Category: Long listsTTTT

Julia Lovell

‘On the outside, [the foreigners] seem intractable, but inside they are cowardly. . . Although there have been a few ups-and-downs, the situation as a whole is under control.’

In October 1839, a few months after the Chinese Imperial Commissioner, Lin Zexu, dispatched these confident words to his emperor, a cabinet meeting in Windsor voted to fight Britain’s first Opium War (1839-42) with China. The conflict turned out to be rich in tragicomedy: in bureaucratic fumblings, military missteps, political opportunism and collaboration. Yet over the past 170 years, this strange tale of misunderstanding, incompetence and compromise has become the founding myth of modern Chinese nationalism: the start of China’s heroic struggle against a Western conspiracy to destroy the country with opium and gunboat diplomacy.

Beginning with the dramas of the war itself, Julia Lovell explores its causes and consequences and, through this larger narrative, interweaves the curious stories of opium’s promoters and attackers.The Opium War is both the story of modern China – starting from this first conflict with the West – and an analysis of the country’s contemporary self-image. It explores how China’s national myths mould its interactions with the outside world, how public memory is spun to serve the present; and how delusion and prejudice have bedevilled its relationship with the modern West.

Taken from Pan Macmillan

Gavin Kelly

Gavin Kelly is chief executive of Resolution Foundation. He was Director of Research at the Institute of Public Policy Research and the Fabian Society, and taught economics and politics at the University of Sheffield where he received his doctorate. He is a regular commentator on issues of public policy and politics – his particular interests are economic policy, low pay, public services and social mobility.
Taken from Resolution Foundation


Submitted links

The scandal of low-paid care workers

Changing the conversation in 2012

Why Britain’s households got richer – and why they stopped

How seven years of cuts will transform the political landscape

The onslaught against working families continues

Learning the right lessons from Labour’s economic record

Obama: Mr 99%?

Minimum wage: The only way is up?

The coalition’s woes with women

Wanted: a new purpose for British capitalism

Pavel Konnolsky

Welcome to a collection of my many plenty postings from perspective of Smolensk butcher on great issues of our age. Also contains Smolensk Information Service Broadcasts and events of my life.
Taken from The Konnolsky Files


Submitted links

Konnolsky on 2011. I: Heroines of the Year

Strike!

Silvio Berlusconi – a Final Farewell

Remembrance – and football

In Praise of Liam Fox

Powerlessness and Irresponsibility, or Vince Cable and Booze

Free Schools: or Charity Begins at Home

Great Republican Budget and Debt Ceiling Plan

Smolensk Inaugural Nick Clegg Day

VOLGA NEWS: Coulson – The Truth!


Other links

Pavel Konnolsky on twitter

Alex Massie

Alex Massie is a freelance journalist, currently based in the Scottish Borders. He spent five years in Washington DC as a correspondent for The Scotsman and the Daily Telegraph. Prior to that he was Assistant Editor and Chief Leader Writer for Scotland on Sunday. He has also worked as a sports journalist and as a magazine feature writer. He blogs about American, British and Scottish politics and culture. And cricket.
Taken from Alex Massie on The Spectator


Submitted posts

Ireland and the Kubler-Ross Model of Grief

Muckle Eck’s Big Mo

Stray Thoughts on the Execution of Osama bin Laden

This Social Union, This Commonwealth

A Bill That Shames Scotland

Stephen Birrell’s Conviction Shames Scotland

Rick Perry: Texas Gaullist

Westminster’s Festina Affair

Rebekah Brooks: I Am Not A Witch, I’m You

Tinker, Tailor, Banker, Spy


Other links

Alex Massie on Twitter

Prisoner Ben

Written by a friend: Ben Gunn is a widely recognised face on the prison landings, having wandered through the prison system for 30 years. Pleading guilty to the murder of a friend at the age of 14, he has consistently fought for the recognition of the inherent dignity of all human beings. As a result, he has served decades longer than expected. Ben chose the route of education to alter his life and empower himself. He specialises in conflict resolution and jailhouse law on the landings. At present he is engaged in research towards a PhD, focused upon the role of Human Needs Theory in prison conflicts. Ben writes regularly for the prisoner’s national newspaper Inside Time and is well known for his challenging views.He is also a proponent of non-violent political activism, having spent a lifetime resisting the worst excesses of State abuses of prisoners. He recently became General Secretary of the Association of Prisoners, arguing that change in the penal system rests in the hands of prisoners themselves. “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing” – Thomas Jefferson.

Submitted blogposts

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Duncan McLaren

Duncan McLaren’s touching and tender online diaries about visiting his mother, Mabel, in her care home.

In 2003, Duncan McLaren’s mother had a stroke and he moved from London in order to live with his parents in Perthshire. For a few years, while helping in the family home, he was able to carry on writing about the individuals whose creativity fascinated him. Looking For Enid: The Mysterious and Inventive Life of Enid Blyton was awarded Saga Magazine’s Grown-Up Award for Non-Fiction in 2007. However, further deterioration in his mum’s health caused by strokes and falls resulted in her moving to a care home and since then Duncan’s writing has focused on Mabel.

Submitted blogposts

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Crispian Jago

Dipping the reason stick in a fresh pile of steaming dog dirt and waving it in the general direction of woo woo.

I am a freelance IT consultant specialising in the development of software test strategies and managing the full software testing of complex systems. I write the satirical skeptical blog, “Science, Reason & Critical Thinking”, and am the co-founder and co-organiser of the Hampshire Skeptics Society and Winchester Skeptics in the Pub.

Submitted blogposts

Other links

Juliet Jacques

Juliet Jacques charts the progress of her gender reassignment process.

I’m a transgender writer, musician and (occasional) footballer from south-east England. I’ve published extensively on film (in Filmwaves, Vertigo and Cineaste) and gender issues, as well as on literature, football, music and art. I’m involved in local LGBT groups, run a post-punk night with a friend, play synthesisers and sing in a Brighton band called Standards of Care and won the Shield with the Brighton Bandits at the 2008 IGLFA World Cup.

Submitted blogposts

Other links

Adam Wagner

Adam is a practising barrister specialising in human rights, public law and medical law at 1 Crown Office Row chambers. He is recommended as a leading junior in the Legal 500.

He is a founding editor of the UK Human Rights Blog, which aims to provide a balanced and non-ideological perspective on human rights law for members of the public and lawyers. He also writes regularly for guardian.co.uk and Legal Week.

Submitted Blogposts

Other links

Catherine Mayer

Catherine Mayer is London Bureau Chief for TIME, covering the U.K. and Ireland, as well as Germany and wider European themes and subjects. She has also worked as Senior Editor for TIME Europe, Middle East and Africa. In November 2010, Mayer received an award for Story of the Year at the 2010 Foreign Press Association Media Awards for her cover story on British Prime Minister David Cameron’s first official visit to the U.S. She has previously worked for Focus magazine, Germany’s leading news weekly; International Management, the journal of European Business; Business Traveller magazine; and The Economist. Her book Amortality: The Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly will be published by Vermilion, an imprint of Random House, in May 2011.

Submitted articles

Other links

Andrew Sparrow

Andrew Sparrow is the senior political correspondent on the Guardian website. He trained as a journalist on the South Wales Echo. Since joining the parliamentary lobby in 1994, he has worked as a political correspondent for Thomson Regional Newspapers, the Western Mail, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.

He has also written a book – Obscure Scribblers: A History of Parliamentary Journalism.

Submitted blogposts

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General election 2010 live blog – Wednesday 28 April

Daniel Hannan

Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.

Submitted blogposts

Other links

Osama Diab

Submitted blogposts published at The Chronikler, Comment is Free, New Statesman and Worldpress.

Osama Diab is an Egyptian-British journalist and blogger who lives between his two favourite metropolises: Cairo and London. He writes about the religious, social, political and human right issues of Egypt and the Middle East.

Submitted blogposts

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David Gardner

David Gardner is the FT‘s international affairs editor and author of Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance. He was the paper’s Middle East editor from 1995-99. In 2003 he won the David Watt prize for political journalism for his writing on the Arab world.

Submitted articles

Other links

Nelson Jones (Heresiarch)

Confined by Lucifer to one of the lower circles of Hell, the Heresiarch nevertheless continues to campaign against all forms of orthodoxy.

Submitted blogposts

Other links

Dan Hodges

Inside Labour politics.

Commissioning Editor of Labour Uncut, and recent addition to the blogging powerhouse of the New Statesman.

Submitted blogposts

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Penny Red

A socialist, feminist, deviant, reprobate, queer, journalist, aspiring author, freelance copywriter and sometime blogger. She lives with toast-eating pagans in a little house somewhere in London out of a small red suitcase, smoking and drinking and plotting to subtly re-arrange the world to suit her ideals. Consumes too much tea. Regrets nothing.

Submitted blogposts

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Amelia Gentleman

Amelia Gentleman writes on social affairs for The Guardian. She was nominated for the Martha Gellhorn journalism award in 2010, as well as being shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. Previously she was New Delhi correspondent for the International Herald Tribune. She won first prize for feature and comment writing in the 2007 Amnesty International Hong Kong Human Rights Press Awards. She won the Ramnath Goenka prize 2007 for best foreign correspondent covering India. Formerly Paris and Moscow correspondent for The Guardian.

Submitted articles

Other links