Reform UK has been bolstered over the past few years by a media sullied by millionaires selling easy answers to the less politically focused populace. This malaise has been growing in the background for many years, however, with reports of Elon Musk considering funding Reform UK, it could be a saga reaching its climax. My gripe is not just with Reform over this campaign, but also with the left-wing parties of Your Party (Jeremy Corbyn’s new home), and The Green Party. Through

Much noise has rightly been made about the free Breakfast Club programme being rolled out across primary schools in England. The ‘30-minute sessions before school where children get a free breakfast so they to start every day ready to learn’ (sic), have had plenty of positives touted about them; with the benefits listed by the Government including children not needing to be hungry at the start of the school day, as well as providing social time and activities for the kids. In

President Donald Trump’s ambition to acquire Greenland is indicative of a historic shift not only in American foreign policy, but in global perceptions of the High North: the Arctic is no longer an innocuous area of scientific exploration, but a political-military nexus of global power competition. This article problematises three loci of NATO, Russian and Chinese power projection in the Arctic. With the onset of climate change, temperatures in the Arctic are rising rapidly b

Last month I summarised how the Prime Minister’s lack of understanding of, and downright disinterest in, politics was leading him to continuously break its first golden rule: don’t make an enemy when you don’t have to. The Prime Minister has made a habit of making mountains out of a molehills, consistently overplaying his hand when disciplining his MPs, withdrawing the whip left right and center, and pushing droves of MPs out of the tent. But all that pushing achieves is an a

A terrible event took place on the 30th of April in Golders’ Green, London. A man tried to murder two people with a knife. The Metropolitan Police publicly stated the man had been charged with terrorism and attempted murder. Thankfully, all victims survived, and the culprit was taken into custody and also to hospital. The two victims were Jewish, although the man did not seem to have been charged with an aggravating factor (religious or racial). His case is not simple – he h

As the May Local Elections approach, things look bleak for the political centre. Polling suggests Labour could lose close to 2,000 local councillors, while the Conservatives are predicted to lose around 1,000. The big winners will likely be Reform, who could gain over 2,000 councillors - with the Greens also expected to perform well, potentially gaining close to 500. There is, of course, good reason to be fed up with Keir Starmer and his government, particularly in the light

In spite of escalating tensions precipitated by the US-Israel War on Iran, the second most-discussed event on March 21st 2026 was Chappell Roan’s alleged cattiness at her hotel breakfast. Taking to Instagram, Brazilian football player Jorginho Frello posted a public statement claiming that Roan’s security team had acted “aggressively” towards his 11-year- old stepdaughter after spotting Roan at a hotel in São Paulo, leaving her “shaken” and “in tears.” “Without your fans, you

Recently, I wrote about the modern fad for politicians in the West to proclaim new variants of realist thought, some of which were a sham. But recent weeks have revealed Spain’s PM Pedro Sánchez is operating according to a fundamentally realist perspective on international politics, though he makes no direct reference to realist thinking. In the pages of Le Monde Diplomatique, Sánchez recently appealed to defend multilateralism against the products of “what passes for realis

America’s authoritarian tilt is visible just about anywhere you look. You can see it in the institutions Trump has bent to his will, and the way he has pushed his presidential powers well beyond the limits of his office. Yet, I think if you really want to understand the unique authoritarian turn developing in America, you should look no further than Washington DC. Today, the beating heart of America’s federal government is a vision of the country Trump wants to build, and the

"Let us suppose that foreigners came from another country, and brought opium into England, and seduced the people of your country to smoke it, would not you, the sovereign of the said country, look upon such a procedure with anger, and in your just indignation endeavor to get rid of it?" This is an excerpt from the famous 1839 letter, penned by Lin Zexu, addressed to Queen Victoria. Supposedly, this letter was never received by the monarch; no halt in the export of the goods

Viktor Orbán’s vanquishing in Hungary’s April election was, on paper at least, the kind of moment that once nourished Europe’s left. After sixteen-years of calcified nationalism, prolonged democratic erosion and Hungary’s suffocation beneath the dense smog of permanent culture war, one might have expected the floodgates to buckle for a great socialist or labour revival; a broad, popular movement surging through the opening, wiping out Orbán’s Fidesz and ushering in a fresh pr

The panda in your Zoo is not a gift. Although they look like harmless, black-and-white fur balls with sleepy eyes, giant pandas are not just lovable zoo attractions; they are among the most influential instruments in China’s diplomatic toolkit. For decades, Beijing has used pandas to reward friendly governments, deepen trade ties, and signal political approval. Just as importantly, it has used them to punish countries that fall out of favour. This strategy has a name: panda d

If entertainment podcasts were to compete for the most mentions of “private equity”, Richard Osman and Marina Hyde’s The Rest is Entertainment would be the uncontested victor. Ostensibly a show about “what’s hot” in entertainment, it seems almost every week the hosts cannot help but launch into a discussion of the financial and political movements lurking beneath the surface. But why is a podcast about entertainment constantly talking about tax regimes and antitrust laws? Th

Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking syndicate has become one of the defining examples of elite corruption in the past decade. With insurmountable living costs accompanied by a widening wealth gap, stories of elites using their enormous capital to sexually abuse underprivileged children have caused an uproar across American party lines. However, though many of these sexual offenders have been exposed to the public through the ‘Epstein Files,’ federal law enforcement under

Since the 26th March report exposing what CNN describes as a 'global rape academy', I’ve been patiently waiting for the British media to give serious attention to such a harrowing investigation, particularly given the broader context. Gisèle Pelicot’s recent court victory is still fresh in public memory, as she successfully brought a case against her former husband who raped and abused her. His despicable actions were facilitated by online communities. But Pelicot's case also

Elon Musk seemed to be omnipresent a year ago. 2025 was swathed in a succession of Musk's political undertakings, his name part of the furniture of the headlines. January saw him salute in a way akin to the Nazis at the inauguration of Donald Trump, February his awkward wielding of a chainsaw at CPAC and the painful declaration that he had, quote, “become meme”. His role as leader of DOGE resulted in immense pitfalls for federal agencies and slashing of government jobs, as we

A recent trip to the Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia impressed on me an increasingly prescient political issue requiring ever more European attention: the status of non-citizen Russians in the Baltics. As of 2024, in Estonia 61,000 people have ‘undetermined citizenship’. In Latvia, 175,000 people have noncitizen status, making up 9% of the population. These murky categories exist as a result of a desire to protect independence and cultural heritage after the Baltic states

Since its posthumous publication in 1532, Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince has served as an incisive articulation of realism – the idea that power is gained through self-interest and competition. Written against the backdrop of the Italian Wars (1494 – 1559), The Prince was intended for the eyes of Lorenzo de Medici, the ruler of the Florentine Republic. Yet, Machiavelli’s insights remain robust, and, to this day, his magnum opus continues to provide a helpful framework for m

Long gone are the days of muskets, bayonets, and line infantry. Throughout history, the nature of conflict has consistently evolved. Both World Wars drove major advances and a growing reliance on radio communications, aircraft, and tanks, and ultimately culminated in the birth of the nuclear bomb. The Cold War era saw an increased use of precision guided missiles (PGMs), satellite GPS, and surveillance. Today, artificial intelligence, especially drones, is reshaping moder

Orbán spent 16 years making himself the EU’s biggest problem. His legacy, it turns out, is an opposition equipped with a supermajority to dismantle everything that he built – if they choose to. Last Sunday, Péter Magyar 's insurgent Tisza party got the mandate to re-wire the state Viktor Orbán had consolidated around himself. For the EU, the implications of this election are immediate, and for once are in Brussels’ favour. The most relevant and urgent consequence is that the