“Damn Daniel! Back at it again with the white vans!” Says the narrator in a viral Internet meme from roughly a decade ago. You probably associate this meme with reactions of laughter or derision in the school corridor. Regardless, the meme remains in your mind years later. Internet memes – colourful static photos, gifs, or short videos – are easy to recall. Constant repetition helps to reinforce the meme in the memory – your friend may have laughed at “Damn Daniel!”, repeatin

A Quick Refresher Before November We are all expecting the GOP to hemorrhage congressional seats this November. Great. This is a de facto requirement of American politics, actually. That is, for the president’s party to lose seats in their first midterms – it’s happened in 20 of the last 22 cycles. And given Trump’s bonkers first year in office and the plummeting approval rating that has ensued, this is all but guaranteed. But will a few more blue seats genuinely transform w

This month’s reset speech from the “boring” “managerial” “supine” “genocidaire” who hates irregular migrants and refugees while “bending over backwards for them” should have been cathartic. Here was our chance to make the maniacally boring Starmer beg for mercy. I just felt uncomfortable. Starmer looked like a man at his wit’s end. He seems ordinary, likeable, and emotionally stable. He says kind things like we should be nicer to Jewish folk, or that we needed to watch Adoles

It is becoming increasingly apparent that Keir Starmer’s dismal time in office is coming to an end. Following historic losses in this month’s local elections, more than 90 Labour MPs have publicly called for his resignation and four ministers have resigned thus far. Wes Streeting has resigned as Health Secretary. Andy Burnham is getting ready. As Greater Manchester Mayor, the longtime favourite to replace Starmer still needs to get approval to stand in Josh Simons’ Makerfield

Last month, the new Dutch government proposed a bill on expanding police online monitoring powers, tied to serious public order disruptions. The Netherlands has had its fair share of demonstrations and riots over the past year and it seems that public safety and order is on top of the agenda for the new government. But is that really what this bill is about? Ministers have approved the draft legislation, the Wet gegevensvergaring openbare orde, and it is now headed to the Cou

A teenage boy in Guldborgsund, Denmark, is searching for a pirated stream of the newly released Project Hail Mary on YouTube. Five videos later, he is watching a man wearing a crisp Oxford shirt calmly making the case that immigration to Europe is eroding Western civilisation. The boy does not pause to think. He does not resist the idea. He now actively searches for content that feeds this narrative. By the third day, the algorithm, having already registered his latent prefer

The beginning of May heralds many celebrations. May Day, Early Bank Holiday, spring finally rearing its head (as much as it can in English weather, anyway). Yet perhaps the most prominent event for netizens and socialites alike is the Met Gala, a fundraiser and fashion event held in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art on the first Monday of May. This year, the 4th of May saw celebrities strut across a garden-like carpet dressed in reference to this year’s theme: ‘Fashion is

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