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

A Foreign War That Feels Domestic For nearly three years, the conflict in Gaza has dominated American media outlets. Local governments have passed resolutions calling for a ceasefire, while New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested if he travels to New York to address the United Nations. Divisions have emerged within Congress over funding for Israel, and some political candidates have made a point of refusing to a

Whilst interviewed during the London Indian Film Festival on the 16th of July, Bollywood actor Aamir Khan was questioned in depth about his career and the upcoming 25th anniversary of his colonial epic Lagaan. The most dissected soundbite from this conversation, however, had little to do with either. Instead, Khan took it upon himself to quell a long-standing rumour about his character in 3 Idiots, a 2009 dramedy which followed the lives of three engineering students. He deni

‘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

Following a fortnight of activity which possessed a more rhetorical than policy-oriented substance, Andy Burnham has now selected an almost unimpeachable cause as the first major test of his Premiership; reform to England’s withering social care system. The system in its current form is, it must be said, fragmented, unfair and ruinously expensive for an increasingly large number of families across the country. Its pressures universally buckle the already struggling local auth

In the Spring I picked apart the shifting sands of the Labour Party’s power dynamics. In that article I made the distinction between the soft left faction that the media seem so desperate to carve out, and the actual soft left. I argued the media’s imagined soft left, epitomised by figures such as Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham, is actually just the left-leaning element of the faction descended from New Labour Brownites. The actual soft left is the faction that can trace its ro

Much was made of the Online Safety Act last year, which covered self-harm and suicide materials, misinformation and disinformation, and social media algorithms. Perhaps the most hotly discussed point was the requirement for porn site users to verify their identities, the major reason being to prevent children from accessing harmful material and improving their internet safety. The influence, in particular, of misogynistic or extreme acts found in some porn films nowadays, ha

Burnham is in, and Starmer is out. A change of Prime Minister brings a change to the philosophy at the heart of government, a focus on devolution in an attempt to “bring growth to every postcode” and “bring back hope” to politics. These are progressive causes that many people, including myself, agree with – these are reasons that build a left-wing case for returning power to local communities. However, the original advocate for this approach sat in the opposite political camp

Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has been one of the most anticipated movie releases since the ‘Barbenheimer” phenomenon of two years prior. In just the opening weekend, the film made 124 million from eager audiences. The John Ford of our times, Nolan has become the specialist of epic blockbusters. Nolan’s adaptation of the three-thousand-year-old epic centres on ξενία, translated as “Zeus’s Law,” which refers to the norms surrounding hospitality. In a world where being outside o

The winds of change are now sweeping across Iceland. The island has finally come to terms with the volatile nature of current geopolitics as dictated by Trump’s vulgar realpolitik, Putin’s aggressive historical-political revisionism and China’s growing forays into the international arena. In response, the Icelandic Samfylkingin government is now planning to restart EU accession talks, which have been suspended since 2013. The process was abandoned in 2013 due to a standst

CPAC UK ran this past July 16 – a disconcerting day for many, including myself. Having worked on a start-up magazine for some time with a media veteran – and resultantly used to a diverse but nevertheless objective array of politicians’, professors’, and authors’ viewpoints – I had been surprised to learn of my partner’s contacts attending CPAC, whom he swore weren’t all right-wing loons, and even more shocked to learn he knew people speaking on the main stage, too. I was a

The event that best captures the folly of Keir Starmer was the sacking of three trade envoys and the suspension of “four persistent rebels” in July 2025, after he faced the most serious rebellion to his government yet. He and his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, were attempting to push through a welfare reform bill which, according to its detractors, would have cut vulnerable people off of PIP. They failed, with backbench Labour MPs forcing them to reverse the welfare cuts. Instead

The Home Office is central in all things, lording over some of the most hotly-discussed issues in everyday life – migration, borders, drugs, policing, and terrorism. Its vast armoury of laws and high-powered forces of order “keep citizens safe and the country secure”, in their own words. Despite that armoury, when Shabana Mahmood arrived as Home Secretary in 2025, she was compelled to state that her ministry was “not fit for purpose”. Chronic issues raised included distrust

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

My first impression of Panama City’s Casco Viejo was one of distortion. It was only possible to catch fragmented glimpses of its whitewashed walls through reflections cast out by skyscrapers lining the waterfront. Panama City’s old town seemed awkward and incongruous, positioned in the shadow of five-hundred-foot-tall buildings. Its pristine streets lay relatively abandoned, disconnected from the chaotic metropolis barely one kilometre away. This sense of dislocation and frag

Robert Paxton’s seminal The Anatomy of Fascism conceptualises it not as a category but a political process: “all that is required… is polarisation, deadlock, mass mobilisation against internal and external enemies, and complicity by existing elites.” Nearly all are present in the UK. The collapse in electoral support for the Conservative Party and rise in support for Reform UK, the Green Party, the SNP, and Plaid Cymru are the most obvious political signs of polarisation. Ma

On July 14th 2026, under the scorching Parisian sun, French military troops marched down the historical Champs Elysées. Unusually, this year the military parade was opened by the thirty five countries making up the Coalition of the Willing, flying over and marching down the avenue in front of their respective leaders. What followed was one the biggest parades ever witnessed on Bastille Day, with 6.700 troops, 98 aircrafts, 31 helicopters and 315 vehicles mobilised, simultaneo

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 title almost sounds like an oxymoron. We often describe ‘mothers’ as caregivers, nurturers and protectors. How, then, can we possibly think of our natural caregivers as weapons? For centuries, mothers have been venerated as incarnations of the divine. Christianity reveres Mother Mary as a guiding force behind Christ’s path. Hindu tradition addresses its goddesses as Sita Mayya, Maa Saraswati, Kaali Maata; mother, before anything else. Mothers represent power that no insti