The Birmingham Brief - intelligent thought on policy issues.
- Description
- Much has been written recently about the death of the High Street but should we be so quick to bury it or rather consider what form of resuscitation is needed to revive it?
- Date:
- Thursday 13th December 2012
- Description
- Is there an ideal electorate system? As a recent Birmingham Brief demonstrated, we are often faced with a simple binary choice: do we want 'strong government' which can claim an empowering mandate, or do we want a government that represents, however messily, 'the will of the people'? If we want the former, in the UK at least, we have persisted with a first-past-the-post system. From time-to-time, though, we have had a dark night of the soul, wondered at the fairness of governments' claiming a mandate from a minority of voters actually supporting them, and flirted with alternatives.
- Date:
- Monday 10th December 2012
- Description
- The Catalan secessionist debate can be considered as the resurgence of a long-standing desire by Catalans to assert their national identity by the establishment of a distinct Catalan nation in which their economy, language and culture would not be centrally determined.
- Date:
- Monday 10th December 2012
- Description
- During the course of November, four high-profile votes have taken place: the US presidential election; the Police and Crime Commissioner elections; the vote on women bishops and the EU budget negotiations.
- Date:
- Tuesday 4th December 2012