Content Preview: rss
1156 days ago
Right, conference has come and gone and we are left wondering what is really going on behind the scenes... First, the speeches: I didn't see Gordon Brown's speech, although I am told not to expect too much. It was apparently flat, which doesn't surprise me. Gordon Brown fails to motivate people unless he is speaking about something he really feels passionate about. I heard him speak in Manchester a year ago on third world poverty and he was fantastic. He lacks the 'actor-presenter' (I hate Clare Short) characteristic that Tony Blair has. Blair's speech was classic Blair. Like him or loathe him you cannot deny that he has no equal in British politics when it comes to speech making. The way he helds conference in the palm of his hands was so symptomatic of what has happened over the past 12 years. John Prescott was typically John Prescott. That is what we expect from him, not croquet at some luxury government owned country house. He seemed genuine about his ...
1169 days ago
I read David Milliband's recent article in the New Statesman the other day... Milliband basically implored his cabinet colleagues not to cause a fuss by standing against Gordon, whilst at the same time ruling himself out of an contest. I disagree with my rather 'wonkish' comrade who, for personal reasons, seems to be strategically positioning himself for every eventuality. Just say we have a three-way leadership contest, one of which will be Brown, and nobody gets enough votes; Brown is humiliated and is discredited - from being the heir apparent to being incapable of winning an election that was seemingly only ever in need of a stamp of approval - which creates an ideal situation for Miliband to step into the breach because of his 'excellent', common-sense stance through this. hmmm Possibly not... But whoever is leader it most certainly should not be Gordon. Why? I simply do not think he has anything about him that can win us the next election. What we need is ...
1169 days ago
After months of mental torture and anguish I have finally finished my dissertation! So relieved... Funny though, why do all the little nothing-jobs, like printing, abstracts and acknowledgements, take so long? Anyway, now that is done it is time to focus on the job hunting. Anyone any ideas...?
1178 days ago
WRONG! Frustrating generalisations... Why oh why? This guy called Peter Gay wrote a book, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation , in which he asserts that there was only one enlightenment. He rules out, practically, any chance of enlightenment existing in England because England was not plagued by religious intolerance and persecution. To this extent he is correct: England was not plagued by religious intolerance and persecution (at least not to the extent that France was), but this does not mean that it was the home of religious freedom, never mind equality. It certainly was free in comparison to France, but non-conformists and dissenters were excluded from the franchise and were forced to locate themselves in the provinces. Gay's assessment of The Enlightenment (itself a flawed term) is incorrect because it is so narrow; the enlightenment, if considered as a general process, was widespread and prone to diverse experiences. There was no uniform ...
1185 days ago
Well seeing as I have not posted for a while I think I should let my one viewer know what I have been up to. The long and short of it, really, is not a lot other than my dissertation. Avid mattists will be pleased to know that I am above the lower boundary of the word count (25,000), but that is including appendices. I am just editing my second chapter; it is such a pain in the backside. Anyone who has written extensively we know how I am feeling about chapter two: you always have one section which you hate and no matter how you try to change it you still hate it! My problem is that chapter two is extremely important in the overall formulation of my dissertation; it essentially links chapter one to chapter two. My dissertation, at the moment, is called 'Light in the North': Lancaster in an age of enlightenment My key argument is that improvement was a mediating factor between economic development (and subsequent prosperity) and enlightenment refinement in Lancaster. Sounds ...
