Global Political Insight

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 […]

Hungarian Prime Minister visits London and delivers address to Chatham House think tank but fails to address concerns over rule of law which have dogged his international reputation Mention the names of European political leaders in Brussels right now and few elicit such a negative response as Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister. Since being […]

One could almost be forgiven for not realising that Azerbaijan has just had a presidential election. Yes, the BBC has run an article on it and the news of the vote has made it into Western media, whereas elections in Belarus often fail to do, but it was a brief report in forming readers of […]

A cataclysm occurred on the 14th of May; at least it was an upheaval for two postgraduate students at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES) at the University of Birmingham. Such a momentous occasion called for a morning of coffee at the Starbucks to debate the issue and its connotations for Russia. […]

In the past week there have been increasing calls to ban the Greek far right party, known as Golden Dawn. Since the party has achieved national representation by winning 18 seats in the Greek Parliament, it has been making headlines in Greece, Europe and the World in general. This attention has come in the form […]

Six days ago was Catalonia’s ‘national’ independence day, dedicated to the memory of the fall of Barcelona to Philip V during the Spanish war of succession in 1714. The past two years have seen a particular vehement demonstration of Catalan nationalism with 100,000 protesters last year protesting vociferously in the Placa de Catalunya. This year […]

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 […]

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 […]