Burnham is in, and Starmer is out. A change of Prime Minister brings a change to the philosophy at the heart of government, a focus on devolution in an attempt to “bring growth to every postcode” and “bring back hope” to politics. These are progressive causes that many people, including myself, agree with – these are reasons that build a left-wing case for returning power to local communities. However, the original advocate for this approach sat in the opposite political camp

Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has been one of the most anticipated movie releases since the ‘Barbenheimer” phenomenon of two years prior. In just the opening weekend, the film made 124 million from eager audiences. The John Ford of our times, Nolan has become the specialist of epic blockbusters. Nolan’s adaptation of the three-thousand-year-old epic centres on ξενία, translated as “Zeus’s Law,” which refers to the norms surrounding hospitality. In a world where being outside o

Ninety miles separates Key West from Havana; across this strait, these two nations could not be more different. On one side, a superpower that throws away 40% of its food. On the other, a country that has spent thirty years perfecting how to grow food on scraps. Not the Cuba of cable news blackouts and empty shelves, but rather the Cuba that has been here before and knows exactly what to do about it. Three decades on, this same reflex is being asked to ignite again, for a dif

The title almost sounds like an oxymoron. We often describe ‘mothers’ as caregivers, nurturers and protectors. How, then, can we possibly think of our natural caregivers as weapons? For centuries, mothers have been venerated as incarnations of the divine. Christianity reveres Mother Mary as a guiding force behind Christ’s path. Hindu tradition addresses its goddesses as Sita Mayya, Maa Saraswati, Kaali Maata; mother, before anything else. Mothers represent power that no insti

The biggest item of note in Andy Burnham’s recent devolution speech was his commitment to ‘the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period’. It is estimated such construction will cost the taxpayer up to £13bn a year. This is merely the tip of the iceberg, however. Research released by the Centre for Policy Studies shows the state is already implicitly subsidising social housing rent to the tune of £43bn every year and paying out £36bn in housing benefi

Alongside Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life stands as his defining attempt to theorise what he perceived to be the cultural malaise permeating British society ever since the end of the 1970s. Published in 2014, 5 years after Capitalist Realism, Ghosts of My Life argues that we are currently living through a “slow cancellation of the future” in which, for a variety of reasons, older generations are more likely to be “startled by the sheer persistence of recog

Nearly 40 years ago, Manufacturing Consent was released by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky to widespread acclaim. The book is principally famous for conceptualising the “Propaganda Model”, explaining how journalistic biases are created and propaganda spread in a market-based media environment. The model explains how consent is manufactured for power-elite decisions in Western societies – not through an elite conspiracy or collusion but as a natural consequence of power accumu

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

Mens Rea dominates our perception of juridicality. Best demonstrated by the rise of true crime media, the grisliest cases arise a morbid curiosity in the spectator. Why did they do it? We can delineate the ensuing response into two categories: impulse and calculation. The former leads to a lesser punishment socially and juridically, with the crime being dismissed as the passions overcoming an otherwise just subject. It wasn’t them, it was the moment. Inverting the above formu

At a news conference regarding agricultural policy on the 12th of August 1986, Ronald Reagan delivered one of his most recognisable quips satirising the organisation he had been elected to lead two years prior: “I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help”. Given the enduring appeal of this line for so-called libertarians and free-marketeers, the words that followed Reagan

Boards of Canada, a Scottish electronic music duo, are soon to release their first LP in 13 years. ‘Inferno’, will be available through Warp Records and conventional streaming from the 29th of May. The duo released their first full length LP, ‘Music Has the Right to Children’, in 1997, an album which has since been described by Simon Reynolds as ‘the greatest psychedelic album of the ‘90s’. ‘Music Has the Right to Children’ represented a crystallisation of what is now recogn

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

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 international politics today, the epithet ‘realism’ has become common currency. It carries with it a rhetorical confidence – a name which suggests prophecy of truth amongst alternatives which are deceptions. But as proclaiming a realist position has become something of a fashion nowadays, we must beware the fashion victims; those who don ill-fitting articles because they bear the right label, and wear its most ridiculous accessories without any sense of the motifs and subs

September of last year marked Zack Polanski’s irruption into the highest echelon of British politics. The Green’s new leader, imbued with the gifts of personality, pitch and popularity, bestowed upon the party an attribute they had yet to enjoy – a brand. Polanski has swiftly turned himself into the Greens’ main asset; sharper than his predecessors, more media-savvy, more combative and far less embarrassed by the prospect of harnessing populism for his party’s good. Polanski,

In the aftermath of the Cold War, scholars such as Francis Fukuyama argued that liberal democracy represented the final stage of ideological evolution, famously framing it as “the end of history.” However, what was celebrated as the final and best form of human government began to buckle under its own contradictions almost as soon as the Berlin Wall fell. “The end” became the starting point for a new political reordering, characterised by the rise of anti-liberal and, eventu

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

Following in the footsteps of the Australian government, the UK government recently released its research briefing proposing a ban on social media for children. The report identifies the rationale behind such a ban, citing obvious harms such as exposure to child sexual abuse images, pornography, sexual content, cyberbullying, self-harm, and violent material. It is perhaps surprising that it is only in 2025 that we are beginning to see meaningful legislation that actually reg

Last month, the BBC reported on a growing cluster of Instagram accounts posting AI-generated images and videos of women with disabilities – including Down’s syndrome, amputations and even fabricated “conjoined twins” – in highly sexualised scenarios designed to attract followers and direct traffic toward monetised adult platforms. At first glance, these profiles might appear to be little more than another grotesque curiosity of the internet. Yet the phenomenon points toward

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