Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 May 9

= May 9 =

Is there any correlation between the areas of Roundhead and Labour support in UK elections?
The Vendee of France, Southern states of USA, Peloponnese of Greece remain the most conservative areas of their nation as part of longterm sociopolitical trends. Perhaps based on very long duree rural/urban divides. In France there is still a direct correlation between Legitimist-Jacobin areas and Socialist-Gaullist areas today.

I was wondering if there was anything like this in the UK? Any correlations between the areas of Roundhead and Cavalier support during the English Civil War and current Labour and Tory constituencies. Likewise in Scotland between areas of Covenantor and Jacobite support and current SNP/ Labour trends. --Gary123 (talk) 00:51, 9 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Not really, except that the larger towns often declared for Parliament, whereas the countryside often stayed loyal to the Crown, which perhaps echoes today's urban support for Labour and rural / suburban Conservatism. The real hotbed of Parliamentarianism was rural East Anglia, which is nowadays mainly Conservative with a hint of LibDem. The main issue in the English Civil War and its Scottish adjunct was chiefly religious, an issue on which (Northern Ireland aside) we seem to be able to rub along pretty well today, perhaps because many people don't really care about it. Alansplodge (talk) 08:51, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Here are the maps, judge for yourself. Bosstopher (talk) 10:39, 9 May 2015 (UTC) 2015UKElectionMap.svg English civil war map 1642 to 1645.JPG

Are there any universities today that have a post-positivist or anti-positivist curriculum for political science?
Positivism is no doubt the most dominant approach in political science. The number of quantitative courses in political science is catching up with that of their qualitative counterparts. Given this trend, are there any schools today that focus almost exclusively on the historical and other qualitative approaches to political science?Rja2015 (talk) 16:10, 9 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Sussex European Institute is pretty critical of positivism.Itsmejudith (talk) 19:00, 9 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Positivism needs a link here. StuRat (talk) 00:24, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

1850 Double "O" Double Eagle
What makes an 1850 "O" a Double "O". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.27.110.45 (talk) 22:08, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * See Liberty Head double eagle for our article on the coin - the "O" on a particular coin indicates it was produced at the New Orleans Mint. Looking through some listings (here, for instance), "Double O" appears to indicate a double-strike, so that the mint mark appears twice on the coin.  Tevildo (talk) 22:56, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * In numismatics, descriptions such as "double O" usually mean a mis-struck coin on which the "O" appears blurry or as if there were two "O"s on top of each other. See these double struck coins for terribly mis-struck coins. Coins described as "double O" or "double 9" usually just show defects in that one letter/digit. It's been a long time since I was active in numismatics, but I do remember 1850 is one of the rarest years for collectible Double Eagles and I don't recall there being a "double O" variety. This PCGS resource doesn't mention any either. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't a few individual coins that may show errors on the "O" still around. It is called a "Double Eagle" because the Eagle (United States coin) was worth $10, so the "Double Eagle" was originally worth $20.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 23:13, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The few listings for "Double-O" Double Eagles that I found were for coins recovered from the wreck of the SS Republic. I'm not sure if this enables a more precise answer to the OP's question. Tevildo (talk) 00:06, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Is England and/or Britain really planning to leave the EU unless they can get more Big Brother laws?
According to, "Cameron has projected ambivalence on the issue, saying he wants the country to remain inside Europe, but only if he can win critical changes to the E.U. charter — changes his European allies have repeatedly said they are unwilling to grant." The article doesn't explain that; searching recent news I found which says "Following the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005, the British shaped an EU data retention directive, adopted the following year, allowing the capture and storage of electronic communications. But last April the European Court of Justice struck down the directive as in breach of the EU’s charter of fundamental rights." (It also talks about Cameron seeking to ban encryption, even Snapchat!)

Is the British leadership, newly ratified by its people, really so dead-set on expanding spying beyond even the current extraordinary state that they would leave the EU to be hindered rid of troublesome constitutional limits? Wnt (talk) 23:08, 9 May 2015 (UTC)


 * By "hindered of" do you mean "rid of" ? And it might just be a negotiating tactic, but the whole point would then be to convince everyone it's not just a bluff, making it difficult for us to know.   StuRat (talk) 00:11, 10 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Per the header on every reference desk We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate. You should know this.  -- Jayron 32 02:05, 10 May 2015 (UTC)


 * The first news article made a statement: "Cameron has projected ambivalence on the issue, saying he wants the country to remain inside Europe, but only if he can win critical changes to the E.U. charter — changes his European allies have repeatedly said they are unwilling to grant." My question is what those changes are.  The article refers to past-tense discussions about them, so they should be known, no crystal ball required. Wnt (talk) 02:58, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The side standing up for freedom to compute and against overweening state presence is &mdash; the EU? God help us. --Trovatore (talk) 03:39, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * See this article from the Daily Telegraph (with a linked video of David Cameron's speech) for his opinions on the subject as expressed last year. The main issues are border controls and immigration, and Parlimentary soveriegnty - although he doesn't mention them explicitly, the two main factors in this area which have raised political hackles recently are prisoner voting rights (see Hirst v United Kingdom (No 2)) and whole-life tariffs, not anti-terrorism legislation specifically.  This article from the Guardian says "[T]he expectation in EU capitals is that the prime minister will unfold his shopping list at a Brussels summit on 21 June." Tevildo (talk) 08:01, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I should recap that the first article cites the following:
 * 1  New controls to stop “vast migrations” across the continent when new countries join the EU;
 * 2  Tighter immigration rules to ensure that migrants come to Britain to work, not as tourists planning to cash in on “free benefits”;
 * 3  A new power for groups of national parliaments to work together to block unwanted European legislation;
 * 4  Businesses to be freed from red tape and “excessive interference” from Brussels, and given access to new markets through “turbo charging” free trade deals with America and Asia;
 * 5  British police and courts liberated from “unnecessary interference” from the European Court of Human Rights;
 * 6  More power “flowing away” from Brussels to Britain and other member states, rather than increasingly centralising laws in the EU;
 * 7  Abolishing the principle of “ever closer union” among EU member states, which Mr Cameron says is “not right for Britain”.
 * So it appears #5 really is to scrap any EU bill of rights, which so far as I know would leave Britain entirely without one. Scrapping the Schengen Area seems to be the gist of 1 and 2.  I don't understand the others as well, but it amazes me that the two best things I know of about the EU are the things he campaigned on getting rid of, and the public supports him on that. Wnt (talk) 12:10, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * AFAIK the Conservative Party under David Cameron wants to replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with a new UK Bill of Rights . Ideally I think the Conservative Party doesn't want the European Convention on Human Rights to be considered at all by the European Court of Human Rights or to be able to ignore it if they do . And Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom may mean the Bill of Rights would have a more limited effect on laws, whatever the talk of entrenchment. So there are concerns over what the new Bill of Rights will actually mean if the Conservative Party get their way (although wikipedia isn't the place to discuss such concerns). But I don't think it's Conservative Party policy to have no bill of rights. Nil Einne (talk) 14:36, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe, though it amazes me that people would support a "To Be Announced" bill of rights. Wnt (talk) 15:24, 10 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Forty years ago it was the Labour government seeking renegotiations and holding an "in/out" referendum. However, the government went on to campaign to remain in what was at that time the EEC, supported by the Conservative opposition, led by Margaret Thatcher. Thincat (talk) 08:26, 10 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, sounds ironic if one doesn't look at the difference, but fourty years ago the idea was a free-trade customs union, not a metastasizing Brusselocracy. Britain has never surrendered monetary sovereignty. μηδείς (talk) 16:31, 10 May 2015 (UTC)