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Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

by Denis Joe

It is a strange world that we are living in. Children are encouraged to tell their parents off for smoking or drinking alcohol. There is discussion about lowering the voting age to 16. Conversely, adults are treated more and more like children. Nowhere else is this more noticeable than the forced apology. In 2007 Tony Blair apologised to the Irish people for the potato famine. In 2008 the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologised to all Aborigines for laws and policies that "inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss". David Cameron has apologised for not sounding a warning over the economic crisis in 2008 and for Section 28 in 2009. Then as prime minister he made an apology for Bloody Sunday in 2010, then apologised for Hillsborough and the murder of the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane an act carried out with collusion from the British state.

Y Viva Bulgaria and Green House Gases

by Joanne Green

There is much media speculation of Bulgaria and Romania acquiring entry in to the UK on 1st January 2014. This article attempts to explain how this partnership with the UK can be beneficial to the UK population and in meeting UK Green House Gas emission targets. Evidence includes how the UK embraced its construction and other skills and the culture of other countries during the past 150 years resulting in a cosmopolitan diversity of food, music, fashion, social media and architecture in addition to Green House Gas emission predictions.

House price fears: what's the issue?

by Simon Belt

To be based on this article by James Heartfield

The Class Struggle and House Building

Leaders of all the Westminster political parties are agreed that Britain is failing to build the homes it needs, for households to afford on wages from employment. Though the political class have just woken up to the looming disaster, for decades they have been hostile to renewed house building. The housing shortage is chronic. It was also thought that Britain's high house prices were just an effect of cheap credit and that they would fall after the credit crunch. Even as astute a commentator as John Lanchester based the storyline of his novel Capital on the prediction that prices would fall (1) - but they are higher now than they were in 2008. Rents are following the inflation in house prices. There is simply not enough housing available to buy or rent, let alone "affordably".

FIRST TUESDAY News Reviews from 2013

The First Tuesday discussions on current affairs aim to provide attendees with a way of developing and testing their understanding of a range of current affairs topics; improving their journalistic capabilities so that they can write opinion or comment style articles for the regional or national media or blogs, respond with a thoughtful angle on radio chat shows, TV talk shows or maybe just have an interesting angle to respond at work with.

The topics discussed in November 2013 were:

• Magic: making a comeback? - introduced by Georgina Kirk

• House building and headlines - introduced by Joanne Green