Opinion

It is 70 years since the Soviet Union stopped British and US military trains from travelling between Berlin and West Germany through Russian-controlled East Germany, first announced on 1 April 1948. After Western protestations, the Russians eventually ceased this prohibition until June 1948 when an entire blockade was put in place over West Berlin, provoked by Soviet anxieties that the Americans were trying to strengthen West Germany as a bulwark against their aggressive expansions into Europe – indeed on 3...

What happens when populism fails to deliver on its far-flung promises? With a year to go until Britain's official break from Europe that is a question that seems to be gaining relevance as a likely outcome of the process gets pieced together. There will be no "taking back control" at the end, no money for the NHS or British jobs for British people. Rather we have to face the reality that we will be worse off in all scenarios when Britain...

By Ariel Moshe, co-founder of Jewish Voice UK Yesterday, on the 26th March 2018, people gathered in London’s Parliament Square under the #EnoughIsEnough tagline. The gathering was in protest at the Labour party’s perceived anti-Semitism problem. The protest was called for jointly by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council, to coincide with them delivering a letter to the Parliamentary Labour Party. Now firstly we need to address the issue of whether or not Labour does actually...

Late last year before news of the Facebook data mining scandal broke Cambridge Analytica told Campaign magazine that getting people to vote is "no different from marketing toothpaste". The shameless brag by commercial vice-president Richard Robinson gave an unvarnished view of how the company works, by "understanding people's motives", what their "attitudes and opinions" are and what "behavioural models" they follow. Not unlike the average marketeer then, and surely no worse than train fares being advertised on our social feeds moments after...

By Roger Cottrell, PhD At 8.00 pm on March 23, 2018, 18 officers of the Information Commission Office led by Elisabeth Denham raided the headquarters of Cambridge Analytica in Mayfair, London, having secured a warrant to do so from a Judge in less than 48 hours. This may seem like justice is beginning to be served not only in relation to the illegal harvesting of some 50 million Facebook accounts and Cambridge Analytica’s manipulating of the Trump vote in the...

"It can be hard for people on the Left to admit that our movement has a problem with bigotry", Abi Wilkinson wrote in the Telegraph at the height of the last anti-semitism smear waged against Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in 2016. It is true that as politic's "good guys" those of a left-leaning persuasion are used to thinking of themselves as the people who stand with the oppressed against the architects of their oppression. Notions of equality and liberalism tend to out-trump anything resembling prejudice,...

By Annicée van Engeland, Senior Lecturer in International Security, Centre for International Security & Resilience, Cranfield University There was a murmur of agreement around the room when a Ministry of Defence expert, who’d come in to the University to discuss the UK’s counter-terrorism planning, outlined the basic challenge involved: “we just don’t know what they’ll do next”. This is the problem with the UK’s current thinking, at the time of Parliament’s current Counter-terrorism inquiry. We do know what’s next, there’s...

New research of the Electoral Commission spending figures show the Conservatives paid over 50p more per vote than Labour, with Theresa May's embattled party outspending Jeremy Corbyn on all fronts. Each vote cost the Tories £1.36p compared to just 80p for Labour, with the Lib Dems having to shell out a whopping £2.86p. The Conservatives put considerably more cash behind Facebook, Google and direct mail, but Labour's spend was much more effective. As the graph below demonstrates Labour spent 72 per...

Credit where it is due to Theresa May. Her latest tough stance towards the Russia allegations may be rash, it may have resurfaced Cold War tensions and it may not be in the national interest, but it has done no damage to her approval ratings. A swathe of positive sentiment has been seen following her recent dealing with Spygate, with the in vogue politician even getting a first pump from well wishers in Salisbury. It only takes a brief glance...