A message from the Chair
Officially the centenary of The Round Table journal (started in the Edwardian era) did not start until 2010. But the preparations, started ahead of time.
And I thought it would be good to provide a monthly update for readers and supporters of our journal, starting in July 2009 after my re-election for a final year as Chair of the editorial advisory board, (known since the early twentieth century as the Moot).
Richard Bourne
View the messages by selecting any of the links below:
May 2010
So the United Kingdom, one of the 54 member states of the Commonwealth, has acquired a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. After a first-past-the-post election in which no party had a majority, the politicians have quite quickly created the first coalition since Churchill's in wartime.
In India, widely-spread coalitions have been the norm for decades, and New Zealand has had them since switching to a more proportional system of voting. But the changes in the UK, along with clear irritation with previous ways of doing politics, challenge the adversarial, first-past-the-post systems with which many Commonwealth countries, particularly in the Caribbean, were endowed at independence.
The idea that democracy is a work in progress, which can change direction suddenly, will be explored at a major Round Table centenary conference from 23-25 June 2010, at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Two patrons of the centenary, Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma and Chief Emeka Anyaoku, will be among a galaxy of participants; those who sign up will also get a year's subscription to the journal, and be invited to a discussion at London University's Senate House, on the afternoon of Tuesday 22 June 2010, to consider the formation of a scholarly network in this field.
The new Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in the UK, William Hague, has made enthusiastic speeches about the Commonwealth in the past. In 1997 Labour's new Foreign Minister, the late Robin Cook, described the Commonwealth as one of the four pillars of British foreign policy. It will be interesting to see whether the new UK government fulfils its Commonwealth promises more imaginatively. One difference this time is that a senior Liberal Democrat Minister - Vince Cable who was special economic adviser to the Commonwealth Secretariat in Sonny Ramphal's day - can bring an informed Commonwealth perspective to the cabinet table.
Richard Bourne