It was dusk by the time I pulled out of Hasankale station and continued my journey eastward, chasing the evening sun over the Anatolian plains. The family I had shared a cabin and spinach börek with for the past twenty-four hours had just disembarked, leaving their seats all but empty; a scribbled goodbye note and trail of filo pastry remained in their place. They had waved goodbye from the station platform, dwarfed by a banner displaying a face I was now familiar with. The s

Churchill may or may not have said – it’s an aphorism with cloudy provenance – that “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte may or may not believe it. After all, as American threats to obtain Greenland, a member of NATO via the Danish commonwealth, grow increasingly bellicose, the “Trump-whisperer” is all but silent.  Adopting a ‘nothing to see here’ attitude with almost mon

Donald Trump’s unprecedented attack on the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, has been met with an equally unprecedented defence composed of Ex-Fed chairs, central bank governors, and titans  of global finance. Central to this alliance’s criticism of Trump is an ominous warning of disaster to come should the Fed’s independence be violated. For example, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde emphasised the role central bank independence played as a “corner

In politics, particularly within the UK, our politicians , and those commentating on them, like to talk about putting ‘country before party’. Keir Starmer is no exception to this rule. In fact, the Prime Minister has become its embodiment. Since becoming leader of the Labour Party he has - when asked about his leadership style - often quipped that his Labour Party is a party focused only on the nation’s interests, that it is one disinterested in internal spats. In fact, this

I first became a cinephile at a time when going to the movies was impossible.  Like many other people, I kept myself busy during the COVID-19 pandemic by indulging in the best, and worst, movies that streaming services had to offer.  It was my first real involvement with the ‘canon’ of Hollywood productions. I sobbed at The Pursuit of Happyness , cried with laughter at Mean Girls , had my breath taken away by Top Gun,  and couldn’t refuse the offer to watch The Godfather  wit