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<em>Vale, Pia Regina</em>: Queen Elizabeth II, RIP

John Byron Kuhner pays tribute to Queen Elizabeth II as an exemplar of pietas -- not piety in the strictly religious sense, but dutifulness, after the fashion of Aeneas, hero of Vergil's Aeneid, the epic journey of the founder of Rome from the ashes of Troy. It is generally acknowledged...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 15, 2022 6:07 PM

First-past-the-post vs. proportional representation

Chris Medlock used to make the point that in America, coalitions are formed before the election, while in countries with proportional representation, they happen after the voters have had their say. Giles Fraser considers the UK's decisive December election alongside Israel's third election in a year and explains why this...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 2, 2020 12:15 PM

UK Elections 2019

The United Kingdom will hold a general election tomorrow, Thursday, December 12, 2019. All 650 seats in the House of Commons, the popularly-elected house of the national legislature, will be on the ballot. Voters cast a ballot only for their local Member of Parliament (MP), but the leader of the...

Posted by Michael Bates on December 11, 2019 10:17 PM

Will Boris's Brexit deal pass? Should it?

Just two weeks ahead of the October 31, 2019, date of the UK's departure from the European Union, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come back from Brussels with a new treaty that removes indefinite EU control over UK regulations and customs, eliminates fears of a hard border between the UK...

Posted by Michael Bates on October 17, 2019 11:23 PM

Scotland's independence referendum

Polls are now closed in Scotland, but it will be several hours until all the votes are counted in the referendum to decide whether its 307-year-old membership in the United Kingdom will be dissolved in favor of independence. The question on the ballot is simple: "Should Scotland be an independent...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 18, 2014 5:11 PM