Does Andy Burnham have the guts to dynamise the UK economy by rethinking the Treasury's model?

Armenia's energy sector is boxed in by Moscow's EAEU rules and a stalled EU deal. Rimma Sanchez on Tsivilev's Africa playbook, now in Yerevan.

On 23 July 2026, the EU adopted its 21st sanctions package against Russia as part of its efforts in the war it is waging against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Measures in the package include a price cap on Russian oil of $44 per barrel, permission for member states to sell confiscated oil, and a visa ban for Russian combatants. This brings the cumulative total of sanctioned individuals and entities to a record 3,100. The EU, however, finds itself in a quagmire, with me

‘The People of Aberdeen, in Scotland, are dancing in the streets because the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has stated that he will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil!’ So rambled Donald Trump on Truth Social following BBC reports that new drilling at Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North Sea would be permitted by the incoming administration. As these were existing projects introduced by Sunak and paused by Starmer, to allow drilling a

In his first week, new UK PM Burnham proclaimed himself protector of pubs, in a signal he believes the politics of the pub within the UK is worthy of concern. He is right. Yet the pint of lager on the bar can also be considered within an international frame. If you want to understand why the globalised world economy leaves people confused and feeling dislocated, then sit down, have a beer, and it might start to become clearer. The world’s brewing industry giants offer reflect

India’s 2022 Arctic Policy has been framed as an expression of the Hindu philosopher, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’s, “the world is but one family.” The Government of India identified “Science and Research” and “Climate and Environmental Protection” as its first two strategic priorities. Meanwhile, earlier this year in May, in the joint statement of the Third India-Nordic Summit, “cooperation in the Arctic” was emphasised, mirroring the Arctic Policy’s signal of willingness to colla

History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. The Falkland Islands are on the verge of becoming a geopolitical flashpoint once again, echoing the tensions of the early 1980s. The catalyst this time is not an invading army but oil. Following the discovery of the Sea Lion offshore oil field in 2010 and the long-awaited Final Investment Decision at the end of 2025, the project is set to become the largest offshore oil development in the South Atlantic outside Brazil. For

Ninety miles separates Key West from Havana; across this strait, these two nations could not be more different. On one side, a superpower that throws away 40% of its food. On the other, a country that has spent thirty years perfecting how to grow food on scraps. Not the Cuba of cable news blackouts and empty shelves, but rather the Cuba that has been here before and knows exactly what to do about it. Three decades on, this same reflex is being asked to ignite again, for a dif

It seems an energy crisis is once again being manufactured, not only by war but by deliberate policy. The Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for a fifth of the world’s traded oil, is shut once again. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest level since 1983. Russia, the world’s second-largest diesel exporter, has banned all diesel exports. And Europe heads into the winter with the lowest gas reserves in 15 years, while paradoxically purchasing record volumes of gas f

The biggest item of note in Andy Burnham’s recent devolution speech was his commitment to ‘the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period’. It is estimated such construction will cost the taxpayer up to £13bn a year. This is merely the tip of the iceberg, however. Research released by the Centre for Policy Studies shows the state is already implicitly subsidising social housing rent to the tune of £43bn every year and paying out £36bn in housing benefi

Russia’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate to a two-decade high of 21% in late 2024 after a surge in inflation. Since then, it has pursued a policy of monetary easing, with the cut from 14.5% to 14.25% on 19th June marking the ninth consecutive cut. This has surprised some analysts, who were expecting a 50-basis-point cut. More broadly, it reflects the cautious approach that Elvira Nabiullina, Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, has taken toward the economy, with

The Nazi Party came to power in 1933 in a Germany devastated by the Treaty of Versailles and Great Depression, and paralysed by a huge unemployment crisis of over 6 million. Six years later it was arguably the greatest power in Europe, tearing across the continent in relentless pursuit of ‘Lebensraum’. What happened in between might therefore be chalked up to nothing less than an economic miracle. It was not. When defining economic success on the regime’s own terms, namely au

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” – Roy Amara, Stanford computer scientist. Dotcom, housing, crypto, and now, AI. The Fastest Scaling in History An asset bubble is a period where the price of an asset skyrockets beyond its intrinsic value before violently crashing. They have plagued economies for centuries. The artificial intelligence industry has experienced what is considered the fastest techn

The political centre does not have a divine right to govern; it must prove itself worthy of trust again, or face being wiped out. In March, the two main parties of UK politics found themselves trailing in the polls for the first time to insurgent populists on the left and right. There is no denying that parties that thrive on pitting the people against a perceived corrupt elite are rising and winning elections. For some time, the primary explanations of populism surging have

France held its first Africa-France summit in an anglophone African capital on 11 and 12 May, gathering more than thirty heads of state at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi. Emmanuel Macron and William Ruto co-chaired the Africa Forward Summit, which closed with the eleven-point Nairobi Declaration and €23 billion in pledged investment across energy, agriculture, artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure. Paris presented the venue and the figure

Despite not having won Best Picture or Best Director at the 2026 Oscars, I have no doubts that Ryan Coogler’s Sinners will stand the test of time as one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the 21st Century. In a media landscape saturated with franchises, reboots, and sequels, Coogler’s original genre-bending film about a black community in the Jim Crow south, who find their newly-established juke joint and promise of emancipation devoured by undead vampires, is both inc

At a news conference regarding agricultural policy on the 12th of August 1986, Ronald Reagan delivered one of his most recognisable quips satirising the organisation he had been elected to lead two years prior: “I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help”. Given the enduring appeal of this line for so-called libertarians and free-marketeers, the words that followed Reagan

Scotland votes in the nationalists for a fifth straight time, but nobody seems too happy about it. A pro-independence majority, made up of the SNP and the Scottish Greens, looks increasingly like a majority of arithmetic over conviction. The SNP didn’t win this, the other parties simply failed to capture the imagination of the country. The Tories’ vote collapsed into Reform, Scottish Labour was weighed down by its incredibly unpopular Westminster government, and the Greens ho

As of the 1st July 2026, we will see a reduction in the amount of steel that can be imported before tariffs are applied, additional quotas being introduced on imported steel products that are also manufactured domestically (where they previously have not been in place), and an increase in tariff rates for those imports in-excess of quotas. These new steel trade measures, inter alia increasing the tariff rate to 50% on products that go beyond our import quota, might sound lik

The recent mainstreaming of wealth taxes as a political tendency in the UK has demonstrated an appetite for solutions to inequality. Although there have been successful debates, won with logic as much as rhetoric, a tangible wealth tax policy is still in its infancy. The Green Party, the main policy vehicle for the Wealth Tax, is seeking between 1% and 2% of tax on assets held over £10 million per annum. Yet who exactly pays, and how they pay, remain unanswered questions. W