A Downward Spiral?: Combating Paranoia

Paranoia ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Freeman ◽  
Jason Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Inner City ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Front Page ◽  
The Sun ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Social Breakdown ◽  
Murder Victims ◽  
Downward Spiral

This cri de coeur appeared on the front page of the Sun, Britain’s top-selling newspaper, on 21 January 2008. The previous week had seen the conviction of the killers of 47-year-old Garry Newlove. Late on the night of 10 August 2007, Newlove had heard noises outside his home in Warrington, a Lancashire town previously best-remembered for being the unlikely target of two IRA bombs in 1993. He confronted a gang of drunken teenagers, who promptly punched and kicked him to death. The outraged lament on the Sun’s front page was in fact quoted from a letter to the paper from one Dr Stuart Newton, a former head teacher. And forming a melancholy border around his words were the faces of fifteen high-profile murder victims. The message was unmistakable, conveyed with the newspaper’s usual clarity: the country is going to the dogs; the streets are not safe for respectable folk to walk; our youth is out of control. ‘In parts of our country there is social breakdown. Society stops at the front door of our house and the streets have been lost and we’ve got to reclaim them’, agreed Conservative Party leader David Cameron. And the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, confessed that she felt uncomfortable walking in London after dark (her words, explained an official, ‘hadn’t come out as she had intended’ and, by way of proof, Ms Smith had recently gone so far as to purchase a kebab on the inner-city streets of Peckham). But where, you might wonder, is the news in all this? The reference to ‘feral youths’ is distinctively contemporary (rampaging teenagers being, as it were, one of the foul flavours of our day). But has there ever been a time when newspapers—and perhaps indeed the rest of us too—haven’t been decrying the ‘downward spiral of Britain’? The fact that one of the faces staring out from the Sun’s front page is that of Stephen Lawrence, stabbed to death in a racist attack in south London in April 1993—fifteen years ago—can be read as a discreet allusion to the timelessness of this nostalgia for a better, safer world.

UK prime minister will likely remain in power for now

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Consumer Confidence ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
The Eu

Significance As many as a dozen lockdown parties are now alleged to have been held at Downing Street, significantly damaging Johnson’s support among the public and his Conservative Party. His position as party leader and prime minister is gravely threatened. Impacts Johnson’s domestic troubles, coupled with rising economic concerns, increase the chance of an agreement with the EU over Northern Ireland. Disillusionment with Johnson, opposition to net-zero and culture wars open the door for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party to revive its appeal. Rising inflation threatens to undermine consumer confidence and slow the economic recovery over the coming year.

Britain of David Cameron

2012 ◽  
pp. 81-88
Author(s):  
A. Terentiev
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
The Past ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
The One

A year ago the era of the Laborist’s ruling has ended in Britain. As a result of the one of the most intensive campaign over the past decade in Downing Street residence was the leader of the Conservative party. David Cameron's Britain is seen the author as the antipode to Brown’s one. According to experts, the two politicians are opposite directions of British political culture: an epicurean and puritanical. The author analyses the determinants of the coming to power of the Conservatives, the personal qualities of the new leader, the main directions of his domestic and foreign policies, including the prospects of relations with Russia.

scholarly journals Interview with Guido Rings: “We need intercultural solidarity if we want to survive and prosper in a world hit by ultranationalism”

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Stephen Trinder
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
The Other ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Far Right ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Vice Chair ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Executive Agency ◽  
The Eu

As a master’s and Ph.D. student at Anglia Ruskin University in 2011, I recall the central message in lectures given by my eventual Ph.D. supervisor Professor Guido Rings was that we cannot underestimate the enduring strength of the legacy of colonialism in Europe and its influence on shaping contemporary attitudes towards immigration. Indeed, as I was completing my studies, I became increasingly aware of the negative rhetoric towards migrants in politics and right-wing press. In an attempt to placate the far-right of his party and address a growing threat from the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a discourse of ‘othernising’ migrants on the basis of their supposed rejection of ‘Britishness’ from former UK Prime Minister David Cameron in particular caught my attention. The result of this was tightening of immigration regulations, which culminated of course in the now-infamous Brexit vote of 2016. Almost a decade after my graduation, Professor Rings is currently Vice Chair for the Research Executive Agency of the European Commission and continues to work at Anglia Ruskin University at the level of Ph.D. supervisor. He still publishes widely in the field of Migration Studies and his recent high-profile book The Other in Contemporary Migrant Cinema (Routledge, 2016) and editorships in the fields of culture and identity (iMex Interdisciplinario Mexico) argue for increased intercultural solidarity in Europe as well as a strengthening of supranational organizations like the EU and the UN to offset growing nationalism. I got in touch with Professor Rings to find out where he feels Europe stands today with regard to migration and get his comments on the continued rise of nationalism on the continent.

Gambling with the electorate

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Nicholas Allen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
The European Union ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Theresa May

This chapter charts the story of the Conservatives in government between 2015 and 2017. It examines why David Cameron called a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, why Theresa May succeeded him as prime minister, and why May decided to call a snap election in the spring of 2017. It locates these decisions against deep and bitter divisions within the Conservative party over the issue of EU membership, and further examines the broader record of the Conservatives in government. Above all, it seeks to explain how both prime ministers both came to gamble their fortunes on the electorate – and lose.

‘Fill a bag and feed a family’: the miners’ strike and its supporters

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maroula Joannou
Keyword(s):  
Inner City ◽  
Support Groups ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Mining Communities ◽  
Mining Areas ◽  
Peace Activists

The 1984-5 Miners’ Strike drew upon an exceedingly broad basis of support from representatives of the churches and trade unions to environmentalists, feminists, students, anti-nuclear campaigners, peace activists and inner city radicals. The strike was sustained by an extensive network of miners’ support groups working closely with the mining communities. This chapter analysis the composition, methods and effectiveness of the groups which raised prodigious amounts of money. By emphasising their gender and sexuality, Women Against Pit Closures and Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners presented a substantive challenge to the chauvinistic attitudes of the coalfields. Working-class women’s activism drew upon equal rights traditions established in the mining areas between the wars. The support demonstrated by some trade unions and individual trade unionists is contrasted to the equivocation of the TUC and the support offered by the Communist Party (despite its internal divisions) and by many Labour authorities, councillors and constituency Labour Parties which contrasted with the position taken by Neil Kinnock as Labour Party leader.

A Tale of Two Nationalisms: Scottish Nationalism and Unionism in the Age of Disruption

2020 ◽  
pp. 182-192
Author(s):  
Gerry Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Conservative Party ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Scottish Politics

Scottish nationalism and Scottish Tory unionism are generally accepted as two irreconcilable forces. This chapter by Gerry Hassan argues that while this might be how both movements wish to see themselves, the reality is more nuanced. It argues that for much of Scotland’s existence as part of the Union, these supposedly opposing forces have actually coalesced in what has been called ‘unionist-nationalism’, a politics of autonomy and distinctiveness within the union. Hassan’s chapter further explores the limitations of this bifurcation of Scottish politics, as well as the shortcomings of the politics it articulates in the context of Ruth Davidson’s eight-year tenure as Scottish Conservative Party leader. It assesses how her leadership was perceived in this framework and what the party’s future prospects might be.

An end to promises? 1964–1979

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-154
Author(s):  
David Thackeray ◽  
Richard Toye
Keyword(s):  
Crisis Management ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
New Right ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
State Expansion ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Poor Outcomes

While the 1964 election marked a high point in confidence in state-led modernization, by the 1970s there was a widespread loss of faith in the ability of governments to deliver on their promises. Long-term planning was replaced by short-term crisis management. The Scottish and Welsh nationalists and the Liberal Party created the authority of the Westminster duopoly, reinvigorating the local campaign with their ‘pavement politics’. However, the New Right was the main beneficiary of this crisis. As Conservative Party leader from 1975, Margaret Thatcher believed that politics had been debased by parties competing for power by making promises of state expansion and greater public spending which were unrealistic and led to poor outcomes. Thatcher based the Conservatives’ 1979 manifesto around a small number of pledges, reviving the anti-promise rhetoric which had been key to Baldwin’s appeal in the 1920s and 1930s.

Media reporting of suicide and adherence to media guidelines

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 536-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niall McTernan ◽  
Ailbhe Spillane ◽  
Grace Cully ◽  
Eimear Cusack ◽  
Theresa O’Reilly ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Suicidal Behaviour ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Codes Of Conduct ◽  
Front Page ◽  
Quality Of Reporting ◽  
Media Reporting ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Suicide Note ◽  
The Media

Background: International research consistently shows evidence for an association between sensationalised and detailed media reporting, and suicidal behaviour. Aim: This study examined the quality of media reporting of suicide and adherence to media guidelines in Ireland. Methods: In accordance with the criteria outlined in the media guidelines for reporting suicide, 243 media articles were screened and analysed for quality of reporting of two high-profile cases of suicide and two cases of suicide that became high profile following a period of intense media coverage that occurred between September 2009 and December 2012. Results: A minority of articles breached the media guidelines in relation to sensationalised language (11.8%), placement of reports on the front page of the newspaper (9.5%), publishing of inappropriate photographs (4.2%) and mention of location of suicide (2.4%), while no articles disclosed the contents of a suicide note. However, in the majority of articles analysed, journalists did not refer to appropriate support services for people vulnerable to, and at risk of suicide (75.8%) or mention wider issues that are related to suicidal behaviour (53.8%). Overemphasis of community grief (48.3%) was also common. Nearly all articles (99.2%) breached at least one guideline and 58.9% of articles breached three or more guidelines. Conclusion: Overall, adherence to media guidelines on reporting suicide in Ireland improved in certain key areas from September 2009 until December 2012. Nonetheless, important challenges remain. Increased monitoring by media monitoring agencies, regulators and government departments is required. Implementation should be conducted using a pro-active approach and form part of the curriculum of journalists and editors. The inclusion of guidelines for the reporting of suicidal behaviour in press codes of conduct for journalists warrants consideration.

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