New Unions for Old

Author(s):  
Neil MacCormick

This chapter recommends a reversion from the 1707 Union of Parliaments to the 1603 Union of Crowns (though not of governments). Its argument is originally submitted to the joint attention of the Royal Society and the British Academy on a date very close to 5 November 2003. James succeeded in preserving peace in the islands during his long reign — long in England itself, longer yet in Scotland. In Westminster as well as Edinburgh and elsewhere, real power has come to be invested in parliaments, and thus in the governments that command parliamentary majorities through the dominance of political parties. The UK system works so long as party ties make more or less unquestioned the loyalty of the head of a devolved Scottish government to the head of the United Kingdom government. Generally, the present contribution is offered primarily as a scholarly, not a political one. It is enough if it has sketched grounds for taking seriously the question what ‘new unions for old’ might mean.

Author(s):  
Jan Misiuna

The paper compares the systems of financing political parties in France, Germany and the UK. The analysis concentrates on effectiveness of collecting contributions, dependency on large donors for providing funds for financing election campaigns and daily operation of political parties, and the level of transparency of finances of political parties. The final conclusion is that only introducing limits on expenditures on election campaigns allows to keep the costs of election campaigns and political parties at a low level, while mandatory common accounting standards and public access to financial information is necessary to preserve transparency of finances of political parties.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Rowbottom

Shortly after the 2010 general election in the United Kingdom, the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government promised to reform the way British political parties are financed and ‘to remove big money from politics’. Such promises are not new, and in the last decade there has been no shortage of legislative action on party funding. The problem has been that the laws failed to address some of the biggest concerns about money in politics, and that the political actors found strategies to avoid the controls. Looking at the UK approach, this article aims to give an overview of the controls in place, while highlighting some of the main difficulties experienced. While the UK laws have some differences compared with those proposed in New Zealand (particularly in relation to third-party activity), there is much common ground and the British experience may offer some lessons and show some of the pitfalls in regulating political finance. 


Author(s):  
Neal Ascherson

In the context of Brexit, it is easy to see Scottish government as a model of consistency and stability whilst the UK government displays the opposite. This is a false impression, with Scottish politics dominated by the constitutional question. One view is that Scotland’s constitutional journey can end only with independence; that would be excessively teleological. Devolution has revived distinctive ‘European’ features in Scottish constitutional thinking as political relations between London and Edinburgh grow less consensual. This is incompatible with the archaic English doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, an inconsistency which hardly mattered until devolution. Harder to measure has been the quiet, continuing sundering of ‘Britishness’ in civil society. Independence, in short, remains a serious option. It is which the voters in 2014 chose not to select. But it is probable that they will be offered that choice again, in the not-distant future, in different circumstances. There can be no going back from devolution. But going forward from it could make the United Kingdom unrecognizable and project the old ‘British’ nations—England included—into a more modern and flexible relationship.


BJHS Themes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 99-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID SKINNER ◽  
MATTHIAS WIENROTH

AbstractBetween December 2012 and September 2013 the United Kingdom government oversaw one of the largest destructions of a collection of human-derived samples ever conducted. Approximately 7,753,000 DNA samples and 1,766,000 DNA computerized profiles associated with the UK's policing National DNA Database (NDNAD) were destroyed or deleted. This paper considers this moment of exceptional erasure and the consequent implementation of new processes for routinely discarding and keeping samples and their associated computer records. It is divided into two parts. The first discusses the rapid growth of the NDNAD; the changing legal, ethical and political landscape within which it was promoted and contested; and the developments that led to the decision to limit its scope. The second shifts focus to the operational challenge of implementing the destruction of samples and deletion of records. The NDNAD case allows us to examine the labour and continuing uncertainties involved in erasure of biological data and the emerging norms and practices associated with collecting DNA in differing formats. It also sheds new light on the importance, interconnection and ongoing instability of the ethical and practical biovalue of genetic collections: as the paper argues, far from ending the NDNAD, a more rigorous regime of erasure has helped, for the moment at least, to secure its future.


2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Morelli ◽  
Paul Seaman

The Scottish National Party led Scottish Government has identified household poverty as a key focus for its anti-poverty strategy. The government's ‘Solidarity Target’ seeks to both increase wealth and increase the share of total income gained by the bottom three deciles. The ability to demonstrate the advantages of policy divergence within Scotland, relative to the other parts of the United Kingdom, is central to the government's aim of gaining support for increased powers for the devolved government. This paper seeks to provide evidence on one aspect of the government's anti-poverty strategy: the degree to which Scotland differs from the rest of the UK over levels of entrenched poverty. The paper demonstrates that not only does Scotland have greater entrenched poverty but that the changes in mobility since the 1990s have impacted on Scotland to a lesser degree than the rest of the UK.


Until 2019, TBE was considered only to be an imported disease to the United Kingdom. In that year, evidence became available that the TBEV is likely circulating in the country1,2 and a first “probable case” of TBE originating in the UK was reported.3 In addition to TBEV, louping ill virus (LIV), a member of the TBEV-serocomplex, is also endemic in parts of the UK. Reports of clinical disease caused by LIV in livestock are mainly from Scotland, parts of North and South West England and Wales.4


2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. LUCAS

Shortly before he died, John Lindley decided to dispose of his herbarium and botanical library. He sold his orchid herbarium to the United Kingdom government for deposit at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and then offered his library and the remainder of his herbarium to Ferdinand Mueller in Melbourne. On his behalf, Joseph Hooker had earlier unsuccessfully offered the library and remnant herbarium to the University of Sydney, using the good offices of Sir Charles Nicholson. Although neither the University of Sydney nor Mueller was able to raise the necessary funds to purchase either collection, the correspondence allows a reconstruction of a catalogue of Lindley's library, and poses some questions about Joseph Hooker's motives in attempting to dispose of Lindley's material outside the United Kingdom. The final disposal of the herbarium to Cambridge and previous analyses of the purchase of his Library for the Royal Horticultural Society are discussed. A list of the works from Lindley's library offered for sale to Australia is appended.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Nooriha Abdullah ◽  
Darinka Asenova ◽  
Stephen J. Bailey

The aim of this paper is to analyse the risk transfer issue in Public Private Partnership/Private Finance Initiative (PPP/PFI) procurement documents in the United Kingdom (UK) and Malaysia. It utilises qualitative research methods using documentation and interviews for data collection. The UK documents (guidelines and contracts) identify the risks related to this form of public procurement of services and makeexplicittheappropriateallocation of those risks between the public and the private sector PPP/PFI partners and so the types of risks each party should bear. However, in Malaysia, such allocation of risks was not mentioned in PPP/PFI guidelines. Hence, a question arises regarding whether risk transfer exists in Malaysian PPP/PFI projects, whether in contracts or by other means. This research question is the rationale for the comparative analysis ofdocumentsand practicesrelatingtorisk transfer in the PPP/PFI procurements in both countries. The results clarify risk-related issues that arise in implementing PPP/PFI procurement in Malaysia, in particular how risk is conceptualised, recognised and allocated (whether explicitly or implicitly), whether or not that allocation is intended to achieve optimum risk transfer, and so the implications forachievement ofvalue for moneyor other such objectivesinPPP/PFI.


2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (48) ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

The Health Protection Agency Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre for England and Wales and others have reported that the number of people living with HIV in the UK has increased


1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 709-715
Author(s):  
M. J. Rouse

This paper covers the approach taken by WRc to the practical application of research results. WRc works on an annual programme of research paid for collectively by the UK water utilities totalling ₤15m. In addition contract research is carried out for government largely on environmental matters and for utilities and others on a confidential basis. The approach to the implementation described here deals with the application of results across the whole of the United Kingdom where there are a large number of users of the results but with varying degrees of interest in any particular topic. The requirement is to inform all of the outcome of the work and then to provide the facility of rapid implementation for those who have an immediate requirement to apply the new knowledge and technology.


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