PERSPECTIVES

Morgan McSweeney's resignation as Chief of Staff is the single largest change to Starmer's operation since the Prime Minister became Labour leader. His departure is a wise decision, and it goes without saying that his support for Lord Mandelson was a severe and reprehensible mistake. Whether it was a preventable one will likely be clear soon—it is difficult to write about the Mandelson-related aspects of his resignation until the ISC publishes evidence. Ensuing analysis of hi

On January 22, 2025, Trump announced his new institution, the Board of Peace, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, signing its founding charter in front of global political elites. Trump claimed the board was established as a mechanism to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, with ambitions aimed toward peacekeeping. However, the American president has now stated that he intends for the board to reach far beyond this, becoming “one of the most consequential bodies ever created in the

By Adrian Khodavardar The recent, high – stakes extraction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from Caracas by United States special forces has marked a decisive inflection point in contemporary geopolitics. Early commentary has been quick to frame the operation as a crude 'oil grab' or a revival of 20th century interventionism. Such readings, however, are analytically shallow. They mistake motive for material and overlook the strategic environment in which the op

On the 28 November 2024, the Australian government passed a bill that required a minimum age of 16 to create an account on certain social media platforms. Coming into effect on the 10 December 2025, the ban is the first of its kind and the subsequent events since the imposition of the law have been watched very closely by the rest of the world, with many countries seriously considering the idea of introducing similar legislation. Leader of the Conservative party, Kemi Badenoc

By Lucas Nahal In the last few weeks, the Islamic Republic regime has undergone its gravest challenge since the revolution of 1979. On December 28 2025, a small group of shopkeepers and merchants in Tehran went on strike to protest Iran’s worsening economic conditions. By the advent of the New Year, the demonstrations had spread to almost every major city, featuring a massive coalition of students, merchants and the previously dormant Iranian middle class. It is estimated tha

By Adrian Khodavardar When Donald Trump withdrew the United States from major international climate frameworks, most notably the Paris Climate Agreement, the decision was widely framed as symbolic: a temporary rupture in an otherwise irreversible global transition. That interpretation understates the damage. The US exit did not merely slow climate action; it reshaped how climate cooperation is perceived, contested, and legitimised across the international system. The United S

“Our wonderful country is sick” and “Britain is Broken” were some of the words spoken by Zahawi and Jenrick, as the two senior Conservatives announced they were joining Farage’s Reform UK over the past week. Tory defections to Reform are now happening at a rate where it is hard to believe the Conservative Party is the longest existing political party in the West. Each week Conservatives once considered stoic and loyal are deserting the party that gave rise to their politic

The Prime Minister holds a press conference in No.9 Downing Street. The room was refurbished after he took office to change the "Tory" blue backdrop, with the Breakfast Room in No.10 used in the interim. Image: Flickr/No.10 “Scumbag journalists” That was how now-Baroness Gray described the media briefing against her to colleagues. The remarks were part of a Whitehall spat that would eventually see her premature departure from Number 10 and as Downing Street Chief of Staff. Sh

By: Meera Nair When Goli Kouhkan, an Iranian child-bride sentenced to death for killing her husband, was spared her life earlier this month, headlines spoke of mercy and hope for other Iranian girls. However, this rare reprieve is not representative of a shift in Iran’s stance on child marriages, nor of the wider humanitarian crisis facing the country, and indeed, other parts of the globe. Although in Iran, forced marriages are illegal, this has not stopped the ongoing trend

By: Lily Hatch On Wednesday, the 3rd December 2025, the Kenyan Parliament’s Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence, and Foreign Relations released a 94-page report into the conduct of the British Army Training Unit of Kenya (BATUK) troops. BATUK is a major British military training facility based in Nanyuki, Kenya; However, as Kenya’s report shows, their presence has increasingly become seen as an occupying force by locals. The Unit faces serious accusations of decad