Evolution of the UK State

Last week in our Politics lecture for Journalism we learnt about the evolution of the UK, and something that particularly interested me was the mention of Oliver Cromwell, who is, as Chris liked to describe him, "up there with Hitler". Cromwell was an English military and political leader best known for his involvement in making England into a republican commonwealth, and for later becoming Lord Protector (a head of the state) of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Cromwell was one of the commanders of the New Model Army which defeated the royalists in the English Civil War. He dominated the Commonwealth of England, conquered Ireland and Scotland, and ruled as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death in 1658. His New Model Army was described by Chris as "the Taliban meet the Nazis", leaving what they were like only to the greatest of imaginations.

Another topic in the lecture that I found amusing was the discussion of national days for various countries, for example Independence Day for America. The national day we have is November 5th, bonfire night, of course when Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. It is fairly strange that we would celebrate an event that could have been potentially fatal, and if I may take another quote from the lecture, "burning Catholics...that's what our country's all about." Again it does seem strange that our country's national day is based around an act of conflict, the Catholics vs. the Protestants. Also in this period of 1688, King William of Orange was brought over to Torquay and agreed never to rule without parliament, and agreed he would be a Protestant; this was the Act of Settlement 1688.

Something else that we were told to blog about is Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal, which I will do a separate blog about, so this lecture blog is to be continued...