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

One of Donald Trump’s many pledges to the American electorate was to end United States involvement in what he coined ‘forever wars’. And yet, weeks past have seen further strikes on Iran by the US – a response to attacks on vessels in the Straits of Hormuz, despite a 60 day interim agreement between the two countries being signed in June. Does this conflict reflect the waning geo-political power of America, rather than the tyranny of the regime in Iran? The relationship betwe

Starmer’s premiership is over. As commentators scramble to instruct his replacement, ‘King of the North’ Burnham, on how he ought to govern, we shall withdraw from these largely Armageddonist prophets. I want to answer a different question: how is Starmer set to be remembered? It is so easy, and in a way, natural, to focus on the newcomer entering Downing Street, with the person going out the backdoor waved off without much of a thought. The executive wheels keep turning, aft

In the last week Andy Burnham, who stands at the precipice of becoming Britain’s next Prime Minister, seemingly ruled out an early general election. Whilst politicians ruling things out certainly doesn’t mean that they are ruled out, it does mean it is not ruled in. A general election is not part of Burnham’s short-term plan. The question remains however, is it part of Burnham’s plan in the medium-term, and should it be. Whilst the answer to the former is one that only Burnha

So here we are. Another new Prime Minister apparent, another undemocratic process in which a political party decides – as an internal matter – the appointee to the country’s top official political position. It is another reminder of the real workings of the UK’s parliamentary electoral system. The seats in parliament which give Labour its big legislative majority were decided in 2024 and it is within this latest 2024 settlement of the political forces in Westminster that a n

It's time to stop thinking about the climate crisis as a problem for the future. If the past week of stifling temperatures in the United Kingdom has shown us anything, it is that global warming is a visceral, present reality. Yet at this very moment, when the effects of climate change are so tangible year on year, political discussion skirts around the issue. Squabbles over North Sea oil have dominated the conversation recently, despite experts having made it clear that arou

The political centre does not have a divine right to govern; it must prove itself worthy of trust again, or face being wiped out. In March, the two main parties of UK politics found themselves trailing in the polls for the first time to insurgent populists on the left and right. There is no denying that parties that thrive on pitting the people against a perceived corrupt elite are rising and winning elections. For some time, the primary explanations of populism surging have

When four ex-cabinet ministers split from the Labour Party in 1981 to form the SDP, they did so with the intention of ‘breaking the mould’ of British politics. This Gang of Four believed the Labour Party was on an irrecoverable journey down the Hard Left flank of British Politics. Veteran left-winger Michael Foot had just been elected leader, the Trotskyite Militant Tendency had successfully infiltrated the party, and Tony Benn was circling, waiting to steal the Deputy Leader

Despite not having won Best Picture or Best Director at the 2026 Oscars, I have no doubts that Ryan Coogler’s Sinners will stand the test of time as one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the 21st Century. In a media landscape saturated with franchises, reboots, and sequels, Coogler’s original genre-bending film about a black community in the Jim Crow south, who find their newly-established juke joint and promise of emancipation devoured by undead vampires, is both inc

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

Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking syndicate has become one of the defining examples of elite corruption in the past decade. With insurmountable living costs accompanied by a widening wealth gap, stories of elites using their enormous capital to sexually abuse underprivileged children have caused an uproar across American party lines. However, though many of these sexual offenders have been exposed to the public through the ‘Epstein Files,’ federal law enforcement under

In the wake of its victory over the declining Spanish Empire in 1898, the United States of America was faced with a political and moral problem. Specifically, the territories it had acquired under the Treaty of Paris - the largest of which were Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico - were inhabited by over 10 million people, or the equivalent to 12% of the US population at the time. As Daniel Immerwahr describes in his book How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greate

There can be no doubt that the Prime Minister is a very able man. Nor can there be any doubt that he is a very competent man. The Prime Minister conquered the legal profession to its highest attainable rank outside of politics. The Prime Minister entered politics for the right reasons. The Prime Minister climbed the ranks of his party to become its leader just five years after entering Parliament, a record in the Labour Party. Why then, given his glittering resume and clear a

In 1916, a twenty-four year-old British soldier arrived at the Battle of the Somme, where over a million men were killed or wounded over just five miles of ground. John Ronald Reuel (J.R.R) Tolkien lost two of his closest friends in the battle, an experience of indiscriminate slaughter that stayed with him for the rest of his life. Echoes of the First World War can be found throughout Tolkien’s later literary work, most famously in The Lord of the Rings - from the corpse-st

The myth of the demonic trans person who simply transitions to dominate women’s sports is perhaps one of the most effective fables about trans people. It is so dominant that—and those who have incentive to spread this—even allies and sympathisers to the cause of transgender civil rights sometimes have a hard time stomaching the idea of a transgender sportsperson. But it is exactly that: a myth. A myth’s inherent power lies in its ability to replace reality with ideology and i

There is a pervasive sense of societal fracture these days. Politics has become defined by dramatic narratives of battle between the Greens and Reform UK based on story rather than rooted in reality. Culture seems increasingly guided by a furious rejection of tradition, establishment, and imperialist pasts, or a righteous confabulated nostalgia for them. Compare Kneecap with a far-right AI generated rapper , or indeed the culture of the Oscars with the culture of “Looksmaxxi

Lying recumbent and wrecked, roughly 130 kilometres to the North of the glittering Saudi city of Medina, rests the rusted hull of a century-old Ottoman locomotive. Targeted by British Intelligence Officer T. E. Lawrence and future King Faisal I of Iraq’s small cadre of Arab fighters, the sun-baked cadaver exists as a relic of the First World War guerrilla campaign that buckled the formidable Ottoman Empire’s control over the Hejaz, turning the tide of the theatre’s conflict,

Over the past few months, Westminster has been gripped by an all too familiar kind of speculation. It concerns the election that will decide this country’s next Prime Minister. An election that most voters will not participate in, a potential Labour leadership contest. Murmurings within the Parliamentary Labour Party suggest that should the party perform poorly in May’s local and regional elections, pressure on Keir Starmer will intensify. Anonymous briefings have become a lo

19 th Century Methods for 21 st Century Problems Following the abduction of Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, combined with the National Security Strategy (NSS) release in December of 2025, the Trump Era of “Gunboat Diplomacy” consolidated as the world watched on with morose horror. The Trump “Corollary,” as it were, is to represent an abandonment of international good faith and an embracing of the world's brutal dictators, Vladimir Putin and many more across th

The prolonged war in Yemen, which has been locked in a stalemate for a decade, has now entered a new stage. The Southern Transitional Council (STC), supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a major player in the war in Yemen, was able to successfully penetrate the regions of Hadhramaut and Al Mahra , effectively controlling the official borders of the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) – South Yemen. The STC has been the sole representative of the souther