Bernard Crick

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Sir Bernard Crick (born 16 December 1929) is a British political theorist and democratic socialist whose views are often summarised as "politics is ethics done in public". He seeks to arrive at a "politics of action", as opposed to a "politics of thought" or of ideology.

Bernard Crick was an advisor to British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock during the 1980s. Crick, in 1997, was appointed by his former student, David Blunkett to head up an advisory group on citizenship education, which led to the introduction of citizenship as a core subject in the national curriculum. He authored the 2004 Home Office book Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship, which forms the basis for the new citizenship test required by all people naturalising as British citizens.

Bernard Crick is also a biographer of the novelist and essayist George Orwell. He also set up the Orwell Prize for political journalism.

He taught for a number of years at Birkbeck, University of London. Professor Crick is a Vice-President of the British Humanist Association.

His oldest son Olly is an educator and drama practitioner, who among other things has written a well-received book on Commedia Dell'Arte. His younger son Tom works in international conflict resolution.

[edit] Ideas

According to Crick, the ideologically driven leader practises a form of anti-politics in which the goal is the mobilisation of the populace towards a common end—even on pain of death. Mao Zedong of China said, "Power grows from the barrel of a gun," and Joseph Stalin of Russia said, "The Pope? How many battalions does he control?" Such views, in Crick's estimation, are anti-political, because the speaker seeks to overcome any ethics of his constituency with the threat of violence.

The "political virtues" were an important feature of Crick's classic book, In Defence of Politics; he saw them as an alternative to "ideology" or any "absolute-sounding ethic". They included but were not limited to:


Crick's works include:
The American Science of Politics (1959).
In Defence of Politics (1962).
Political Theory and Practice (1963).
The Reform of Parliament (1964).
Parliament and the people (with Sally Jenkinson) (1966).
Essays on Reform (1967).
Crime, rape and gin: reflections on contemporary attitudes to violence, pornography and addiction (1974).
Essays on political education (with Derek Heater) (1977).
George Orwell: A Life (1982).
Socialist values and time (1984).
Socialism (1987).
 What is Politics? (with Tom Crick).
The Labour Party's aims and values: an unofficial statement (with David Blunkett) (1988).
Essays on Politics and Literature (1989).
Political Thoughts and Polemics (1990).
To make the Parliament of Scotland a model for democracy (with David Miller) (1995).
Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools (aka The Crick Report) (1998).
Crossing Borders: Political Essays (2001).
Democracy: A Very Short Introduction (2002).

He is currently writing a book on The Four Nations of the UK and a history of the journal Political Quarterly.


edited by Crick:
The Commons in transition (with A.H. Hanson) (1970).
The future of the social services (with William Robson) (1970).
Protest and Discontent (1970).
Taxation Policy (with William A. Robson) (1973).
The Discourses by Niccolò Machiavelli (1974).
Political education and political literacy (with Alex Porter) (1978).
Unemployment (1980).
National identities: the constitution of the United Kingdom (1991).
Citizens: towards a citizenship culture (2001).
Education for democratic citizenship (with Andrew Lockyer) (2003).


[edit] References

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External Links.
Online version of Crick's Biography of Orwell
Orwell prize website