Boris’s new Tudor court

Austen Sanders | Issue 2 | Magazine

From the Archive

tudor

Austen Saunders on why breaking with Europe, the SNP’s rising and Black Lives Matter is turning Britain into a divided, post-Brexit imperial Empire – And expect more waltzing with America...

What is a nation? A familiar and a strange idea, I know what it is until someone asks me. “A nation is the same people living in the same place” says Leopold Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses, “or also living in different places”. Joyce himself left Ireland for good in 1912 when Dublin was still in the United Kingdom and he never took Irish citizenship. Does that make him really a British – rather than an Irish – writer? The idea is provocative, but then ideas of nation often are. When De Gaulle declared himself to have “a certain idea of France” he implied that his idea of France had a unique grandeur to it, tacitly recognizing that there was no single idea France whilst asserting that his was the best. Just as no nation thinks of itself in the same way as its neighbours (although all correctly think they are exceptional), so no two citizens of any country think identically about it. There are as many ideas of France as there are people who think about France, and as many Englands as the...

Subscribe to The Mace

Join the member community shaping British politics and stay ahead of what's really happening in the world of politics and public affairs, with expert analysis, breaking news, and insider insights from Westminster and Brussels. The Mace is the leading news source and resource for the government affairs industry, offering required reading and lobby intelligence for professionals.

To see what you are missing out on by not subscribing to The Mace, click here to download our full membership info-pack. This includes having no paywall on op-ed content or profiles/interviews, allowing professional profiles to be read with maximum impact and visibility by government, special advisers, MPs, peers, civil servants, and policy and political decision-makers.



Erskine: Systems failure

Bernard Jenkin | June 7, 2022

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine proves that the West has been asleep at the switch while he set out his plans in plain sight. How did our systems fail

Dolitics: protecting our armed forces

Dolly Theis | June 6, 2022

There is new and widespread evidence of sexual offences committed against both men and women within the armed forces

The Austrian World Summit

Lucy Kenningham | June 1, 2022

How Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Climate Initiative is opening the doors of environmental conferences to normal people

Podcast dos and don’ts

Lucy Kenningham | May 31, 2022

Politicians are grabbing the microphone by the bucket load in order to "pod". But it's not always a wise move

Creating a digital forum for voters in Germany

Lukas Holter and Christoph Schleifer | May 30, 2022

How CamBuildr works to give campaigners new tools for engaging with voters

Why neutrality is no longer an option for island states

Jeffrey Salim Waheed | May 27, 2022

Vulnerable nations face uncertain futures and complex allegiances in the face of a changing world order

Seven shades of Brown

Arthur Salisbury | May 25, 2022

It might have been written in good faith, but in his new book who is the former PM talking to?

Eastern promise: visiting Azerbaijan

Christopher Silvester | May 23, 2022

Azerbaijan and its capital Baku have become must-visit tourist destinations

With or without EU

Jorge González-Gallarza | May 20, 2022

Did post-imperial syndrome cause Britain to join and then leave the EU?

The Spike: Natasha Sindeyeva

Lucy Kenningham | May 19, 2022

The remarkable story of the exuberant socialite who founded Russia’s only independent television channel