Long before Theresa May reached Number 10, many had noticed her affinity for religious communities. Throughout the Coalition years she was an assiduous visitor of the parishes in her own constituency, perhaps inspired by her devout Anglo-Catholic father who – according to Giles Fraser – named her after St Teresa of Avila. Later, as a … Continue reading “Expect some religion-friendly reforms from Theresa May and her gifted advisers”
Category: Public policy
Stewart highlights the strengths of polymaths in politics
So rare a species are polymaths as politicians these days that one of the striking features of almost any article about Rory Stewart makes a nod to his T.E. Lawrence-like CV, the chances that he might have leapt from the pages of a John Buchan novel, or even that he ‘must be from another age’. … Continue reading “Stewart highlights the strengths of polymaths in politics”
Theresa May: beyond the metropolitan bubble
Understanding how and why policy makers imagine and express their political positioning, narratives, and delivery is one of the great fascinations of political science and a vital matter for those seeking to tease out the future trajectories of governments. For Attlee and Beveridge exposure through Toynbee Hall to London’s East End was crucially formative. The … Continue reading “Theresa May: beyond the metropolitan bubble”
The existential war between Islamic State and secular France
The killing of a priest during morning mass at a Catholic church near Rouen on July 26 has sent new shock waves through France – a country which prides itself on its secularism, but in which religion still plays a large part in many communities. The rapid succession of attacks on French soil claimed by … Continue reading “The existential war between Islamic State and secular France”