In June 1976, Gay News magazine published a poem that – as the subject of a high profile blasphemy trial a year later – was described as ‘the ultimate in profanity’. Whitehouse v Lemon, the trial in question, exposed Britain’s archaic and obscure blasphemy laws.
The classic BBC comedy owes much of its appeal to its acute observation of the realities of life on Britain’s Home Front.
One 19th-century MP shared the same frustrations with parliamentary procedures as the new leader of the Labour party.
The quest for justice for maligned figures in our past forces us to question the notion of historical truth and objectivity.
The rise of UKIP has spread panic among Britain’s political establishment. But there is nothing new about populist movements, as David Nash reveals in this profile of the newspaper proprietor Horatio Bottomley.
The Chartists’ campaign for political inclusion and social justice ended in failure. But, David Nash argues, their ideas still have much to offer Britain’s discredited Parliamentary system.
Thomas Paine inspired and witnessed the revolutions that gave birth to the United States and destroyed the French monarchy. A genuinely global figure, he anticipated modern ideas on human rights, atheism and rationalism.
David Nash argues that opposition to the Second Boer War began the tradition of peace politics that has flourished through the twentieth century.
David Nash explores the movement for moral education that attracted quite a following at the turn of the century, and draws some parallels with today's emphasis on 'good citizenship'
David Nash on how Victorian arguments about design in the universe echo in science-theology debates today.
