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5 days ago | 
myemail.constantcontact.com | Matthew Olay |Hal Brands |Bethany Elliott |Mujib Mashal
Quotes of the Day:"The fish never discovers that it lives in water. In fact, since he lives immersed in it, his life goes by without noticing its existence. Similarly, behavior that is normalized in a dominant cultural setting becomes invisible." – Michael Foucalt"Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles."– Fyodor Dostoevsky"Ideology separates us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."– Eugene Ionesco1.
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Jan 15, 2025 | 
newstatesman.com | Bethany Elliott
What are the two most important events in history? I’ve been pondering this since 2009. Asked during my Cambridge entrance interview by a don who was wearing three cardigans at once, I panicked and stumbled upon the death of Lenin (I don’t know why either) and a local government act so obscure that I no longer recall its title. Asked to furnish an explanation, I respectfully declined. It’s nice to retain an air of mystery. The rejection was not entirely surprising.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
newhumanist.org.uk | Bethany Elliott
Battleground Ukraine: From Independence to the War With Russia (Yale University Press) by Adrian Karatnycky
In 1992, a year after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology carried out a study on Ukrainian identity. Just 45.6 per cent of people living in the country identified as citizens of Ukraine, the remainder primarily identified either with their own local regions or the Soviet Union.
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Jul 25, 2024 | 
newstatesman.com | Bethany Elliott
Politics is a Darwinian game, and you know you’ve reached somewhere near the top when you earn the epithet “big beast”. Some of these mighty power brokers are on the prowl at the moment, with the Tory leadership contest now underway. But they’re also in short supply.
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Jul 3, 2024 | 
newstatesman.com | Bethany Elliott
When Brian Donohoe lost Central Ayrshire in 2015, he had a final message for his constituents – “f**k off”.
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Jun 26, 2024 | 
politico.eu | Bethany Elliott
Bethany Elliott is a freelance journalist and is published in Unherd, the Critic, the Fence and the Daily Mash. She’s a regular contributor to BBC radio and television. When Steven Norris was the Conservative MP for Epping Forest in the English county of Essex between 1988 and 1997, his constituents frequently reassured him of their steadfast support for the blue party. “Don’t worry,” he recalled them saying.
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May 28, 2024 | 
politico.eu | Bethany Elliott
Bethany Elliott is a freelance journalist published in outlets like Unherd, the Critic, the Fence and the Daily Mash. He’s a regular contributor on BBC radio and television. After more than a decade in government, the U.K.’s unpopular Conservative Party is languishing in the polls. The Tories are grabbing headlines more through scandal and mishap than any policy announcement, and in the forthcoming election, even the seats of some ministers look to be imperiled.
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Apr 11, 2024 | 
the-fence.com | Fergus Butler-Gallie |Charlotte Ivers |Ed Cumming |Bethany Elliott
Our editor-at-large has spent far too much time at Charing Cross station. ‘It’s the heart of London you know’, I find myself telling people who don’t care. They edge away along sofas, anxious about the quality of my small talk. I press on: ‘They measure all London distances from there I believe.’ I sometimes continue with ‘Go on, tell me where you think the centre of London is.’ It has become a bit of a hobbyhorse of mine, I’ll admit. More than that, Charing Cross has become an awkward friend.
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Apr 8, 2024 | 
the-fence.com | Bethany Elliott |Margaret McCartney
There is an etiquette to streaking. Firstly, no funerals. In 1997, a journalist asked Mark Roberts, the world’s most prolific streaker, to jump naked in front of Princess Diana’s coffin. ‘Do you think I’m a dickhead?’ he replied. That said, with 573 streaks across 30 years under his metaphorical belt and no plans to retire, Roberts is determined to leave this world as he spent his time in it – naked in public.
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Jul 25, 2023 | 
the-fence.com | Joe Bishop |Bethany Elliott |Jimmy McIntosh |Joe Zadeh
Our anonymous insider has spent months in Ukraine, where the LGBT community are still finding ways to hook up as the missiles fall. A town in the Donbas, 40 kilometres from the front line. Pavlo* is a 22-year-old student who was training to be a lawyer at a university in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. He spent the first week of the war in the basement of his dormitory as the Russians pounded the city with artillery. The Russians were routed from Kharkiv’s outskirts.
