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• A new race Cold War? You would be forgiven for thinking that I'm talking about the fallout from the Beijing Olympics torch relay, but in fact I am referring to a speech being delivered today by Trevor Philips to mark the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech. Philips argues that Powell was wrong to predict a 'hot war' between races, but that the UK instead now faces the emergence of a 'cold war', with relations between different races and ethnic groups at a low.Two points come to mind:First,... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 20th April 2008
• The Commonwealth Gets Teeth The Commonwealth Heads of Government, currently meeting in Uganda, have for once made a good decision. They have (temporarily) booted Pakistan out of the Commonwealth because of the terrible political situation there.So what? You might say. Isn't the Commonwealth just an anacronistic waste of time? Well, for the UK it might not compete with our membership of the G8 or our permanent seat on the UN Security Council. But for many member states of the Commonwealth and their leaders, membership... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 23rd November 2007
• Who's afraid of the Respect Party? I've got an article in this month's Renewal arguing that the government's approach to Britishness (broadly characterised as an attempt to agree upon what we agree upon) needs to focus more on the areas where we disagree. Attempts to 'construct' Britishness in a top down, stage-managed way is producing a vision so content-lite that it is emotionally unengaging. We need to acknowledge the problems and conflicts created by diversity and then work through them together. It's only by embracing the... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 21st September 2007
• Oooooh Vienna.... ......That is where my references to 80s classic pop tunes end! Once again, I find myself in an airport departure lounge after a day of international schmoozing. Todays theme was community-based counter-terrorism at a conference organised by the OECD. I delivered one of the key note speeches. Oh er. And yes, todays venue was, er, Vienna. What was reassuring was the extent to which there seemed to be genuine buy-in for the idea that communities need to be central to our responses to... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 31st May 2007 in Bringing it Home Local Listening Sessions Comments (1)
• 7/7 Public Enquiry in the Dock Yesterday's guilty verdicts for the five 'fertiliser bombers' and the revelation of partial links between them and two of the 7/7 bombers (Kahn and Tanweer) has renewed calls for a public enquiry into the events leading up to the 7/7 bombing. As a fan of greater openess in the area of security, I am supposed to be supportive of such an enquiry. But I'm not. Not because of the substance of what it might show us, and the important precedent it would set in the openess stakes. But because of the... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 1st May 2007 in Bringing it Home Local Listening Sessions Diverting Young People from Extremism Comments (1)
• We're bringing it home... In December, we published Bringing it Home: Community-based approaches to counter-terrorism. Among it's key recommendations were the need for the government to get local in its approach; to talk to a much wider range of individuals and organisations; and to open up safe spaces for dissent, where the real and perceived sources of grievance could be given the air time they need.The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) will publish a new strategy in the coming... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 18th March 2007 in Bringing it Home Local Listening Sessions Diverting Young People from Extremism
• Open Standards for Resilience? I'm in Prague speaking at a NATO conference on what they call in the business 'open standards for resilience'. For those of us not up to speed with the jargon, that's all about the need for non-state actors to do their bit for national resilience (private sector, ngos, communities, citizens, and the like). As I pointed out in my presentation this afternoon, though, it's exactly this kind of jargon that hampers the involvement of non-state actors who haven't grown up in the closeted... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 11th March 2007
• Prioritising Prevention Gordon Brown’s indication that he will make terrorism his first priority as PM may seem welcome given the recent news coverage, but his methods may not be the most effective. His support for tougher anti-terrorism legislation appears to prioritise legislation and police powers over a more community orientated approach to counter terrorism. The widespread reporting of Dame Eliza’s Manningham-Buller’s comments that the security services knew of 30 terror plots facing the UK... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 13th November 2006
• Stop the Press! While we've been in China, a lot of people have made veiled references to the censorship of the press. Mostly, they either assume you know how the system works, or prefer not to get drawn on the subject. Once or twice, interviewees have clearly been worried that we are western press, so we've had to reassure them of our (lack of) credentials. Tonight, however, Sam and I finally got to sit down and have dinner with a journalist (who will remain nameless) who was very generous with her time and... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 15th October 2006 in Cultural Diplomacy
• Life thru a lens Shan Song is an underground film maker in Beijing. By day he writes scripts for government-produced TV dramas, by night he makes films through a collective he set up after film school called 22Film. Sam and I met him yesterday to talk about the ways in which independent film making is bringing about social change in China.The advent of digital cameras and the internet has enabled a generation of young people to make films about themselves, how they live and where they want China to go. They go... continue reading Posted by Rachel Briggs on 13th October 2006 in Cultural Diplomacy

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