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Sunday round-up 22 June 2025
The Hampstead Tube opens, the title of "Emperor of India" is omitted from the royal style and titles, and St John Fisher and St Thomas More are…
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Eliot Wilson
2
The new National Security Strategy: joining the dots or sleight of hand?
A broad definition of "national security" can show sophisticated policy-making or offer a way to cook the books when it comes to public expenditure…
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Eliot Wilson
Sunday round-up 15 June 2025
Magna Carta is agreed, the Battle of Kosovo is fought, birthday cake for Simon Callow, Noddy Holder, Xi Jinping and Ice Cube and we dance to mark St…
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Eliot Wilson
3
For King and Country: should the British Army accept more Commonwealth recruits?
A leaked memo to Downing Street proposes a tiny increase in the cap on Commonwealth recruits; it will not be transformative but can prompt other…
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Eliot Wilson
Sunday round-up 8 June 2025
Millicent Martin, Nancy Sinatra and Bonnie Tyler walk into a birthday party... and marking the Viking raid on Lindisfarne, St Jadwiga's Day and French…
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Eliot Wilson
1
Defence digest: SDR round-up, Finland and nuclear weapons
A compendium of views on the Strategic Defence Review, and two other, related items of defence news which should not be swamped by the main event
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Eliot Wilson
Parliamentary control of the armed forces: theory and practice
The authority may be nominal in current practice, but Parliament's support for government policy and expenditure is essential and ministers should…
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Eliot Wilson
Sunday round-up 1 June 2025
Birthdays for Morgan Freeman, Brian Cox and the "Son of Sam", Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen and Adolf Eichmann is executed
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Eliot Wilson
2
Digest: Trump's empty seats, and making our own steel
The President has only filled a minority of senior federal positions after for months in office; and we cannot debate state protection for vital…
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Eliot Wilson
2
Sunday round-up 25 May 2025
The anniversary of the Edict of Worms, the resignation of the last Lord Protector and the return to England of Charles II & birthdays for Ian McKellen…
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Eliot Wilson
2
Reflections: David Lammy, the centre-right in France and a new Anglo-German missile
Three disparate stories from the past fortnight corralled so that neither I nor any interested readers let them go unmarked
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Eliot Wilson
3
Military leadership beyond the SDR
The Strategic Defence Review will be published imminently, and the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, is due to retire in the autumn
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Eliot Wilson
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