Yesterday saw a relaunch for the website of 'History & Policy', a collective project between the University of Cambridge, The Institute of Historical Research and The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (no, I don't quite see that fit either). I had been aware of the site beforehand but hadn't visited much recently - the story reminds how worthwhile a resource it is so one for the bookmarks I'd suggest. A couple of brief things to flag for the moment.As part of the relaunch Professor David Reynolds did a short paper on 'The Prime Minister as world statesman'. The title is actually a little misleading because it's not just about UK Premier's statesmanship, more a look at how 'summitry' among world leaders has changed over the last century or so. Back when travel was considerably more difficult face-to-face meetings were exceptionally rare and inevitably bound up with considerations of security and status. David dates the starting point of modern summitry with Neville Chamberlain's 3 visits to Germany in September 1938. Chronologically I understand his point but given how those visits turned out (see picture) and the history of subsequent years it wasn't the most auspicious of starts! He goes on to discuss how the cold war impacted summitry as well as the advent of email, internet and mass media - the whole thing's only six pages long and well worth a read.
Also linked to the launch was a press release from Professor David Cannadine calling on the government to appoint historical advisers to all Whitehall departments and for the government to have a Chief Historical Adviser. I can understand the impulse here but what a shame that we now accept it as a given that our elected representatives are likely to be historically illiterate. There was a time when Parliament was the preserve of a more learned beast than is the norm today and it could be taken for granted that the lessons of history would be foremost in their mind when dealing with things - what a shame it seems we now need advisers for that...
Labels: Politics
1 Comments:
Blair and Brown have succeeded in debasing the institution of parliament than all the Wilsons, Lucans and Profumos rolled into one.
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