Politics

By Jack Peat, TLE Editor  When the exit polls were revealed at 10pm last night the entire nation was left scratching their heads. Paddy Ashdown said live on television that he will eat his hat if the poll, which left the Liberal Democrats with a measly ten seats in the House of Commons, was right. The reality is that the party could receive even fewer seats than that. The exit poll gave Conservatives 316 seats, Labour 239, the SNP on 58 and...

By David Binder With the election mere days away, and with all manner of policies, arguments, counter-arguments, slogans, tweets and hashtags swamping us, you could be forgiven for not knowing who to vote for. One way to help navigate this dilemma is to ask ‘what matters to me/my family/my dog/my community/town/country/universe (delete as appropriate), and then look at what each party seems to be saying on that issue/s and proceed on that basis. I’ve written before (here and here on why I believe...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) have created an infographic to demonstrate the role political parties play in enabling a flourishing life. With the impending General Election just two days away, the group of leading academics have completed an audit of the political parties’ manifestos in order to assess their stance on UK and global poverty. The results showed the Green Party goes the furthest in their stand against poverty with a score of 3.9 out of...

By Jack Peat, TLE Editor  Nasal, uncharismatic and incapable of eating a bacon sandwich in public, Ed Miliband has been the target of vitriol personality attacks since winning the Labour party leadership contest against his brother in 2010. One of the lines that has become synonymous with the election is, “I could vote Labour, but not Ed Miliband”. Curious logic given the nature of party politics and, well, democracy, but perhaps not surprising given that political engagement has become about switching...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  The Labour Party has ramped up the battle of the video in the run-up to the General Election, releasing another video featuring an A class celebrity. Steve Coogan is the latest celeb to appear in a Labour Party video, urging voters to side with Labour in order to prevent further privatisation of the NHS. He said: “Now this election is on a knife-edge but if you want a government that believes in working families, in a better...

By Jack Peat, TLE Editor The only thing we can say for certain in the run-up to the 2015 General Election is that there are no certainties. Set to be the closest fought election in recent history the electorate is split and Westminster is divided. Very few political commentators feel confident enough to call it one way or the other and the polls have been returning the same results since the start of the year. So what is going to happen? Well, we...

By Alan Owens, Partner and Head of Technology at law firm DWF The current Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations explicitly fail to address the big issues facing the global tech industry – data and US dominance. These issues have come right to the fore following the recent EU action against internet giant Google. Google has been in the crosshairs of the EU for some time, replacing Microsoft as its US tech target of choice. On 27 November last...

By David Binder  Alongside the more established parties, General Elections usually bring their fair share of serious and not so serious smaller parties, and 2015 is no exception. One party making something of a comeback is the Whig Party. Whilst to some the Whig name will illicit visions of politics of a by gone era, the party under leader Waleed Ghani apparently offers a radical new vision for the 21st century whilst remaining true to it’s progressive roots. To find out...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Police targeted, stores looted and havoc wreaked across the streets of Baltimore. The past week has been a mass of ugly pictures in Maryland as footage emerge from riots that broke out after the funeral of Freddie Gray, 25, who died after suffering a spinal injury in police custody. Like the London riots, citizen journalism has played a prominent role in conveying the events which seems to have humanised the uprising. Subsequent media responses have been...