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graduated from the Tony Blair school of charming and underproduced campaign videos, swapping the three-piece suits and out-of-date TikTok trends of his peers for genuine, boots-on-the-ground campaigning.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

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

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

Earlier this month, Robert Jenrick was abruptly sacked by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch  after screenshots of the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice’s resignation speech were sent to senior figures in Badenoch’s office. Memories of the infighting that characterised the latter years of the previous Conservative government were immediately evoked, a period in which Tory MPs routinely plotted against their leaders, forgetting their duties to the public to instead resemble

It seems that the era of repetitive politics is over in Japan. Since her inauguration as the first female Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi has set a new path for Japan’s foreign policy. Her first order of action? A diplomatic firestorm with China. In her parliamentary declaration of last November, Takaichi underlined that any attempt of a Chinese blockade against Taiwan will signal an existential threat for Japan, precipitating the need for a collective self-defence st

The BBC has increasingly found itself under fire over the last few years, with right-wing media and politicians alike finding every possible opportunity to lambast the public-service broadcaster for perceived left-wing bias. Until his departure in the summer , Gary Lineker often drew much of the media’s ire for his outspoken political views, culminating in his earlier-than-planned exit from the UK’s national public service broadcaster. Now, remarkably, the U.S. President is a

As 2026 commences, how ready is the world of journalism for the next quarter century of the 21 st  century? With social media gaining traction in the 2010’s, it’s safe to say the online world has well and truly exploded in the 2020’s. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X are all pillars of communication, information gathering and self-expression; should they have been given the authoritative voice they now have? The current social media-sphere is many worlds away from the World

The Starmer project was supposed to last a decade, it might not make it to the spring. Despite having one of the largest majorities in parliamentary history, the political project Starmer leads is so brittle it could snap at any moment . How on earth did a man with a majority of 172 seats lead this political project towards near certain disaster in just over a year?  The answer, or at least one of them, lies at the very heart of the Starmer project and how it was constructed.

Steamrolling towards the 2010 General Election, and needing to recoup votes lost to David Cameron’s Conservatives and ‘ Cleggmania ’, Prime Minister Gordon Brown headed to Rochdale to engage with Joe Public. Unfortunately for him, it all ended up going awry, as Brown ended up committing a political gaffe of the ages following his televised conversation with 66-year-old Gillian Duffy. The exchange  touched on pensions, university tuition, and immigration, as well as other topi

The political classes are being held responsible, academically and in actuality, for the rise of populism. Their failure to create the conditions for growth, apparent disdain for popular opinion, and inability to abide by professional standards have undoubtedly increased the public’s appetite for an alternative type of politician. Do we, however, expect too much of our politicians and do they, in fact, need to better explain what exactly it is that they are supposed to do? Be

With the 2027 midterm elections fast approaching, Mexico’s political landscape is already shifting. The National Action Party ( PAN ), the main opposition force and the only visible representative of the Mexican centre-right, has decided to reinvent itself, both in image and structure . The “blue and white” party now seeks to break with the approach that defined it between 2016 and 2024 — a period marked by alliances with former rivals , first with the now-defunct Party of th

Occasionally, you stumble across something that perfectly articulates the current zeitgeist. Recently,  Tim Stanley on the Daily T podcast  explained that Farage and Reform are neither a right-wing nor left-wing party; they are a nationalist outfit. Essentially meaning that on some issues the party tacks left, on others they sway right. Fundamentally opportunist, everything is underpinned by the idea and sense, whether factual or not, that decisions are made for your, the Bri

Czech billionaire turned populist politician and former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has won a plurality in this month's elections  in the central European country, defeating incumbent Prime Minister Petr Fiala's centrist coalition and falling 20 seats short of an overall majority. Nicknamed the ‘Czech Trump’, Babiš made his return on the back of the Czech Republic's economic woes.  The central European state had seen one of the worst inflation rates  in Europe and had borne t

On July 21, 2025, one day after the pivotal elections for the Upper House in Japan, a crowd of devoted supporters went into a frenzy,...

Zohran Mamdani “won’t be getting any” federal funding to fulfill his campaign promises if elected mayor, declared Donald Trump on Truth...

Chile is facing its most complicated political landscape since the return of democracy. The outlook for the presidential elections in...

It has been enjoyable to exchange with fellow Europinion writer Andrés De Miguel, but this will be the last word on our quarrel. I hope...

Mexico’s political history is, to say the least, peculiar. Today, the country has seven registered political parties, yet not one of them...