, ...

Politics

The Corbyn Mirage

With little leadership experience, Labour’s leader consistently failed to deliver

February 12, 2020 • by Simon Jones

Labour’s election campaign was an evisceration, handing the Tories an 80 seat majority in the House of Commons and, with no opposition ever having overcome such a deficit in a single electoral cycle, a presumptive decade in power. The party’s heartlands in the North of England were smashed by the Conservatives and ...

Politics

How Disinformation Became a Winning Strategy

Fomenting political fury is something that concerns us all

January 30, 2020 • by Adam Ramsay

The recent UK election was a quarrel about the character of politics. On the one hand, the Labour Party argued that it can be used for good, ‘for the many’. They promised to transform lives and communities, to take action on climate change and poverty. The Conservative Party, conversely, claimed ...

How Disinformation Became a Winning Strategy

Feature

The Unfolding Welfare Crisis in the UK

Will a system designed for universal care become a universal catastrophe?

December 4, 2018 • by Christian Garland

Chris Gold of Shepton Beauchamp, Somerset -- one of the “test” areas in which Universal Credit is in operation -- was found to have died of natural causes. Despite suffering a stroke in 2015, Gold had lost his Employment Support Allowance after being declared “fit for work,” and then in ...

Feature

Making a Hostile Environment

Why the deportation of sex offenders matters

June 13, 2018 • by May Robson

The case of the “Asian grooming gang” from the Rochdale area of Greater Manchester is notorious. Over a two-year period, a group of nine men plied young girls with food, alcohol and drugs in order to sexually exploit them. The men were sentenced in May 2012, following a high-profile trial. ...

Feature

Radical Objects

A Refugee’s Life Jacket at Manchester Museum

January 22, 2018 • by Bryan Sitch

In early December 2016, I found myself in a small twin propeller aeroplane above the Aegean Sea buffeted by strong winds, the sea beneath us roiling whilst my fellow passengers quietly crossed themselves. I was travelling to Lesvos to collect a refugee’s life jacket for Manchester Museum’s collecting life project. In ...

Feature

Reductio ad Absurdum

Zero-Hours Contracts, Bogus ‘Self-Employment’, and Welfare ‘Conditionality’ in the UK

November 6, 2017 • by Christian Garland

Bogus ‘self-employment’, takes two main forms: the first is known as the ‘gig economy,’ and involves companies such as Uber, Deliveroo, and Hermes making use of the labor of those who are classified as ‘independent contractors’, rather than employees. The fact that these independent contractors earn less than the minimum ...

Feature

Brexit Spawns An Unfortunate Hashtag

July 6, 2016 • by H. Howell Williams

I went to sleep on Thursday, June 23 on a continent, and I woke up Friday on an island. The country that I had lived in for three years, a place that had begun to feel like home, had voted to leave the European Union. And while friends, family members, ...

United Kingdom

The Orchids That Bloom in the Dark

The migrant domestic workers of the U.K. organization Waling Waling are fighting for their dignity and human rights

Re-reading C. P. Snow

What the mid-century novelist and man of letters understood about being human in an uncertain world

A Year of Boris Johnson

Only a handful of people would be mad enough to covet being prime minister at this particular point in British history, and one of them now inhabits Downing Street

The U.S. and UK Are a Wrecking Ball Crew Against the Pillars of Internationalism

They have undermined the sovereignty of nations and mutilated international law

Is Social Democracy Viable?

If it is, it will need better arguments, organization, and leadership, according to a U.K. Labour Party post-mortem

The Corbyn Mirage

With little leadership experience, Labour’s leader consistently failed to deliver

How Disinformation Became a Winning Strategy

Fomenting political fury is something that concerns us all

The Unfolding Welfare Crisis in the UK

Will a system designed for universal care become a universal catastrophe?

Making a Hostile Environment

Why the deportation of sex offenders matters

Radical Objects

A Refugee’s Life Jacket at Manchester Museum

Reductio ad Absurdum

Zero-Hours Contracts, Bogus ‘Self-Employment’, and Welfare ‘Conditionality’ in the UK

Brexit Spawns An Unfortunate Hashtag

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