The Canadian-American radical feminist and polemicist, Shulamith Firestone, had this to say about marriage: ‘under Roman law [man] was invested with the rights of life and death over them all; famulus means domestic slave, and familia is the total number of slaves belonging to one…
One month ago, Germany’s parliament passed a law forbidding “gay conversion” therapy for those under 18. As well as punishments for those offering the service to under-eighteens, parents could also be prosecuted if they pressure their children to take part. What is gay conversion therapy?…
When the government decided it would be Michael Gove who would announce that it was safe for teachers to return to the classroom, this was just another insult to a profession which has spent ten years being attacked by the Tory administration. That’s because to…
With the return of the Premier League, it can be easy to forget about the protests in the last few days and zone out by watching Manchester City battle Arsenal for an hour and a half. Watching Aguero score a couple of goals will feel…
It is dismaying but perhaps not surprising that Boris Johnson has decided to characterise Black Lives Matter protesters as extremists. It is equally dismaying that he has roundly condemned the threats to Churchill’s statue as a result of the protests. He has described such threats as ‘absurd and…
You’ve probably seen news splashed across your timelines about what the UN has named the ‘shadow pandemic’. Calls to Refuge’s domestic abuse helplines have increased by 49%. There were 4,000 domestic abuse arrests just in London in the first six weeks of lockdown. And if you haven’t, you’ve probably…
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s horrifying murder at the hands of several US policemen, a widespread sense of righteous anger burned through the minds of many and reinvigorated debates over racism at the level of politics, culture, and individual interaction. Social media has been…
Outrage, grief and fury. Even these words do not suffice in describing the political climate in America following the death of George Floyd, an African American who died after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on Floyd’s neck until Floyd fell unconscious and, tragically, died.…
Remember John Bolton? The fearsome-looking former national security advisor in Trump’s cabinet who was abruptly sacked (like so many) a couple of months ago? Given the recent global protests and pandemic, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that his self-penned account of the Trump administration, a…
You may say that Britain’s current industrial strategy is that they don’t have one. Many pro-market economists like to repeat the famous (amongst policy-wonks, at least) phrase: government is bad at picking winners, and losers are good at picking governments. But the coronavirus crisis isn’t…
We all know which statue I’m talking about, don’t we? If you don’t, you must be too busy to be checking social media or watching the news which, in the age of lockdown, probably makes you 1-in-a-million. And incredibly lucky. For the uninitiated, I’m writing…
The murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer who knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes has triggered protests across the US and UK. So far, people have taken to the streets for the Black Lives Matter movement in…
Dubai is a global tourism hotspot. The city’s bustling malls and eye-widening skyscrapers attracted 1.2 million British visitors in 2018. Its airport is a travel hub, and the world’s third largest in terms of passengers. However, there’s a darker truth behind Dubai’s glamour. Until the 60s,…
George Floyd’s death was shocking – nothing short of murder in my eyes. The first person you look to in this type of situation is the person right at the very top of your country. For the United States, this is Donald Trump. This an…
A global pandemic in the current digital age is a recipe for disaster. Government transparency is not necessarily threatened by the internet or the nature of social media spreading so-called “fake news”. Rather, the lack of government transparency causes more misinformation as we slowly lose…
One of the defining characteristics of the 2016 election was the unprecedented levels of unpopularity between the two candidates. Another defining feature was its closeness. Although Donald Trump ended up winning over 300 Electoral College votes, he won 75 of those with an average of just…
The scandal of Dominic Cummings’s lockdown journey from London to Durham, and then to the scenic beauty spot of Barnard Castle, has perhaps taken up a disproportionate amount of time in news headlines. Shocking though it is that someone would embark on a 60 mile…
While the focus of the news this past week has been very much placed on Dominic Cummings, and his lack of penalisation by the Prime Minister, there’s been another issue that’s starting to reveal itself. In the Liaison Committee, Caroline Nokes, the women and equalities…
Across the UK, people’s daily lives have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Though they have been eased slightly in recent weeks, the lockdown is still in place, and scientists are clear that social distancing and the lockdown measures introduced by the government in March…