Opinion

A scene from Channel 4’s 'SAS Who Dares Wins', which aired last night, showed us exactly how not to react when someone is having a panic attack. SAS Who Dares Wins, for anyone unfamiliar, is a reality show that sees normal men from across the UK take on SAS-style training led by former SAS servicemen. Recruits endure physical and mental challenges that push them to their limits. The scene that troubled me, followed a task where recruits had clambered across...

Theresa May has today backed down on election pledges to hold a vote on the fox-hunting ban in this parliament. The news will be welcomed by the majority of the population. Recent polling had suggested opposition to hunting in the UK was at an all-time high of 85 per cent, and with such a slender majority in parliament this was clearly deemed as an issue not worthy of upsetting that. Even though the Prime Minister remains strongly pro-hunting, even she knows...

By Professor Ann Fitz-Gerald, Cranfield University  While politics in the western world have stood relatively dormant over the Christmas and New Year period, unprecedented events have emerged in Ethiopia’s political scene. Significant decisions have been taken.  There are grounds for hope and optimism, but only if views on anticipated change do not become as polarised as the positions of different political parties to date. The principal questions concern Ethiopia’s ability to sustain its remarkable economic growth record amidst the discontent...

Amidst the furore of the tragic Colman's closure in Norwich there's a white elephant in the room that has yet to surface; Brexit. Despite some of the production moving to Burton some of the production will be shifted by Unilever to Germany in a move that is likely to become commonplace for such companies who rely on the single market. The factory that has been the home of Colman’s Mustard for 160 years is to close, with Clive Lewis, Labour MP...

Out with the old and in with the new. That's Jeremy Corbyn's new year message to the country as he embarks on what is undoubtedly going to be a pivotal year in British politics. The Labour leader said the party would stake out the "new centre ground in British politics", saying the prospect of a "new Britain" was "closer than ever" and that he is leading a "government in waiting". It's a far cry from Prime Minister Theresa May's message, in which...

I’ve never been one to tamper with Wikipedia entries, but if I was the first thing I’d do is refer all traffic for the page “2017” to the one entitled “reap what one sows”. The page, which is depicted by John F. Knott’s “It Shoots Further Than He Dreams”, seems to adequately summarise what happens when populism meets realism –  a collision we have become all too familiar with this year. A year on since the US presidential election and...

By Robert Seiler On the face of it, Theresa May’s Brexit strategy has been reduced to accepting unilateral concessions (otherwise known as “sufficient progress”) in Brussels along with political defeats (otherwise known as “parliamentary sovereignty”) to her own party in the Commons. Beyond the headlines, the Prime Minister is also presiding over the slow but steady decline of British influence within the halls of European institutions. In some instances, that loss of sway is swift and sudden: Britain’s failure to...

Putting the record straight – Emily Barley on why holding the Dan and Alexander Adamescu case up as an example of Tories being soft on white collar crime is foolish given the background. In an article published on this website on November 30th, Robert Seiler made a number of claims about Dan and Alexander Adamescu, holding the case up as an example of right wing, eurosceptic Tories tolerating and even encouraging corruption and white collar crime. But the truth is,...

By Rupert Read I’m in London, to be with the family at Christmas. Every year, the lights are bigger and brighter. Is this progress? Thinking about the meaning of ‘progress’ is not easy to do in our society. Because it’s hard-wired into the hegemony of capitalist economics and of liberal technocracy that any technological change, any increase in GDP, anything getting bigger and brighter IS progress. By definition. In fact, we’re often told, if we dare to try to question...