In 2025, British actor Simon Pegg was interviewed in the Criterion Closet , a renowned series where notable people from the filmmaking industry are invited to browse and discuss their favourite movies. One of Pegg’s ‘closet picks’ was David Lynch’s seminal thriller Blue Velvet , a dark and unnerving mystery set in the heart of middle America. Pegg says that his daughter hated the movie when he showed it to her, but then spoke about how he was delighted that she didn’t like it

“The title ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ captures the movie's central paradox: seeing without understanding. Kubrick suggests that power structures are not hidden, but ignored, existing in plain sight within accepted rituals and social norms. The greatest illusion is not secrecy itself, but the belief that we would recognise the truth if it stood directly in front of us .” The other day, I got into a rather heated political discussion with a couple of old friends. We were discussing decli

Few politicians since the turn of the century have taken the world by storm quite like Zohran Mamadani . He seems to have graduated from the Tony Blair school of charming and underproduced campaign videos, swapping the three-piece suits and out-of-date TikTok trends of his peers for genuine, boots-on-the-ground campaigning. And, if you ignore the added benefit of speaking three different languages, it worked. Mamdani was sworn in as the 112 th  Mayor of New York City  at the

Climber Alex Honnold’s recent ascent of Taipei 101  raises a few questions regarding the modern monetised spectacle. On the 25 th  of January 2026, Netflix livestreamed Honnold’s climb with a ten second delay. Without any safety gear, just one error would have resulted in thousands of spectators lining the tower’s base being witness to a catastrophic death. Questions would have been raised over Netflix’s ethical rights to stage and film such an event. Resignations would be in

We live in a world increasingly connected through social media, yet simultaneously increasingly disconnected from reality and political awareness. In various parts of the world, becoming a trend seems more important than developing innovative proposals. Politics has, in many ways, been hijacked by fame, and this hijacking has ultimately eroded debate and critical thinking. Politics understood as the serious exercise of power has been sidelined, giving way to a distorted and s

Across Europe, a striking consensus has taken hold. Quiz a passerby on the streets of Paris, Berlin or London on the state of society and you are likely to hear all too familiar lamentations concerning the declining state of both government performance and social cohesion. The cost of living continues to rise whilst wages stagnate and public services buckle, politics is brittle and the future looks more precarious than the past. This transnational belief , one which has been

In the late hours of the 6 th  of February, Donald Trump posted a bizarre, AI generated video  that depicted his political opponents as animals on Truth Social.  The now-deleted clip had the faces of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez superimposed onto jungle animals, whilst The Lion Sleeps Tonight blared in the background. Amongst them, former President Joe Biden took the form of a mon

The increasing national instability that we currently see in the UK isn’t aided by constant leadership changes. Having said this, the competence of the Labour Party’s seventh prime minister is up for question, in view of the many failures in communications over the past 18 months of Labour in Downing Street. I am not a Labour hater; I’ve campaigned for them in the past, know many local Labour activists and feel that their local strategy is stronger than their work nationally.

With a grim expression and a somber tone of voice Canadian PM Mark Carney spoke at Davos . He spoke not just to the room of elites in front of him but to civilian populations across the world. The conversations that have undoubtedly been taking place behind closed doors for years were now made public: “Let me be clear. We are in a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extr

Back from the brink, Keir Starmer clings on as Prime Minister. It was a tumultuous week when it became common knowledge that Starmer and his then chief of staff Morgan McSweeney were aware of ‘The Prince of Darkness’ Peter Mandelson's ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein – this after his conviction, and after reports emerged alleging that Mandelson leaked sensitive information to the convicted paedophile, all of which Mandelson vehemently denies.  After the resignation o

Politics in recent years has frequently been referred to as post-truth. In the age of misinformation, and indeed disinformation, what importance does truth have when a salacious not-quite-truth can dominate public chatter for weeks on end?  Journalism used to be regarded as a core pillar of free societies, a respected profession bestowed with the responsibility of educating and informing the masses. Shifts toward digital journalism bridged the gap even further, with news beco

If we were to ask whether the UK Wealth Tax Movement was successful last year, an instructive litmus test might be the frequency with which the topic appeared in BBC headlines. This is undoubtedly a major feat, but only half the battle.  Commentators everywhere, like coiled springs , raised their concerns about how effective and feasible the tax would be, rattling off the list of unintended consequences. The media asserted – the Wealth Tax cannot be introduced until all conce

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