Long Term Patterns: the U.K. Prefers Oxford University-Educated Conservative Prime Ministers. Only Winston Churchill, and John Major among election-winning Prime Ministers since World War II did not pass through ‘the city of the dreaming spires’ during their formative educational years (neither University of Edinburgh-educated Gordon Brown nor Jim Callaghan, who could not afford a university … Read more
I especially enjoy visiting the Austrian side of my family around Salzkammergut during Christmas. The highlight is Little Christmas, or the Feast of the Epiphany, on January 6th best witnessed in the home town of my relatives in Ebensee, under the watchful gaze of the Traunsee mountains, which provide a perfect backdrop to the procession … Read more
When truth is the casualty, everyone suffers. For new Americans, spending Thanksgiving in the U.S. comes as a surprise. It’s the busiest travel time of the year, ranking ahead of Christmas and the 4th of July. While some associate Thanksgiving with shopping bonanzas like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, for most it’s simply an opportunity … Read more
A national strike was called in Colombia for Thursday, the 21st of November. In Bogotá, it would be the beginning of two weeks of protests, parties, and panics. Iván Duque, Colombia’s right-wing president, was elected in 2018. Since then he has tried to implement the typical Latin American neo-liberal programme: pension privatisation; privatisation of government … Read more
Bob Hope once wisecracked: ‘the choice between Carter and Regan was not so much the choice of the lesser of two evils, as the evil of two lessers.’ In Brexit-land that joke has transmuted into one about the difference between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. The Irish media, as ever, are looking at this election … Read more
The future of a generation born during over eight years of conflict in Syria is under threat. More than half of all school-aged Syrian children living as refugees in neighbouring countries do not have access to formal education. In this second of a two-part series humanitarian activist and author Bruna Kadletz addresses the educational crisis … Read more
Last week two young people were stabbed to death at London Bridge while attending a conference organized by the University of Cambridge on rehabilitation of prisoners through education. Boris Johnson and other Conservatives were quick to politicize the tragedy, implying the attack – by a convicted terrorist on day release – signified a failure of … Read more
For anyone to become an opinion writer for the ‘paper of record’, the Irish Times, requires considerable ability. But does a particular viewpoint give an aspiring columnist a distinct advantage? It is said that if you’re not a socialist in your twenties you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative in your forties, … Read more
What is the experience of a refugee caught in the crisis on the Mediterranean Sea? Approximately 18,910 lives have been lost or are missing since 2014, including three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi in 2015; so far in 2019 there have been an estimated 1089 deaths.[i] Yesterday in a Dáil Éireann briefing room we heard testimonies … Read more
Two stories were in the headlines this October illustrating how money is undermining our values. ‘Ah,’ I hear you say, ‘a story as old as time,’ but before tuning out, let us explain what’s different this time, and why it really matters. Given the pace of technological change, the weight of power of two individuals, … Read more