“They were just Shadows and Whispers in the Night”

In September 1944 the 23rd Canadian Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers, was attached to 43rd (Wessex) Division of British 30 Corps. It was to support that division’s proposed assault across the Rhine to relieve 1st British Airborne Division in the Arnhem bridgehead. On the morning of 25 September, Major M.L. Tucker, the officer commanding the 23rd Field Company, was called to an Orders Group. The decision to evacuate the remaining airborne troops had been made and Major Tucker was told the Canadians should use their stormboats for the operation. They were given no additional resources for carrying, off-loading or assisting the men evacuated, presumably because no one believed that large numbers of men could be rescued. Major Tucker and Lieutenant R.S. Kennedy went forward to recce the area and subsequently Lieutenant Kennedy and Lieutenant Tate located two sites northeast of Driel where stormboats could be launched. Fourteen stormboats and 17 Evinrude outboard motors were available and 10 Field Park Company provided 12 fitters and equipment repairers who proved invaluable. Major Tucker was told that Oosterbeek Church, directly across the river from the launching site, was the centre of the airborne bridgehead. The first stormboat was to be on the north side of the river by 2140 that night. Major Tucker’s account of that incredible night was written on 30 September 1944

Creative Freedom

Undergraduate 2-

Parliamentary questions and the probability of reelection in the UK House of Commons

Members of worldwide parliaments partake in debates, where they have the opportunity to hold governments to account by asking pre-submitted questions. The UK House of Commons uses a ballot system to determine which members are selected to ask a question from those who expressed an interest in doing so. This paper is the first in the literature to exploit this randomization to show that the asking of such questions increases a member’s chances of being reelected by their constituents. It is shown that while the ordering of parliamentary questions is determined at random, the practicalities of conducting debates introduce a potentially endogenous element to the determination of which questions receive oral answers (particularly the speed at which questions are answered). This paper uses a matched sampling approach to cope with such non-random cases, but also includes alternative results, to show that the findings are not reliant on the use of this technique

Laboratories of Reform: Virtual High Schools and Innovation in Public Education

Virtual schools are growing rapidly, serving over 700,000 students in the 2005-06 school year. But these schools are proving to be more than just another delivery system for students; they are bringing about reforms that have long eluded traditional public schools

Collective action framing genetic engineering resistance in New Zealand

The genetic engineering resistance movement in New Zealand constructed strategic and meaningful interpretations of why the genetic engineering technique is problematic and what can be done about it. There are four central interpretations – explored here as collective action frames – that were used by key movement activists in their mobilisation activities. These four frames describe genetic engineering as ‘involving a wide range of issues’, ‘risky’, ‘unnatural’ and as ‘all about the ownership of life’. The characteristics of these frames are explained in this paper, along with an analysis of why it is that activists were able to achieve widespread resonance through their deployment of them. The successful framing and articulation of movement grievances is a critical movement activity for engagement of civil society in issues of great importance