‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated’. These words were written in a cable by the author Mark Twain after his obituary had been mistakenly published. The idea that the left-right binary no longer exists, like the above anecdote, has been deployed ubiquitously. Except…
On Saturday, the chairman of The Spectator Andrew Neil announced that the magazine is hiring as subscriber numbers had increased to over 85,000 monthly paying readers. In the wake of media organisations like the Guardian and BBC announcing that they were cutting jobs, the fact…
Liberal Democrats are voting in a leadership election that concludes on 26 August. The contest could have easily eluded devoted politicos. Running during the coronavirus pandemic, news unrelated to the disease’s development and decline has escaped public attention. That being said, the leadership election may…
During the last few months, Covid-19 has led to several political issues being put on the backburner and quite rightly so. However there are significant and worrying international issues brewing, none more so than the recent Russia report which has just been published. The general…
Up until a few weeks ago, you could split the world into three groups: countries which willingly accepted face masks, those who were not too certain of it, and the countries who didn’t like the idea at all. However, the lines separating those groups are…
Throughout school, I was not a very enthusiastic history student. Though I studied the subject until A Level (I was told it was a good accompaniment to what was to become my degree subject, English literature), I never really enjoyed my lessons, the work required…
Hezbollah, ISIS and the Taliban when uttered, rightfully provoke thought of terrorism and violence. Some might remember the Buenos Aires truck bombing, few will forget ISIS’ beheadings, and others will know of the Taliban’s attack on US army bases. What is clear is these groups…
Kentucky House Representative Charles Booker surged into the US national spotlight in June with an unapologetically leftist campaign for the Kentucky Senate Democratic nomination. His progressive platform, which garnered high-profile endorsements from Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, gained attention…
First-past-the-post (FPTP) is one of the most popular electoral systems in the world. As well as being the system of choice in the United Kingdom, it is also employed in parliaments such as in India and Canada. Although the three mentioned influential countries adopt FPTP,…
Darnella Frazier captured the footage of George Floyd’s tragic death and shared it on Facebook in May this year. Since then, it’s gone ‘viral’ – receiving over one billion views across different platforms and sparking social reform. Facebook’s ability to reach millions of people undoubtedly…
On a live broadcast at the end of last month, the US National Security Advisor to the White House made reference to the nation of Zimbabwe as a ‘foreign adversary’ of America, stating that along with Russia and China, Zimbabwe was involved in instigating…
As the Labour Party’s shiny new leader, Keir Starmer has got an unenviable task at hand. Since their unexpected and fairly disastrous general election loss in December of last year, Labour have undergone extensive soul searching about how and why the electorate, including many once…
Anti-racism protests, the result of the murder of George Floyd and others, have been met with a cool, even hostile response from some governments who seem unwilling to go beyond the usual platitudes. Over the last ten years or so there has been a noticeable…
The Black Lives Matter movement has been an element of public consciousness for almost 7 years now, since the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer in July 2013. It has now been 4 weeks since the death of George Floyd and outbreak of protests in Minneapolis,…
On November 8, 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president of the United States. He promised a radical departure from the way his predecessor had dealt with the Great Depression in the form of a ‘New Deal’ – a series of public works, reforms, and…
Following the rise of the internet and trend culture, clothing items are now more disposable than ever. We all have clothes we have bought as an impulse buy from H&M or Primark for a festival that is now discarded in a drawer somewhere. I was…
I love a bit of trashy TV as much as the next person, and some inconsequential and unenlightening viewing of a Sunday afternoon has become something of a lockdown staple. But although I don’t mind a bit of bad TV every now and again, I…
Late this past June, the Princeton University Board of Trustees voted to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from its Public Policy school. The decision makers cited this “searing moment in American History” (i.e. the fallout from the George Floyd shooting) as a wakeup call for choosing a better role model…
The task of defending Britain’s history is a tall order, particularly when Britain’s record of slavery and colonialism gets scarce mentioning at schools. There is a vague understanding of the basics. People know the name of William Wilberforce, the man who spearheaded the campaign to…
Science and politics are often viewed as being leagues apart. Politics is fallible and led by an agenda, while science, on the other hand, is regarded as being free from any outside influence. However, science, like politics, is also flawed and shouldn’t be viewed as…