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Lee Thompson and eight other soldiers were killed by friendly fire from two United States Air Force A10 aircraft on Feb 27 1991. Thompson's parents have been unable to discover the facts about the accident and both the British and Americans deny responsibility. The incident happened in good visibility and the Warrior armoured transport was clearly marked. Sunblindness may have contributed.

Sixty years ago Europe created a common steel industry. Twenty years later came the first truly common European product, the Airbus. Today the time is right for another: the Eurodrone. [...]

This short novel is one of the most powerful accounts of the horrors of anti-Semitism as it des-cended into mass Jewkilling. It is set not in a Nazi death camp [...]

In my adult life, democracy has done rather well. When I was at university, three nations of Europe - Spain, Portugal and Greece - were all undemocratic. So were South [...]

For much of the post-1945 era it was axiomatic that Europe's centre-right parties were hostile to Russia. Charles De Gaulle frightened France by saying the Red Army was ready to [...]

The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle by Roderick Bailey Jonathan Cape Pounds 25, 416 pages FT bookshop price: Pounds 20 There was a time when what [...]

Will Tony Blair re-enter politics as the European Union's first president? This tantalising idea has been dangled in front of Europe's leaders by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president. Immediately, the [...]

Fiction Robert Harris*s cracking thriller inspired by the Blair years gives us hope that, one day, he will write the defining New Labour novel. By Denis MacShane The Ghost by [...]

Does Washington have a view on the new reform treaty proposed for Europe? To read some of the interventions by neoconservative ideologues such as Irwin Steltzer and John Bolton, in [...]

From Denis MacShane MP. Sir, The 12 stars on a blue background is not a specific EU flag ('The square root of all the European Union's problems', June 12). It [...]

From Denis MacShane MP. Sir, Giuliano Amato's suggestions on how to take forward the next European treaty are sensible ('A better starting point for Europe's constitution debate', January 24). After [...]

Are the gnomes of Frankfurt about to replace their famous cousins in Zurich as a favourite scapegoat for politicians? It would appear so from the opening round of the French [...]

From Denis MacShane MP. Sir, I wish the Conservative party was coming to terms with the European Union as Sir Malcolm Rifkind argues ('In some areas, sovereignty should be shared [...]

Entscheidungen: Mein Leben in der Politik by Gerhard Schroder Hoffman and Campe 125, 512 pages Gerhard Schroder's autobiography is called Decisions: My Life in Politics, and like himself it is [...]

Europe is doing its level best to tell Turkey it is no longer wanted as part of the European Union. It is a high-risk game with little to gain and [...]

The Culture of the Europeans from 1800 to the Present by Donald Sassoon Harper Collins Pounds 30, 1,656 pages It was the movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn who complained after a [...]

From Denis MacShane MP. Sir, I hope the European Union will not seek to gloss over the killing fields of the Western Balkans in the 1990s by allowing Croatia off [...]

Throughout history, intelligence agencies and secret agents are the most easily mocked of public servants. Their necessary secrecy gives rise to sinister interpretations. They have to bribe, seduce, blackmail or [...]

From Denis MacShane MP. Sir, Perhaps Quentin Peel should look a little closer to home when he mistakenly criticises the UK government for not making the case on the European [...]

From Denis MacShane MP. Sir, As someone who lived, worked, paid taxes and had costly health and dental insurance in Switzerland for a number of years, I do not recognise [...]

Has there ever been a period of European history when so many people have been exposed to so much culture involving so many artists? Millions of Europeans and tourists from [...]

Europe's leaders need to produce language and mechanisms to make the European Union speak as one on the world stage. But how? Even before the Iraq crisis there were obvious [...]

From Denis MacShane MP. Sir, In his comment on the government's European policy ('The failure of Blair's European policy', May 6) Quentin Peel raises three complaints. The first is that [...]

The appointment of ardent europhile Denis MacShane as minister for Europe was hailed yesterday by campaigners for the single currency as evidence that Tony Blair may be 'gearing up' for [...]

From Dr Denis MacShane. Sir, Lord Howell is loyal to his party but not true to history (Letters, May 25). Winston Churchill left the Conservative party in 1902 in opposition [...]

From Dr Denis MacShane MP. Sir, Mr John Wilkinson MP argues that Canada would not gain from sharing the US dollar (Letters, August 4). Yet between 1940 and 1970 the [...]

From Mr Denis MacShane MP. Sir, Michael Portillo still does not make clear what his position on the euro is (Letters, May 24). Either it is a matter of principle, [...]

Manufacturing companies are inextricably linked to politics because they are affected by political issues such as the euro, investment, trade regulations and the price of energy.

Issues related to job losses at the steel company, Corus, in Britain are examined in detail.

Lech Walesa brought democracy to Poland in 1980 and ultimately, to the rest of the Communist world. The story of Walesa's struggle to do this is given.

The BBC is showing signs of growing indifference to parliamentary democracy. It has reduced coverage of parliamentary debate, and is thus betraying its long-standing commitment to report parliamentary proceedings adequately. BBC Chmn Sir Christopher Bland feels that it is not the job of the BBC to allow the view of backbench MPs to be heard, but in taking this stance the BBC is also ensuring that government ministers cannot be heard either.

The UK government is seeking to prevent a high-profile debate on the rapid expansion in child labour worldwide. Some large companies are already beginning to draw up codes which theoretically ensure that they do not use child labour, but supervision and enforcement remain extremely difficult. There is also growing consumer awareness of this issue, but again progress remains very slow. The UK government is indifferent to child labour, and is also unwilling to interfere in the sovereignty of other countries.

The increasingly international nature of economic activity has brought serious problems for many companies, and this has prompted some observers to call for a return to protectionism. A better approach would be to focus on outward-looking solidarity, creating codes of ethnical and environmental conduct which would ensure that all companies can compete on the same basis. It is now time for the UK to take a stronger line on the promotion of world social rights and regulations.

Australia provides some useful lessons for the UK Labour Party in that the Labour government elected in 1983 is still in power in 1995, whereas Labour governments in Britain have proved themselves unable to win two or more full terms in power. The Australian Labour Party had an intellectual yet populist leader in Bob Hawke, who, once in office, worked to break the coalition of business, city and media interests that was opposed to it. Hawke built up a partnership with the trade union movement, avoided protectionism, encouraged the intelligentsia, and was an aggressive supporter of human rights.

Employment can affect family life through workers needing to migrate and people working hours that are too long to allow them to see their families. This affects blue and white collar workers. There is inequality both in terms of income and in terms of time. The unemployed have more time, while builders may work an 80 hour week. This has a detrimental effect on society since family life is a type of social cement and without it societies do not hold together.

The link between productivity and wages has disappeared in the US and appears to have been broken in the UK after more than 50 years in which productivity has been crucial to economic growth. Productivity in the UK rose faster than in other OECD nations between 1980 and 1990 but unit labour costs also rose more rapidly. After the second world war, different forms of productivity coalitions based on the notion of productivity-led growth and increased pay were established in democratic capitalist countries. These were mainly based on manufacturing but productivity is much more difficult to measure in service industries.

The idea of a four-day week is beginning to gain favour in Europe as a new pattern of work time. In France, where leading employers support the idea of the four-day week as the best mechanism for cutting unemployment, the Senate has put forward proposals to encourage companies to introduce the four-day week. A vigorous debate on the four-day week has opened up between employers and unions in Belgium and Spain, while Volkswagen in Germany is considering its introduction. Opinion polls in France and Germany indicate that people would be prepared to accept a pay cut of up to 7% in return for a four-day working week.

A report, 'Japanese Automobile Industry in the Future: Towards Coexistence with the World, Consumers and Employees,' published in 1992 by the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers Unions calls for radical changes in the structure and management of the Japanese car industry to ensure its survival. Working hours should be cut, fewer different models should be produced and the industry should commit itself to socially responsible attitudes including coexistence with overseas markets and the adoption of environment-friendly technology.

Motor car manufacture is the most important industry of this century, but although there have recently been interaction and cooperation between companies and standardisation of manufacturing methods, the social or union side of the business in the various countries have moved apart, not together. The Europeans are working on recognising the unions, introducing high technology, and reducing workforces and working hours, the Americans on reduction of union power, worker protection by seniority and work-rules, and the Japanese on total involvement of the workforce, job security and longer hours.