Opinion

Here in the UK, we take having reliable electricity and gas for cooking and heating for granted. But even for us the prospect of power failures and ‘not keeping the lights on’ is a worrying one. For a staggering 3 billion people on the planet, however, ‘modern energy’ access and all the things that become easier because of it, remains a distant dream. 2015 was an important year for people seeking to change the situation. Energy access was enshrined in...

Apparently everyone wants London to become a National Park City. 85% of Londoners think it’s a good idea, 203 of London’s wards have declared their support, and hundreds of community groups, businesses, charities and environmental organisations are keen. Not only was it one of Sadiq Khan’s election pledges as Mayor of London, it was an election pledge also made by most of his rivals. In fact, all this support might explain why it hasn’t made the headlines and TV breakfast shows it should...

Yemen Country Director Giorgio Trombatore recently completed his first year managing the International Medical Corps team in Yemen. Based in Sana’a, he is responsible for a country team of more than 150 staff members and for programmes in Aden, Taizz and Sana’a – funded by the European Union - that provide humanitarian assistance to those in need. These are his reflections of the challenges he has faced to direct International Medical efforts to support tens of thousands of civilians caught up...

Alastair Brown, CEO of Lombard Risk and co-chair of Byte Night London, discusses how London's tech community is tackling youth homelessness. I have enjoyed a long career in London’s finance sector – I’m now the CEO of Lombard Risk and previously was with RBS, and I have been lucky enough to never have to experience homelessness. Unlike the 80,000 young people who find themselves in this situation every year in the UK. On 7 October I will be taking part in...

By Titus Alexander As the party conference season starts and David Cameron fades from political memory it is time to draw lessons from his ten years at the top of the Conservative Party and his swift departure after the Brexit vote. His period in power restored Conservative confidence as a natural party of government, but it only has a majority of 17 seats and 37 per cent of the vote. British politics is entering a new, uncertain era. Many more...

By Michael Smith, Initiatives of Change Winston Churchill famously said: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” So if the point of economic systems is to help create personal wealth, you could argue that capitalism is working very well indeed. For some people, at least. But the global economy is all pervasive, affecting the daily lives of all of us in one way or another,...

Are we sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. I have read of countries in the world that actually fund their key services properly to ensure the country can keep its citizens well-educated, healthy and safe in times of emergency. Alas, they are all far away from here and, as a recent well-documented ‘survey’ suggests, half our population believes these European chaps have got it all wrong anyway and we have nothing to learn from them. Our education system, like the police...

A recent article by a dairy chief executive describes an industry in crisis, stating that demand for milk products are falling. It blames health professionals for warning the younger generations away from dairy, and speaks of a new ‘three-a-day’ dairy campaign to be launched soon. This initiative will promote daily portions of milk, butter and cheese. But hang on a minute: why are we being told yet again to ignore the experts? At the risk of stating the obvious, surely...

The author Lionel Shriver gave a speech at the Brisbane Writers' Festival recently outlining how the culture of hypersensitivity was a threat to fiction writing. How, she asked, could authors create fictional worlds and characters if every word they wrote was policed and every plot scrutinised for bias and – God forbid – cultural appropriation? Shriver outlined a no-win scenario for authors: depict people from outside your social group and you're accused of stealing their experiences, have no minorities in...