Opinion

If I hear one more person compare the prospect of Britain under a Labour Government to ‘living in Venezuela’ I might to fly to Caracas and throw myself off Parque Central Torre Oeste. Whichever way you voted during the EU referendum OR the General Election, you’re probably tired of being labeled, and are sick to death of reading absurd clichés. Lazy baseless arguments posted over and over and over again on Facebook don't make the point more valid, but they do create...

A year and a half ago a book written by M.E. McMillan titled From the First World War to the Arab Spring: What's Really Going on in the Middle East? landed on my desk for review. The title neatly summarizes the content, so no further description is needed other than mentioning that the book is very good and well worth your while. It all proceeds smoothly, following the historical timeline until it approaches our present day and the two solitudes...

By Daniel Khalili-Tari Could a lack of diversity be hindering the quality of British journalism? Is an absence of racial and social multiplicity inhibiting the credibility of newsrooms? And are young audiences becoming less engaged as a consequence? It’s been known for years, newspaper sales are declining. The emergence of the internet and other digital forms of media are greatly responsible, as well as a change in consumer habits. However, is a de facto lack of diversity also to blame? As...

A report commissioned by former prime minister David Cameron, that investigated foreign funding and support of extremist groups, has been banned from publication by UK home secretary Amber Rudd, who said the report could not be published for “national security” reasons. Rather than have the report published in full, Rudd decided that it would be better to present parliament with a written response outlining details of the report. She said: "Having taken advice, I have decided against publishing the classified...

  By Barry Jotter Philip Hammond's statement that the global trade deals promised by Theresa May after Brexit will make little difference to the British economy is the smoking gun of pragmatism. ‘Much of our trade with the world is service trade, where free trade agreements won’t make any particular difference,’ said the Chancellor. What this statement means is that of the 14.6% of the UK economy that is based on production, very little is of it is exported outside...

“I’m beginning to think Brexit may never happen” Vince Cable confessed to Andrew Marr this morning. The favourite to be the next Lib Dem leader became the latest commentator to express doubt that the government’s Brexit course is achievable or likely to ever happen. "The problems are so enormous, the divisions within the two major parties are so enormous. I can see a scenario in which this doesn't happen,” the former Business Secretary told the BBC on Sunday. https://www.facebook.com/TheLondonEconomic/videos/1275748139203333/ Earlier...

It is not a rule of journalism but it should be. Writing anything at all about the various conflicts in the Middle East, with all their shifts and shapes and connected parts moving like the patterns in a kaleidoscope tube with absolutely none of the beauty, invites the fate of Shelley's Ozymandias. The journalist roars, 'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' In response to which the wind makes the sand shrug and the writer is buried until some...

In 1853 in the run up to the Crimean War John Russell quoted Nicholas I of Russia as describing the Ottoman Empire as "the sick man of Europe". Over the years the term has been applied to most failing states within the continent and as 2016 ticked around it was Britain's turn to inherit the mantle. Following the Brexit vote and on the back of a crumbling economy, chaotic political landscape, eroding global influence and domestic social conflict most continental commentators agreed that...

Of all the probing questions that might have been proffered up by Amol Rajan in the first episode of BBC Radio 4's Media Show since the General Election an examination into whether Fleet Street has lost its influence on British politics probably wasn't one of them. But as it was the episode, which featured The London Economic, explored whether the battle ground was not the front pages of the national press but social media, where a new breed of publisher outgunned the likes...