Global Political Insight

Barack Obama took office in 2008 as a moderate, an accomplished lawyer with enough grammatical tricks and a robust lexicon to weave his way through Congress and the rest of the political establishment. For many, if not all of us, Barack Obama became synonymous with fresh air. A much needed break from his conservative, trigger […]

In recent weeks, the Russian government has come under fire for a recent amendment to a law on child protection which prohibits the promotion of homosexuality to under 18’s in Russia. The punishment for breaching this law varies with the BBC saying an individual can risk a £78 fine while an organisation could be fined […]

In 2003, Tony Blair gave a speech to the Fabian Society on the subject of public sector reform.  He argued that after years of Tory underfunding and privatisation, Labour had – and would continue – to reform public services to make them work for a modern society.  The speech was largely spin and guile (he […]

This article is intended to be a short update as a first-hand witness in India scrutinising the various views of investment here. As I write from the Pai family home in the centre of Mumbai, I notice just how much inflation has affected the retail market, which I like to observe so closely (having bought […]

As rental prices hit an all time high, on average costing £800 per month and with ever inflating energy bills, has there ever been a worse time to be a tenant as we head towards autumn and winter? Landlords have particular legal responsibilities for duration of a tenancy agreement – they are legally required to […]

The Green Party of England and Wales is on a roll. They won their first seat in the House of Commons in 2010 in Brighton and took minority control of the city’s council in 2011.  They also have a good chance of a second seat in Norwich next time around. To this extent they are […]

Following the unverified claims that chemical weapons were used in Syria, British Prime Minister David Cameron was ready to take military action against the Syrian state within days of the incident. The media and the public were certain that Britain was about to embark on another military campaign, to add to the recent tallies of […]

Over the past week, there has been major fracas over the issue of fracking in the UK. The little village of Balcombe in West Sussex became the stage of the latest showdown between environmentalists and the Caudrilla drilling company, with the police acting as umpire. Watching reels of footage from the protest, I was particularly […]

The very term pressure group conjures up images of a group of hardened activists, sat in a small room all wearing the same t-shirt with the group slogan emblazoned across it, they sit in the dim light discussing plans of protest and direct action. We think of a highly active, small group, who, in the […]

Since the military coup that ousted President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power in July, the West has been forced into a difficult position regarding events in Egypt. Whenever the military feels the need to intervene through a coup something must be going wrong in the state in question. This also raises the prospect […]

The beginning of this month marked an EU free trade agreement with Colombia and Peru to liberalise trade in the agricultural, manufacturing and fisheries industries. This is the first of what is predicted to be several deals with South American nations. Free trade has always been vociferously supported by neo-liberal, free-market capitalists, and the European Parliament is […]

To even the strongest supporters of capitalism, there is little argument that the global economic crisis that began in 2008 has exposed some of the fundamental weaknesses of the system, and in particular the ‘free market’ element that has existed in many Western democracies since the end of the Second World War. This exposure has […]

By Hilary Stoten We can all thank Citizens United and SpeechNow.org, the two Supreme Court decisions in 2010 for reopening the doors to overwhelming amounts of unlimited corporate money in US elections. These seminal rulings led to the birth of a new political vehicle in the campaign finance world: super PACs. Super PACs are a fresh […]

Cooking a five-ounce burger is not the typical way to enter global headlines, but then again, the slightly charred beef served up to the world media on Monday, was no ordinary piece of meat. Assembled from tiny pieces of cow muscle, that have been cultured from stem cells and grown in a laboratory, Dr Mark […]

By Thomas Williamson US Secretary of State John Kerry is leading yet another attempt to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The harsh reality is that like so many more before him he will probably fail to broker a lasting peace, due to the thicket of issues that surround the conflict. The dispute […]