In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. By May of that year, oil prices had spiked sharply to well over $100 per barrel. This pushed-up global energy prices and caused particular hardship in the UK. Figure 1: Oil Prices over time (nominal) As oil prices are now rising again, this prompts the question was our approach last […]
Péter Magyar is inheriting the ruins of a democracy Orbán spent sixteen years hollowing out. Will Britain learn Hungary’s lesson the easy way or learn our own the hard way? Viktor Orbán conceded defeat on Sunday 12 April after sixteen years, after four consecutive supermajorities, after rewriting the constitution and redrawing the maps and packing […]
With the government of the United States currently in the care of a vulnerable adult, open to manipulation by those around him, we need to consider what happens when he is allowed to die. Throughout the current Trump presidency, we are seeing many of the signs displayed in Brezhnev’s final years as leader of the […]
This is no longer a distant conflict. It is at Europe’s door. On March 4, everything escalated again — and this time it hit a NATO member state. IRAN FIRES A BALLISTIC MISSILE TOWARD TURKEY Wednesday March 4 2026, Iran fired a ballistic missile that travelled through the airspace of Iraq and Syria before heading […]
Politically speaking, I am an uncomfortable hybrid, something between an ostrich and an idiot savant. I don’t watch the news for daily, hourly tidbits of frustration and terror. I don’t know each incident comprising the ongoing catastrophe that is Trump’s madness, but I know what’s going on. I don’t need endless examples: in fact, I’d […]
One of the most memorable American films I have seen, albeit many years ago, was Mississippi Burning (1988). Its producer was Frederick Zollo, and no, he is no relative of mine, so far as I know, but was married to Barbara Broccoli, famous for some of the Bond films. Mississippi Burning is based loosely on […]
It’s no secret that the political right in Britain largely takes its cues from Donald Trump. They regurgitate MAGA’s culture-war talking points, recycle the same influencers and Roman-statue ‘X’ accounts, and – in Reform UK’s case – directly import disastrous schemes like Elon Musk’s DOGE. Trump says jump; they ask how high. So it’s not […]
My grandparents on my mother’s side were Geordies from the North East of England, born and bred, but on my father’s side were born in the Austro-Hungarian empire. My grandfather from Hungary and my grandmother from Austria, just off the Danube – Rembrandtstrasse – just a short walk from the University. Cultured and deeply integrated. […]
…and quicker than most of us thought it would. Trump wants Greenland. And he is prepared to blackmail any country that stands in his way. Of course, the claim that the USA needs Greenland for national security is nonsense. Under the 1951 Greenland Defence Treaty – which allowed the USA to have its base at […]
On Tuesday Jan 6 2026, seven European leaders issued a joint statement on Greenland that reads like a masterclass in how democracies should respond to authoritarian overreach. Clear principles. Unified front. No hedging. But within hours, the White House responded by raising the prospect of military force to get their way. So much for bullies […]
Stop calling this a food crisis, because a crisis suggests confusion or happenstance, and nothing about what is happening in Gaza is unintentional. People are not running out of food; they are being pushed into starvation so deep that families are forced to eat expired flour crawling with insects, soaked in rodent waste, and covered […]
It was Carl von Clausewitz, the early nineteenth century Prussian general, who said: “War is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means”. In other words, if a country goes to war, it should do so with a clear political objective, and the war itself should be fought in such a manner as to […]
If I’m honest, it was hard to watch proceedings at yesterday’s UN General Assembly. I can remember several times when the world of international relations was in similar turmoil, but I can’t remember ever being as pessimistic as I am now about the prospects that our international institutions will be able to fix things. The […]
Members of Extinction Rebellion (XR) Wimborne staged a protest outside Mission Systems in Wimborne, Dorset, over the company’s links to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Mission Systems is owned by US-multinational Eaton, which manufactures parts for the F-35 fighter jet used by the Israel Defence Force. These jets are central to the bombardment of Gaza, […]
Those who remember the 1960s and 70s may recall a Soviet leader called Leonid Brezhnev. He began with the iron fist that was expected of Soviet rulers, but his grip on power began to slip after he suffered a heart attack in 1975, and his health progressively deteriorated until his death in 1982. By the […]
Friday, July 25, 6pm in Exeter city centre. Shops and cafes closing their doors for the evening, people heading home from work, others on their way to pubs and bars for the start of the weekend. None of them could miss the large crowd in Bedford Square, just off the main street, where hundreds of […]
July 4 is traditionally celebrated as Independence Day in the United States, to commemorate the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress, to establish the United States of America. 249 years ago, the formal vote, taken on July 2 by delegates of the 13 colonies, established the United States as a […]
As Trump implements Project 2025 at pace, can Americans and the rest of the world count on the USA remaining a democracy in other than name? Many people have grave reservations about Donald Trump’s policies – for example the Budget, which the US Congressional Budget Office says will cost the poorest families around $1,600 per year over the years […]
It is yet another time when I turned out to be right, but it does not bring me any joy. Donald Tusk’s party’s candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski, lost the presidential elections to his opponent, Karol Nawrocki, an “independent” candidate supported by PiS. Why did that happen, what do The Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska – PO) make […]
I used to work in an environment in which the attitude of some senior colleagues was to disrespect and undervalue the knowledge and skills of those who worked for them, on the basis, apparently, that “I didn’t need it to get to where I am!”. That seems to describe a certain US president. It is […]
The preliminary exit polls published just minutes after the first round of presidential elections surely gave some people in Poland a proper scare. As for me: being a pessimist again paid off. My prediction turned out to be correct again. The most stressed must be those who believed that those elections were to be just […]
Like everyone else, I have been watching and waiting to see what Donald Trump will do next. I have been shocked at his apparently soft approach to Russia and hostility towards Ukraine. I have been amazed at his absurd demands to annex Greenland and make Canada the fifty-first state. I have been appalled and staggered […]
Dear Editor, Does anyone else wonder where our diplomats in the US have been over the past six months? All this madness keeps being presented as if it came out literally yesterday. Yet another way of isolating the UK, making Brexit even worse. It’s sobering to think that almost US $5tn [now $9.3tn] has been […]
“Wherever it is found, hunger highlights the fault lines of inequality that run through that society.” In our society, that could indicate the effects of political austerity measures, including the latest benefit cuts. On a global level, it could point to the people in the world’s poorest nations whose crops are being destroyed by the […]
The Anglo-German Family History Society (AGFHS) is a well-established group for all those who are interested in researching their roots among people from the German speaking parts of Europe, who have emigrated over centuries and settled in Great Britain or Ireland. We have developed considerable expertise and resources, and new members are always welcome. Here […]
Set against so much worrying and negative news, the situation in Spain is very encouraging! We’ve just come back from two weeks there, and as so often in recent years we’ve observed a country that’s going places – in a very positive direction! A spate of articles recently, such as in the Independent, The Week […]
Sometimes I hate being right. A year ago, my article in West Country Voices described some of my concerns about the possible election of Donald Trump as US president. With the new President in office, with Elon Musk in power and with the Handmaid’s Tale as the working agenda, I confess that my worst fears […]
I am an American. I wake up each morning to a country I barely recognize, gripped by a fear that no longer fades with the dawn. The streets aren’t filled with tanks, yet we are under siege. The attack is quieter, but just as ruthless. It marches with every presidential executive order that tears at […]
It has been more than three years since we first wrote about the dramatic humanitarian crisis at the Polish border with Belarus. After a year of the new government, you might be wondering what has changed there. To quote our new minister of justice: “We have the paradoxical situation that all the critics are being […]
Tomorrow, Americans may elect a fascist president. Tom Scott explores the disastrous impacts this would have on the world beyond the US. Last month the astute American commentator and expert on authoritarian kleptocracies Sarah Kendzior posted a hauntingly brilliant essay to her Substack. It included this memorable passage, which may well prove – like much […]