Negotiations leading to Anglo-Polish agreement of 31 March 1939

1956 ◽  
Vol 10 (38) ◽  
pp. 156-192
Author(s):  
T. Desmond Williams

By March 21 the British prime minister had discovered that, owing to difficulties raised by Poland and Russia, as well as by Rumania, it would be impossible to secure the support of all the four great powers for the declaration he had suggested on March 20. Chamberlain accordingly altered his course, and on the same day, through Halifax, threw out the suggestion of a bilateral arrangement for mutual consultation between Britain and Poland. The foreign secretary had a long discussion with Count Raczynski, who had received instructions from Warsaw to inform London of Polish objections to the proposed four-power declaration.

1985 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Harvey Cox

THE PROVISIONAL IRA'S ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THE BRITISH Prime Minister and Cabinet at Brighton on 12 October 1984, represents the most dramatic move to date in a reputedly 20-year strategy of inducing the British to withdraw from Northern Ireland and leave Ireland to the Irish. Where nonviolent Irish nationalists have aimed, most notably through the New Ireland Forum Report published in May 1984, to persuade the British that the 1920 constitutional settlement dividing Ireland is inherently unstable and must be dismantled, the Provisional IRA has no faith in this course of action. The British, they calculate, will be persuaded not by the force of argument but by the argument of force. In this they can claim, with some justification, to be the true heirs of the Easter Rising of 1916. At that time the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which was to become the basic document of Irish republicanism, declared ‘… the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible’. Since the 1916 Proclamation was ratified by the first subsequent meeting of elected representatives of the Irish people, the first Dáil Eireann, in 1919, representing virtually all but the Ulster unionist minority, and since the right and the aspiration to Irish unity have been reaffirmed by all non-unionist Irish parties ever since, it must be a truth universally acknowledged that the division of Ireland is unjust and undemocratic and that the reunification of the country is the rightful aspiration of the great majority of its people.


Author(s):  
Alexandra Gerena Cubbon

Winston Churchill was British Prime Minister twice during his eventful political career. Churchill initially served the British Empire as a soldier in the Caribbean, India, and Africa during the imperial wars of the 1890s. His political service began in Parliament in May 1904 when he joined the Liberal Party and became undersecretary at the Colonial Office (1905). Prime Minister Herbert Asquith promoted Churchill to the Home Office and, in 1911, appointed him First Lord of the Admiralty. After briefly resigning from politics, Churchill returned in 1917 as an ardent anti-communist, joining the Conservatives in 1924, the year he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty following the outbreak of World War II and became Prime Minister for the first time in May 1940. As Prime Minister during the war, Churchill relied on vigorous nationalist rhetoric to rouse his compatriots against Germany. Although defeated in the general election of 1945, he continued to speak and publish, delivering his famous "iron curtain" speech at Fulton College in Missouri on March 5, 1946. A lifelong anti-communist, he used this particular speech to emphasize the ideological gulf between the democratic, liberty-embracing West and the Soviet Union. Churchill again served as Prime Minister from 1951 until 1955.


2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (2) ◽  
pp. 473-478
Author(s):  
Donald Sassoon

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuliano Bonoli ◽  
Martin Powell

It has been claimed that there is a global Third Way (TW) debate. Giddens (2001: 1) writes that, ‘Across the world left of centre governments are attempting to institute third way programmes – whether or not they favour the term itself. ‘ He claims that there are self-declared third way parties in power in the UK, New Zealand, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, among many other countries. Similarly, according to Blair (2001), the ideas associated with the TW are still the wave of the future for progressive politics. From Latin America to Europe to parts of Asia, TW politics or ‘progressive government’ is exerting a huge influence on global politics. The TW is seen as a trailblazer for a new global social policy, a new model for a new millennium (e.g. McGuire, 1998/9). One of the main blueprints for the new politics (Giddens, 1998) has been translated into many languages. A number of international meetings in Paris and Florence have discussed the TW. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder issued a joint paper, ‘The Third Way/Die Neue Mitte’ (Blair and Schröder, 1999) that was drafted by Peter Mandelson and Bodo Hombach. Hombach's book has been translated into English as ‘The New Centre’ (Hombach, 2000), with a preface by Tony Giddens and an introduction by Mark Leonard.


Pragmatics ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumiko Murata

This paper will examine the misunderstanding between the British and Japanese governments in the interpretation of the letter of apology (according to the British government)/ congratulation (according to the Japanese government) sent by the then Japanese Prime Minister to the then British Prime Minister just before the 50th anniversary of VJ Day in Britain. It will first investigate what the speech act 'apology' entails in these two different discourse communities and then explore how this speech act was differently interpreted on the special occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War by the two former enemy governments according to their respective interests and differing social and political pressures from war veterans and bereaved families. Using a selection of newspaper articles from this period, the paper will illustrate how deeply wider social, political and historical backgrounds can affect the interpretation of linguistic meaning and how the interpretation of an utterance can vary depending on the context. It will also demonstrate how the use of vague expressions and culturally loaded styles could lead to misinterpretation or misunderstanding, referring to the letter written by the then Japanese Prime Minister. The letter was said to have originally been meant to be one of congratulation by the sender but was not interpreted in this way by the receiver. Finally, I will reemphasize the importance of taking the context into consideration in utterance interpretation.


1994 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Arthur

‘Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Man’ . . . in This Case two men, in the unlikely figures of the British Prime Minister, John Major, and the Irish Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds. Neither is a charismatic personality and each presides over a government with more than its fair share of problems. Yet with one leap they have agreed on an issue which removes them from the mundane realities of domestic politics and offers them a place in the sun. Already the Irish Council of the European Movement has awarded Mr Reynolds (alongside the SDLP leader, John Hume ) its ‘Man of the Year’ award. Can a Nobel Peace Prize be far behind? The Prime Minister has not been slow to exploit the huge potential in the peace process. He informed the Commons on the day that the Joint Declaration was signed, 15 December 1993, that when he met the Taoiseach at Downing Street ‘two years ago, we both agreed on the need to work together to try to bring about peace in Northern Ireland and in the Republic . . . we both knew that, after 25 years of killing, we had to make it a personal priority both to seek a permanent end to violence and to establish the basis for a comprehensive and lasting political settlement’.


2019 ◽  
pp. 12-18
Author(s):  
Neil Davidson

Costas Lapavitsas's The Left Case Against the EU (Polity, 2019) is recognized as the leading work advocating Lexit, the left-wing case for Brexit, and for nations leaving the European Union more generally. In light of current Conservative British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's commitment to exit the European Union by October 31, even if it means a no-deal Brexit, the role of the left takes on growing importance. Moreover, this raises issues of the European Union generally, including the dominance of neoliberalism within it and the question of German hegemony. Here, Neil Davidson offers an assessment of Lapavitsas's book.


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