I nearly forgot to mention...

What's the good of a blog if one can't use it to blow one's own trumpet?

So I should mention that while this blog was on sabbatical my first full-length research article was published in the journal Parliamentary History. Entitled 'Empire, Patriotism and the Working-Class Electorate: The 1900 General Election in the Battersea Constituency', it is intended as a contribution to the debate on how important a factor the South African war was in the Conservative/Unionist victory in that election. Broadly speaking, it concludes that it was indeed important, and disagrees with those historians who have sought to play down its significance.

This is in many ways an uncomfortable argument to make for someone of my Liberal, cosmopolitan and pacific view. But then, as Liberal Democrats are being all too forcefully reminded in the present day, political realities are often not as one would ideally like them to be.

Sadly, for those readers who can barely contain their excitement, the full text is not available online, or at least not without paying for it. But the printed journal will be available in academic (and perhaps some public) libraries and can also be accessed via the Academic Search Complete database, which many libraries subscribe to. Alternatively, I have a couple of remaining offprints that I could send you on a first-come, first-served basis - but don't get trampled underfoot in the rush!