Opinion

It was a freakish coincidence. At almost exactly the same time as Khalid Masood began his murderous attack on the Palace of Westminster, I was whizzing by the building on the south side of the river. My taxi must have missed him by minutes. As soon as I heard the news – a BBC News text update – my first thought was of my former colleagues in the Houses of Parliament. I had long expected the attack to come. After...

Dr Anastasia Filippidou, Lecturer, Centre for International Security and Resilience, Cranfield University Another tragic attack in a major city. The attack follows the familiar pattern of unsophisticated, high impact attacks, as we have seen in Nice, Berlin and Ohio State University. There is nothing new in this approach. From ancient times, terrorist attacks involved lone attackers – the Sicarii for instance – inspired by one doctrine or another, using just a dagger. The difference now is the scale of the...

Of all the disturbing photos, live video reports and sensationalist news accounts of the shocking events at Westminster yesterday satirist site News Thump was the rag that got it right this morning. The people of London, it reported, showed their defiance by "stoically remaining unfriendly and really quite impatient" on their way to work, with one woman heard shouting ‘Oi, do one you cycling dickhead’, as if it was a normal day. In times like this it is important that we...

By Josh Coates Yet another man decided the world simply wasn’t fair and that it was time for him to take matters into his own hands today. He got in his car and drove to the seat of power in the UK to teach us all a lesson. Unfortunately for him he just came across as a pathetic coward who needlessly took the lives of three innocent people and injured around many others. Luckily for him he also died. He...

Back in 2015 The LadBible launched a social experiment aimed at "restoring our faith in humanity" and subliminally quashing negative stereotypes around race and social status. They filmed a guy walking around Manchester dropping a wallet in front of the public to see how they would react, finding all the unsuspecting suspects weren't utter arsewipes after all and returned it like good little citizens. Modern journalism, hey. The problem with the stunt wasn't the evident lack of editorial creativity, but the fact...

By Simon Conington, founder of global resourcing specialist BPS World An economy thrives or dies on the talent of its workforce.  At BPS World we have been at the sharp end of the UK skills crisis in some of our most critical industries, including digital and technology.  Even before the referendum last year, filling posts in these professions was extremely difficult.  Skilled professionals have their pick of jobs and are internationally mobile: when they’re choosing jobs they don’t consider just the...

By Amy Hanson from Small Steps Project Last week a devastating landslide of rubbish on Koshe landfill site in Addis Ababa killed over 100 people. Unfortunately this is not the first and nor will it be the last. Thousands of children currently live on landfill sites and rubbish dumps, surviving from scavenging all over the world. This problem, resulting from mass production and consumption, continues to worsen, as the disposal of waste is not properly addressed. UK charity Small Steps...

Of all the indicators used to track the well-being of a nation it seems perverse that happiness is seldom used as the real test of success. A nation is more often judged to be "doing well" if its unemployment rates are low, if it has a healthy trade balance, if its currency is strong or if its GDP is increasing, all of which are empty and meaningless outside the financial markets. In a capitalist society you may think as a Brit or as...

By Courtney Greatrex  Today George Osborne became the editor of the London Evening Standard. At first I thought it was a sick joke given fake news is alive and well in the Facebook generation. But then I looked online and saw my news feed was awash with memes and comments from the likes of Ed Miliband declaring he will be the next editor of Heat. It quickly became apparent that this was a very real story. How could the former chancellor...