Britain has a literacy crisis, and it needs to end. In the 2024-2025 academic year, one in four children did not meet the required standard of reading at the end of primary school.  That is a quarter of an entire cohort ending Key Stage 2 behind where they should be. Moving down the year groups doesn’t help the picture much, with 20% of students not reaching the expected standard in their year one phonics screening, a figure which rises to 33% for disadvantaged children.   No

Northern Europe’s security centre of gravity has moved north and east since 2022: the Baltic Sea, the GIUK gap , the Norwegian Sea, and Arctic approaches now define the front edge of deterrence and reinforcement. In this setting, Ukraine should be analysed less as the object of Northern policy and more as the catalyst that is reshaping it. Two overlapping mini-laterals, NB8  and JEF , offer a pragmatic architecture, one optimised for political alignment and signalling, the ot

With Peter Mandelson once again slinking away  from British government with his (apparently forked) tail between his legs, it gives pause for reflection on the dangers inherent in the fact that, at some level, politics comes down to the personal. Just like all news is local news somewhere  in the world, the people at the heart of power behind the headlines, campaigns, and scandals of national or global significance, are people, driven by personal agency and motivations. For d

International sanctions often hurl target states into a form of survival mode. Since invading Ukraine, Russia has faced increasing isolation from Western nations . This isolation has extended beyond politics and economics into the world of international sport. Russian teams and officials have been expelled or suspended from numerous international sporting federations, significantly reducing the country’s presence on the global sporting stage. The 2024 Paris Olympic Games saw

Just over a month ago, two events occurred that until recently seemed improbable: the direct intervention of the United States in Venezuelan territory and the overthrow, and apparent end, of Nicolás Maduro's dictatorship . The following reflects on the nuances surrounding this episode , understanding that it does not follow on from mere wars of words, but rather a conflict with a deep geopolitical heritage, both internal and external. The United States has a long history of i

The United States of America was founded on 4 th  July 1776 on the values of liberty, equality and individual rights, a place of self-determination and agency, where citizens can attain their highest potential. Now, 250 years later, the very pillars that formed the United States are being called into question through the over-centralisation of power by the Trump administration’s deployment of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in American cities. To date, at lea

Widely accepted international legal norms inject moral norms and ethical considerations into global politics, often rightly so, criminalising violent foreign intervention, crimes against humanity, and more. Presidents and world leaders, most recently Rodrigo Duterte, have been held to account by the International Criminal Court, for example, for these transgressions. Yet, accountability for President Trump’s recent military operation in Venezuela, which violated the sovereign

It’s been a while since women entered the labour market at large, contributing to the depression of global fertility rates to below replacement rate. The extinction of the family has been a major concern in both society and political discourse, especially among right-wing parties. However, solutions such as the infamous  three children per woman goal, considered a solution for declining populations, has bigger implications for development than first meets the eye. Development

From the federal United States to the hyper-centralised UK, and even in the tightly state-directed system of China, local government is increasingly constrained and hollowed out. The slow-building emergency in government debt is not only on a national level but on a local level too. Across advanced and emerging economics, local governments have taken on growing responsibilities without the fiscal tools to fund them, undermining service provision and political trust without tr

Where Donald Trump’s first tenure as President of the United States was concerned with making America great again, it is quickly becoming apparent he has broadened his horizons with his second innings. Growing weary of his global reputation as an obtrusive, childish bully, he’s spent the last year showing the world all he wants to do is bring about peace – granted, of course, he gets the credit. A big gold medal would be nice, too. This is, of course, referring to Trump’s ind

To describe something as a ‘crisis’ is to deem it an urgent issue. Whilst a range of dictionaries provide various definitions, they all hinge on a notion of temporality and immediacy. Many allude to a ‘point,’ ‘time’ or a ‘flashpoint.’ Indeed, the word itself stems from the Greek word for turning point, ‘krisis.’  I don’t often consult a dictionary to decipher the headlines. However, when dealing with an issue so entangled with history and the narratives that accompany it, de

The ‘ un-Blairing ’, or the death of (domestic) liberalism and (international) liberal interventionism, cemented the failure of the presupposed ‘ End of History ’. Not only did the Iraq war tear down broad, contemporary ideological unity, but it also tainted the reputation of the leaders who espoused it. George W. Bush Jr. doesn’t deserve much of a defence: he was a woeful President, perhaps saved from the dungeon of history only by today’s sheer absurdity , though that remai

In light of the public murders  of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the death of four detainees in ICE custody so far this year, US citizens are protesting across the country over flagrant abuses of power. It is not surprising that in the midst of this outrage, the subtle militarisation and ‘ICE-style’ marketing of immigration forces here in the UK has gone unnoticed by most. In October, the Conservatives pledged  to create a new

Earlier this month, Robert Jenrick was abruptly sacked by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch  after screenshots of the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice’s resignation speech were sent to senior figures in Badenoch’s office. Memories of the infighting that characterised the latter years of the previous Conservative government were immediately evoked, a period in which Tory MPs routinely plotted against their leaders, forgetting their duties to the public to instead resemble

It seems that the era of repetitive politics is over in Japan. Since her inauguration as the first female Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi has set a new path for Japan’s foreign policy. Her first order of action? A diplomatic firestorm with China. In her parliamentary declaration of last November, Takaichi underlined that any attempt of a Chinese blockade against Taiwan will signal an existential threat for Japan, precipitating the need for a collective self-defence st

Over the weekend, Keir Starmer had to once again confront a problem in the shape of Andy Burnham . The issue was not really a new one for Starmer. In fact, by this point, talk  of Andy Burnham angling for a seat in Parliament to challenge the Prime Minister has become a kind of political groundhog day. What was new this time was the fact that the problem before Starmer was no longer a hypothetical one, and Andy Burnham was - after months of speculation - attempting to make a

“When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you” is a line from Nietzsche , who warned that “whoever fights with monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster.” I recall this Nietzschean fragment as apposite to today’s Venezuela, and how tempting it is for those who struggle against domination to justify using the dominator’s tools. Venezuela is not only a tragedy for Venezuelans; it is a test of whether democracies can resist becoming what they

Relations between the USA and Venezuela experienced one of the most shocking fractures in modern diplomatic history this January when President Maduro was captured by US special forces and taken to New York. His midnight Caracas kidnapping has transformed tensions between the two countries from a classic diplomatic crisis into a global sovereignty and legal crisis, rendering it a pivotal test of the nascent multipolar world order, rather than a mere feud between strongmen. An

On December 1st 2025 Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri, commonly known as ‘El Hishri’, was surrendered to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and is to face trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in The Hague this year. The trial is a significant moment in the modern history of European-Libyan relations as it demonstrates that crimes - both contemporary and historical - of the greatest severity that are committed in Libyan detention centres are subject to internationa

Commonly known as the Western Anchor, Bulgaria has officially  adopted the Euro and become a member of the Eurozone. The European Central Bank (ECB) can finally welcome Bulgaria as an official member as of January 1, 2026, carrying the weight of the anchor to new and more democratic heights. Becoming a member of the European Union in 2007 , alongside Romania, further solidifies the formidable barrier that aims to contain the Putin War Machine in Moscow. Leaving the Lev behind