Delivered with energy, and with very punchy attacks on Boris Johnson and the government’s pandemic response, Keir Starmer’s first conference speech (delivered online due to the pandemic) as Labour party leader undoubtedly fulfilled his objectives. But, because of how bad Labour’s 2019 defeat was, we also saw how those objectivesContinue Reading
Ashok Mirpuri, Singapore’s ambassador to the US, recently said that achieving trust in diplomacy is “about the cues and nuances” that come from face-to-face interactions. What Mirpuri did not elaborate on, however, is that reading others when you’re in the same room together can just as easily reveal clues aboutContinue Reading
After the death of the supreme court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Donald Trump finds himself with an opportunity to tip the US Supreme Court into a 6-3 conservative majority. Appointing a third justice to the court could cement Trump’s political legacy, and that of his conservative supporters, for generations.Continue Reading
Defence Images/Ed Lowe, CC BY-NC-ND The Westminster parliament is currently considering one of the most ill-conceived and misleadingly presented pieces of legislation ever introduced. It purports to do something that it cannot while doing several things it should not. The legislation in question is the Overseas Operations Bill, introduced byContinue Reading
The UN general assembly is one of the main fixtures of the global diplomatic calendar. At no other time are so many global leaders gathered in one place at one time. For diplomats it is Wimbledon, the Masters and the Tour de France all rolled into one. I attended myContinue Reading
EPA/Janos Philip The number of new COVID-19 cases in the Czech Republic recently surpassed 3,000 in a single day. As infections rise across Europe, the country, which has a population of 10 million, has regularly seen daily case numbers overtake records from March and April. Other central and eastern EuropeanContinue Reading
In her first state of the union address as president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen called out hatred and pledged to build “a union of equality”. While European institutions have been at the forefront of fighting hate crime and discrimination in and outside of the EU, memberContinue Reading
Writing letters allowed the puritan community spread across England, Holland and the US feel a lot smaller continue practices that were important to their worship. Scisetti Alfio/Shutterstock Those who emigrated on the Mayflower in 1620 seeking religious liberty might not have realised the challenges that lay ahead of them. RoaringContinue Reading
The Indian Premier League (IPL), a franchise Twenty20 cricket tournament in which players from around the world compete in eight different teams, was postponed in March because of coronavirus. After months of uncertainty, it will now take place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) instead of India, with the firstContinue Reading
After an election where he appeared to win 80% of the vote, Alexander Lukashenko should be resting easily in Minsk, looking forward to his sixth term as the president of Belarus. In happier times, Lukashenko performed such mundane duties as harvesting potatoes, inspecting tractors, and teasing Russian president, Vladimir Putin,Continue Reading
