Two hundred years today the Battle of Waterloo was fought in Belgium which saw Napoleon defeated in battle by the Duke of Wellington and other allies from across Europe. It gave Europe almost a century of peace, incidentally 99 years and just a few miles separated the last British death in the Napoleonic wars and… Continue reading 200 years after Waterloo… the Napoleon small man syndrome!
Tag: Politics
The full text of The Magna Carta
The Ancient Greeks were amongst the first to enjoy very limited freedoms and some found themselves to live without a master. Their great rivals the Persians similarly had equal rights for men and women and all races were free to practice their religion as also occurred in the Maurya Empire of Ancient India. Roman… Continue reading The full text of The Magna Carta
UK General Election – Game of Thrones Style
Today is the day of the U.K. General Election. Voting used to be easy and just a choice between the Conservatives and Labour but these days it has got more longwinded and complicated that a George R R Martin series but without the redeeming features of Khaleesi (we do have dragons on the flag though)… Continue reading UK General Election – Game of Thrones Style
100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
Most of us are familiar with the holocaust in WW2 enacted by Nazi Germany against Jewish people, Gypsies, communists and the mentally ill but this week sees the 100th anniversary of another holocaust or Genocide, the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. Historically The Ottoman Empire had far outshone most European states for centuries in terms of… Continue reading 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
Who to vote for when all the political parties suck?
In the U.K. we have our General Election on 7th May 2015 and whilst I don’t generally blog on politics I thought I’d make an exception given how this election seems to be even more important than usual. I could have titled this post ‘Who to vote for when many of the political parties have good… Continue reading Who to vote for when all the political parties suck?
Time to stop the Police Shoot to Kill policy?
The recent shooting of Walter Scott in the back has made the news not just in South Carolina but around the world and is the latest case of police in the United States seemingly having a low regard for people of a certain colour and for having itchy trigger fingers in general. I’ve been meaning… Continue reading Time to stop the Police Shoot to Kill policy?
Churchill – When a picture is worth a thousand words.
Last weekend I had an interesting tour to Chartwell House, the home of wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. In fact it was something of a family outing as the lovely couple I took there were also Churchills and distantly related to the great man. Obviously it would be impossible to write a single post… Continue reading Churchill – When a picture is worth a thousand words.
A Guided Tour Inside The Houses Of Parliament
The last year or so I have probably visited Parliament a dozen times but always from the outside. I’ve been in before when I was about 10 years and remember bits and pieces of the interior and especially inside the famous clock tower of Big Ben and the unusual scenario of being deafened by the… Continue reading A Guided Tour Inside The Houses Of Parliament
A Brief History of Parliament
On Thursday evening I was kindly invited on a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament by my local MP, Richard Harrington. Before I write-up a post about the tour itself I thought this would give a great opportunity to write a little about Parliament itself. Though there were bodies with some parliamentary like qualities… Continue reading A Brief History of Parliament
Terra Nullius, enclaves & the strange case of Bir Tawil – The land that nobody wants.
When European nations were looking at empire building there were a number of sham reasons used to justify it. Either religious edicts from Rome, pure Ethnocentrism from France (the belief of one race being superior to all others) or in the case of Great Britain Terra Nullius. It was the Romans who first came up… Continue reading Terra Nullius, enclaves & the strange case of Bir Tawil – The land that nobody wants.
Stephen Liddell 