Global Political Insight

David Cameron’s expedition to India in February of this year seems to have been perfectly timed and potentially very lucrative. On his visit, the Prime Minister said: “I want Britain and India to have a special relationship… this is a relationship about the future, not [about] the past”. Beyond the delicate imperial history of the […]

In 1713, the small peninsula of Gibraltar was ceded from Spain to Great Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht after being captured in 1704 by mostly British and Dutch forces. Since then it has served as a trading outpost of the British Empire with the occasional Spanish siege, the last of which was in 1779. […]

Spain’s foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo’s recent threat to impose a €50 toll on vehicles crossing the Spain-Gibraltar border reflects nothing more than a cynical attempt to deflect attention from the countries failing economy. Unemployment in Spain is currently at 25% (second only to Greece in the Eurozone) and the IMF last Friday warned it […]

Since the end of the Second World War, America has been the undisputed superpower of our world, matched only by the sheer size and nuclear capabilities of the Soviet Union. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and thus the collapse of the USSR, America has been the unprecedented champion with military and economic might […]

The opening years of the Conservative and Liberal Democrats coalition government provided few opportunities for the self-congratulation that comes so naturally to the present generation of Conservative politicians. The economy barely grew, the NHS was left in chaos by Andrew Lansley’s reforms and the coalition government’s promise of a new politics was tainted by repeated […]

An end to the violence and conflict in Syria is not in sight, far from it. The UN estimates that around 100,000 have died in the conflict so far and the number is set to rise as both the Assad regime and the rebel movement refuse to end the bloodshed. Many suggestions have been put […]

Russia is back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons again. This time, the regime of President Vladimir Putin has received ample criticism for the imprisonment of the informal Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Thanks to the international coverage, the majority will now know who Navlany is, but just to recap: Navalny was sentenced […]

Russia and Europe always had their differences, more so during the Cold War, but even before the two World Wars. Given the globalised world that we live in, one would have thought that Russia and the West may finally put to bed their historic hostility towards each other and cooperate together to ensure the development […]

Long gone are the days when America and Western Europe could credibly claim to set the international agenda and lead the way as leaders of the world. Since the financial market meltdown of 2008, it has become clear that nothing can be resolved without substantive support from China, India, Brazil, Russia and other emerging powers. […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a fascinating, though a mystical character. Even though he has been at the fore-front of Russian politics for over a decade since 2000, not many actually understand the impact and influence he has had on Russia. Discussing Putin’s time as Russian President could take a whole book, but in this […]

Russia is a peculiar country. Though it is no longer a communist state, Russia still continues to be the centre of attention when it comes to the West picking out the other countries they mistrust and see as a potential threat ti Europe and America. Given how much mistrust and anger there is towards the […]

The conflict in Syria seems to have gone on for eternity now. Though it has been just over two years since the violence started, constant depressing media coverage and the agonising monthly announcements by the United Nations of the number of the dead, has created the sad feeling that this conflict will go on for […]

It is an irony of modern politics that the more the political class proclaims its commitment to social mobility, the more exclusive it seems to become. As is widely known and repeated, the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury were all educated at the same school, Eton (where the basic […]

The last few days have undoubtedly been dominated by the gruelling story of a political attack by a hardened radical on a British soldier. Now that some time has passed for everyone to think about what happened, it is time to start a debate about what the consequences of this event may be. Here I […]

On Friday 3rd of May, the results of the local elections in Britain were announced. Political commentators were predicting that the Conservatives would lose a substantial number of councillors, Labour would gain some and UKIP would also do fairly well. The first two predictions came out correct; however the third one was wrong. UKIP did […]