The Social Affairs Unit - Web Review http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ The Social Affairs Unit identifies research with a potential to inform public policy and translates it from academic discourse into public debate. The ideas it promotes come largely from historians, sociologists and philosophers but also medical doctors and hard scientists. en-us 2012-02-03T17:31:47+00:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 The reaction to the deaths of seventy people at a football match in Egypt once again illustrates man's eternal search for freedom from responsibility - argues Theodore Dalrymple http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002090.php Blame football fans not the police for the deaths of seventy people after a football match in Egypt - says Theodore Dalrymple. The deaths of at least seventy people at a football match in Egypt has confirmed my reasoned prejudice... 2090@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Sport 2012-02-03T17:31:47+00:00 The Guardian is at last endorsing the necessity, inevitability and wisdom of prejudice and discrimination - Theodore Dalrymple celebrates this conversion to common sense http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002089.php It took the Stephen Lawrence murder to persuade the Guardian to adopt a sensible perspective on crime and punishment, argues Theodore Dalrymple. No one, I think, would regard as excessive the sentences meted out to the two killers of Stephen... 2089@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Crime & Punishment 2012-02-03T16:54:08+00:00 Florida Heads off in All Directions – followed by America? Lincoln Allison looks forward to the Florida Republican Primary http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002088.php Lincoln Allison - Emeritus Reader in Politics at the University of Warwick - shares his thoughts on what is happening in Florida. A simple mistake, but with hilarious consequences – to use a favourite family expression. I agreed to meet... 2088@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ The Future of Politics 2012-01-24T18:54:28+00:00 Evra, Suarez and Racism on the Football Pitch: If racist insults are punished then so must other insults - argues Theodore Dalrymple http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002087.php Theodore Dalrymple argues that the English football authorities are in danger of introducing a system of racialised justice. George Orwell was interested in pulp fiction as a window on the soul of society, and the football pages of our newspapers... 2087@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Sport 2012-01-10T19:13:15+00:00 Topographies of Terror: Brendan Simms visits two new museums in Berlin memorialising dictatorship and its victims http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002086.php Brendan Simms - Professor in the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge - considers how Germany's legacy of terror has been treated by two new museums in Berlin. Berlin is not short of Museums of contemporary history.... 2086@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Historical Thoughts 2012-01-06T18:04:45+00:00 French Opportunism and European Opportunities: Brendan Simms argues that Britain must encourage the rest of Europe to establish a complete political union - and build a new global architecture http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002085.php Brendan Simms - Professor in the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge - argues that Britain must help the rest of Europe establish a new unified state. Do you know the joke about the two safari guests... 2085@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ International Relations 2011-12-16T18:36:50+00:00 We are not entering a Pacific Century, merely a Pacific Phase - argues Brendan Simms http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002084.php Brendan Simms - Professor in the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge - explains why Europe is still where the weather come from and why it will remain so. During November the Obama administration announced its intention... 2084@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ International Relations 2011-12-09T17:57:56+00:00 Brendan Simms asks, is it always right to resist? Is it always wrong to collaborate? Resistance - Amit Gupta http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002083.php Resistance Directed by Amit Gupta certificate PG, 2011 Britain has long been preoccupied with the question of what would have happened if Hitler had succeeded in invading the island in the Second World War. The counterfactuals divide into two categories.... 2083@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Reviews - Films 2011-12-09T15:45:57+00:00 If the Euro is to be saved there must be a simultaneous referendum in every country of the Eurozone - argues Brendan Simms http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002082.php What is now needed is a Eurozone wide referendum - it is the only hope for the Euro. Or so argues Brendan Simms, Professor in the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge. What Europe faces today is... 2082@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ International Relations 2011-11-07T16:32:18+00:00 Theodore Dalrymple argues, why can The Guardian not see that murder is murder and that the nature of the victim does not make the crime any better or any worse? http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002081.php Even the greatest penological liberal has at least one type of crime that he wishes to punish severely and with exemplary zeal, however much he may decry the principle of punishment as retribution or deterrence. In the case of the... 2081@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Crime & Punishment 2011-11-03T20:09:39+00:00 In Which an Ancient Wish is Granted (and Analysed) - Lancashire win the County Championship http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002080.php Thursday, 1 September 2011, the county cricket ground at Worcester: a splendid late summer day, the cathedral reassuringly distinguished across the river, the ground pleasantly filled by a couple of thousand people. This is the England which ex-Prime Ministers make... 2080@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Sport 2011-11-03T19:31:45+00:00 Are Novels a Waste of Life? Lincoln Allison explains why he has fallen out of love with fiction http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002079.php Earlier this year I realised that three months had passed since I last read a novel and that it was the first time in the sixty years I have been able to read that this had happened. And then I... 2079@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Popular Culture 2011-10-14T16:58:00+00:00 HMS Dauntless - the new dreadnought: For it to be effective Britain's auxiliary fleet must be overhauled, argues Brendan Simms http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002078.php Brendan Simms - Professor in the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge - visits Britain's latest Destroyer. Visitors to London cannot fail to be struck by the ubiquitous traces of Britain's maritime and naval heritage. Proceeding from... 2078@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ International Relations 2011-09-19T17:03:58+00:00 Theodore Dalrymple explains why political apologies for the past actions of others have become so flourishing a genre - it is precisely because they are so meaningless and useless http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002077.php Guilt, it used to be said, was an expression of conscience, but we moderns have found a way of divorcing the one from the other. The avowal of guilt now has nothing to do with conscience, and floats free of... 2077@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ International Relations 2011-09-14T19:20:36+00:00 Democracy can be dropped from 10,000 feet - says Cambridge history Professor Brendan Simms http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/002076.php Libya shows that you can drop democracy from 10,000 feet. Or so argues Brendan Simms - Professor in the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge. In the late 1990s, the former Foreign Secretary Lord Hurd liked to... 2076@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ International Relations 2011-09-09T19:32:27+00:00