Society

The fiercer the fighting for our boys in Basra and Helmand, the more important you may think it is that Britain has a thriving arms industry to supply them. The reasons that this isn’t so can be summed up in one Arabic phrase which translates, ironically, as ‘dove of peace’: Al Yamamah. The fiercer the fighting for our boys in Basra and Helmand, the more important you may think it is that Britain has a thriving arms industry to supply them. The reasons that this isn’t so can be summed up in one Arabic phrase which translates, ironically, as ‘dove of peace’: Al Yamamah. Over the past 20 years, Saudi

This morning, Coffee House heard that the government’s policy of freezing out the Muslim Council of Britain was over and that Hazel Blears had met with representatives of the Muslim Council of Britain at a roundtable on the 8th of August. In response to an inquiry from Coffee House, the Department of Communities and Local Government said that they “don’t give details of private meetings.” However, it will confirm that Hazel Blears met with representatives of a dozen Muslim organisations on that date and will not deny that the MCB was one of those groups. The official line from its spokeswoman is that: “There has been no change in our

John Lloyd has a typically thoughtful op-ed in the FT today about how we should teach history in schools and how we can create a sense of nationhood that fits this post-devolution, multi-ethnic country. Lloyd argues that the problem with Gordon Brown’s belief that an emphasis on liberty, equity and democracy can unite the country is that they are universal ideals not solely British ones.  Lloyd suggests that the way these values could tie the country together is if they are rooted in a sense history. To that end, he thinks we need a new version of the kind of popular, narrative history embodied by Our Island Story. He says that it should start something like this, “Once upon a time, people