Global Political Insight

The date on which Scotland will decide its faith in the 307 year old union is approaching fast. Despite that, neither the nationalists nor pro-unionistic British government are making any dramatic moves, keeping their best cards hidden. The recent stipulation of Alexander Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland, that Scotland will keep its pound, mildly […]

On Thursday the 26th of June, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, announced a plan to curb the issuance of mortgages in the UK, by imposing two sets of rules.This comes as a reaction to the rapidly growing prices of UK and especially London property markets. Carney’s plan might work in terms […]

New findings published by Kaspersky Lab, concerning the widespread state deployment of digital surveillance tools used in some countries to spy on political dissidents, journalists and human rights advocates, place a further question mark over the western liberal agenda. The issues surrounding the collection of public data have been at the forefront of political debate […]

Almost four years into his leadership of the Labour Party, and with just 10 months to go until next year’s election, Ed Miliband has yet to persuade the electorate that he has the personal qualities needed to lead Britain. As a result, Labour is only narrowly ahead of the Conservatives, instead of enjoying the double-digit […]

Nigel Farage and his party UKIP have a point about the EU. It is a flawed institution and definitely undemocratic. The influential technocrats in the EU’s executive branch, the European Commision, are not directly elected by citizens. The Eurozone relies on the decision-making of unaccountable European Central Bank. Furthermore the EU’s proposed trans-atlantic trade and […]

The European elections results have left the establishment shocked. It was expected that Euro-sceptics would do well, but not many predicted that, in Britain, their success would result in UK Independence Party (UKIP) becoming the party of choice for nearly a third of voters. This is the first time since 1906 that a party other […]

The debate over the European Union suffers from one perennial pitfall – views quickly become contentious when the question is posed of whether collaborative efforts to reform individual countries’ relationship with the EU are advisable, or whether a more hard-line stance needs to be taken. Unfortunately, any suggestions for reform themselves can often be ignored […]

Alex Salmond’s white paper, entitled ‘Scotland’s Future’, seems to have attracted a lot of media coverage – but it whiffs of both (self-)importance and an sense of underwhelming implausibility. There are two issues that Salmon has tackled in this white paper. Firstly he tackles the elephant in the room, Scottish independence from the UK. He […]

After the banking crisis and global recession came to the fore in 2007, analysts and commentators across Europe forecasted that the Euro would collapse, and that this would lead to the gradual collapse of the European Union itself. However, time has told that this is not the case. Despite relative success, the pan-European solidarity is […]

A year is a long time in economics. As 2013 dawned, many were expecting the worst since the financial crisis of 2008 the UK had suffered two recessions and a third was apparently just around the corner, ready to take the country into unchartered territory – the triple dip. Yet the picture began to brighten […]

Communications consultancy APCO’s London office recently held a roundtable discussion with former U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and Professor Alan Riley of City University regarding the implications of the U.S. energy revolution for the UK and Europe. The discussion could not have been timelier, with the energy debate in the UK heating up around the […]

If there is one thing that stands out as extraordinary in this debate, it is the assertions put forward by the UK’s Chancellor George Osborne. He constantly claims that the recent crisis was caused completely by the irresponsibility of the Brown government, and uses this as his primary line of defence when tackling the popular backlash […]

As an introductory disclaimer, it is undeniable that most democratic countries and its citizens who hold liberty in high regard will support the idea of a right to privacy and its conceptual sister, the right to information. By contrast, the emergence of news that the NSA tapped into technology and cyber-data with the supposed assurance […]

Since 2010, the Department for International Development (DfID) has taken a controversial decision to pump foreign aid into low-cost private schools in developing countries (Nigeria, Ghana and Pakistan, to name a few) due to a need for investment in public education systems that, if anything, are growing exponentially. This move sparks a change in mentality for […]

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 […]