Category: History

Breaking the Silence on Brexit

Sir Keir Starmer’s signal that the government will step up its criticism of Brexit feels like the beginning of a gentle but necessary reckoning; a moment when the country is finally invited to name the truth that’s been sitting heavily on us for years. So many promises were made in 2016, and so many of them were built on sand: claims about billions for the NHS, effortless trade deals, frictionless borders, and a world queueing up to prioritise Britain. Those lies shaped expectations, stirred emotions, and pushed people towards a path that hasn’t delivered the renewal or control they were told to expect. Now, with a quieter honesty, the government seems ready to acknowledge that Brexit hasn’t offered the stability or prosperity once promised.

By placing renewed emphasis on repairing relations with Brussels, Labour isn’t trying to reopen old divisions; it’s acting out of pragmatic realism. Closer cooperation with our nearest neighbours offers smoother trade, stronger supply chains, and a steadier economic climate. It also draws a clear contrast with Reform UK’s politics of resentment and retreat.

Hopefully, Labour can offer something steadier: the belief that partnership, shared standards, and respectful dialogue are acts of responsibility, not surrender. Many people who voted Leave weren’t gullible or unthinking; they were hopeful. They wanted a fairer deal, more security, and a sense that life might open up rather than narrow down. When those hopes haven’t been met, people are willing to listen again, as long as they’re met with honesty.

There’s something restorative in this shift, because it gently invites us to stop pretending. We can admit that we’re tired, that isolation hasn’t served us well, and that healing begins with truth. If the government speaks plainly, avoids the lure of easy slogans, and offers a hopeful, cooperative path forward, it may help the country breathe again.

Why is Socialism feared?

The negative portrayal of socialism has deep roots, and it isn’t really about the ideas themselves so much as the stories that have been told about them.

For more than a century, powerful interests have framed socialism as something to be feared, often because it challenges the concentration of wealth and asks hard questions about fairness, community, and economic justice. During the Cold War those fears hardened; western governments, media, and cultural institutions painted anything associated with collective provision as a slippery slope towards authoritarianism. That legacy still lingers, long after the geopolitical context has changed.

There’s also a tendency in public debate to flatten socialism into its worst historical examples. Instead of seeing it as a broad tradition with democratic, ethical, and community-centred strands, people often hear the word and think immediately of failed states or heavy-handed regimes. It’s easier to caricature than to explore nuance, and outrage always travels further than careful explanation.

At the same time modern politics rewards simple binaries. Calls for stronger public services, fair wages, or shared responsibility get bundled together as “socialism”, then dismissed as unrealistic or dangerous, even though many of these ideas already sit quietly at the heart of everyday life: the NHS, public libraries, state education, and the principle that no one should be left behind.

In truth socialism is portrayed pejoratively because it threatens comfortable assumptions. It asks us to look again at how we live together, who benefits, and who’s forgotten, inviting a conversation about compassion, community, and the common good.

Roman Welfare Benefits

It’s easy to imagine the ancient world as hard, unforgiving, and uninterested in the wellbeing of ordinary people, yet the Romans quietly remind us that societies have always wrestled with how to care for those who’re vulnerable. They didn’t have anything like a modern welfare state, but they did understand that a city, and an empire, couldn’t hold together unless people had enough to live on. That sense of shared responsibility feels surprisingly familiar.

In Rome, the annona – the state grain supply – became a lifeline. Huge quantities of grain were shipped in from across the empire and distributed free or at subsidised prices to the city’s poorer citizens. Taxes, rents, and provincial revenues made it possible. It wasn’t simply largesse; it was a recognition that a hungry population breeds unrest, while a fed population can breathe, hope, and build.

Later, under Trajan, the alimenta scheme offered support for orphaned and poor children in Italy. Money from taxes and state-managed loans funded regular payments to help them grow, learn, and thrive. It wasn’t universal, and it certainly wasn’t perfect, but there was a quiet moral thread running through it: children matter, and society can’t flourish if they’re left behind.

Even the emperors’ occasional cash gifts, debt relief, or employment through public works carried the same message. However self-interested those acts were, they revealed an understanding that prosperity isn’t just an individual pursuit; it’s something held in common, something tended and shared.

When you look at it this way, the Romans weren’t just building roads and aqueducts. They were experimenting with the idea that a community should look after its people – an idea that still shapes the choices we make today.

Lancashire Day

Lancashire Day, marked every year on 27 November, is a chance for people across the historic county to recognise and celebrate Lancashire’s heritage. The date commemorates the moment in 1295 when Lancashire first sent representatives to Parliament, which is why it’s often described as the county’s official “birthday”. Today, it’s used as an opportunity to highlight the history, culture, and identity of a region that’s played a significant role in shaping the UK.

Across the county, councils, community groups, and local organisations use Lancashire Day to promote everything from traditional food to local industry. You’ll often hear the official Lancashire Day proclamation read out, affirming loyalty to the county and reminding people of its historic boundaries, which are wider than the present administrative ones. Many residents still take pride in identifying with the traditional county rather than the modern divisions created in the 1970s.

Lancashire’s story is closely tied to the Industrial Revolution, the growth of the textile industry, and the development of seaside towns like Blackpool and Morecambe. Lancashire Day provides a simple way to reflect on these contributions and to acknowledge how the county continues to evolve through education, culture, sport, and innovation.

What stands out about the day is how grounded it is. There are no grand ceremonies; instead, it’s about local pride, a sense of belonging, and an appreciation for the everyday character of the county. Lancashire Day reminds people where the county has come from, and why its identity still matters to so many.

Broken Brexit Britain

Brexit hasn’t just nudged the UK off course, it’s pulled us steadily into a poorer, smaller, and more divided version of ourselves. The promises that once shimmered with confidence have evaporated, leaving us with slower growth, weaker trade, and a constant sense that the country is working harder for less. Businesses have been saddled with paperwork that no one asked for, investment has drifted to Europe, and young people have lost freedoms that older generations took for granted. Prices are higher, opportunities are thinner, and the dream of a nimble, global Britain has shrunk into something far more fragile.

Politically, we were told we’d take back control, yet control is exactly what we’ve lost: influence in Europe, trust in government, and even harmony within our own Union. Scotland feels further away than ever, Northern Ireland remains caught in a web of compromises, and the country as a whole seems stuck in a permanent argument about who we are and where we’re going.

Brexit has left a mark on our national spirit too. It sharpened old divides and opened wounds that still haven’t healed. Most people now see leaving the EU as a mistake, and that quiet shift in mood says everything. This isn’t the confident leap into the world we were promised; it’s a slow unravelling, a sense of potential slipping through our fingers. Britain deserved better than this, and deep down, we know it.

Free Speech Under Threat

It’s hard to ignore the chill that runs through moments like this. A respected historian, Rutger Bregman, delivered a thoughtful lecture for BBC Radio 4, only to discover that a key line had been removed from the broadcast. The line wasn’t inflammatory, nor was it reckless; it was simply his assessment that Donald Trump was “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” When he learnt it had vanished, he said the decision came “from the highest levels within the BBC” and that he was “genuinely dismayed” by the quiet edit.

And honestly, it’s difficult not to share his dismay. Free speech isn’t just threatened by governments or dramatic acts of censorship; sometimes it’s chipped away by small, silent decisions that trim the edges of honest conversation. Public broadcasters should be places where we can hear carefully argued perspectives, especially when they touch on uncomfortable truths. If historians can’t speak plainly about the subjects they study, even when those subjects are controversial, then our collective understanding grows narrower, not richer.

There’s something troubling about the BBC shielding listeners from a historically grounded criticism simply because it mentions a polarising figure. It risks creating a culture in which anything remotely sensitive gets softened, diluted, or cut altogether. And once that happens, we lose more than a sentence about Trump; we lose confidence that open debate is still welcome.

Moments like this remind us how precious free speech is, and how easily it can be lost.

A Truly British Achievement

The early Covid-19 vaccination roll-out was a great UK achievement, not a Brexit one. This is something to celebrate amongst all the failures and mistakes. If we believe the lies (mainly by disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson) we diminish a truly great British achievement.

Brexit didn’t meaningfully enable the UK to roll out Covid-19 vaccines earlier. The UK was still in the post-Brexit transition period in late 2020, which meant it remained under EU rules. Crucially, EU law allowed any member state or transitioning state to issue its own emergency authorisation for medicines. The UK used that existing mechanism through the MHRA. It didn’t need to leave the EU to do so, and countries inside the EU could’ve done the same if they’d chosen to.

Where the UK did move faster was in planning, procurement, and regulatory readiness. The MHRA worked at extraordinary speed, the NHS had a well-organised distribution plan, and the government pre-ordered large quantities of vaccine early. Those advantages came from national decisions and infrastructure, not from Brexit itself.

UK Government Covid-19 Failures

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry concludes that the government’s response in March 2020 was simply too little, too late. It paints a picture of a moment when decisive action was needed and, instead, hesitation allowed the virus to spread unchecked. According to the report, bringing in lockdown just a week earlier would likely have saved around 23,000 lives during the first wave in England. That single week, the inquiry suggests, became the difference between containment and tragedy.

Yet the inquiry goes further, arguing that lockdown might not have been necessary at all if basic measures such as early social distancing and the prompt isolation of those with symptoms had been introduced. The implication is stark: a different approach, taken earlier and with clearer communication, could have altered the entire trajectory of the pandemic’s opening months.

The report also criticises the government for failing to learn from its early mistakes. Missteps that should have prompted urgent reflection weren’t addressed, leading to further avoidable harm during later waves. This failure, the inquiry says, was inexcusable. At the heart of the problem lay what it describes as a toxic and chaotic culture within government, a climate that clouded judgement and made good decision-making harder. It highlights how the leadership of the time, including then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, struggled to confront and correct these challenges.

Taken together, the inquiry’s findings offer a sobering reflection on the cost of delay, confusion, and poor communication at a moment when clarity and courage were needed most.

Whitewashing History

Whitewashing history always begins with a quiet stroke of omission, a gentle brushing-over of the uncomfortable, until the smoothed surface looks almost natural. Yet beneath that surface is the truth: history isn’t tidy, and the stories we inherit are often shaped as much by what’s left out as by what’s included. When nations tell their own story, there’s a temptation to look back with soft light and forgiving eyes, to protect a sense of pride or continuity. But when the past is edited to soothe rather than illuminate, we lose something essential: the ability to recognise the full humanity of those who came before us, and to understand how the present was shaped by their lives, their suffering, and their resilience.

One clear example of history being white-washed is the way many British schoolbooks for decades described the British Empire as a mostly benevolent force that “brought civilization”, while quietly downplaying or ignoring the brutality of colonial rule, the famines exacerbated by imperial policies, the suppression of independence movements, and the economic extraction that enriched Britain at the expense of colonized peoples. This softening of the truth didn’t just distort the past, it also shaped how generations understood power, identity, and responsibility, drifting away from the full, hard reality of what empire actually meant for those who lived under it.

Whitewashing doesn’t always come from malice; often it’s a product of the stories people were themselves told, passed down like heirlooms with cracks unnoticed or unspoken. But good intentions don’t undo the harm. When harmful truths are obscured, the voices of those who suffered are pushed further into the margins. Their experiences become footnotes, or disappear altogether. Without confronting those realities, we risk repeating patterns of inequality and injustice, because we never fully saw them in the first place.

Telling the whole truth doesn’t diminish a nation; it deepens it. It invites humility, maturity, and a more expansive understanding of who “we” are. When we face history honestly, with all its light and shadow, we gain the chance to grow into something better, something truer. And perhaps the most hopeful part of all is that it’s never too late to tell the fuller story, and to listen to the voices that were once left out.