Yet another deadline in the negotiations for a post-Brexit trade deal has been missed. This one had been set by the European Parliament, which claimed that if its members didn’t have eyes on a deal by December 20, they would not have time to scrutinise and ratify it before theContinue Reading
Girts Ragelis/Shutterstock A new, potentially more infectious variant of the coronavirus is thought to be behind rising COVID-19 case numbers in southern parts of the UK. Fearing this version of the virus could spread out of control, the government has introduced a stricter level of restrictions across much of England:Continue Reading
Sam Wordley/Shutterstock All around the world, Christmas dreams are becoming nightmares. As R numbers increase and the epidemic spikes, people are seeing long cherished plans go up in smoke. In England, plans have been curtailed as the five-day Christmas bubble which would have allowed three households to celebrate together hasContinue Reading
BBC/YouTube At 3pm UK time on Christmas day, the Queen’s Christmas message is broadcast across the Commonwealth. Each year the format is largely the same, with the Queen giving her own account of the main personal, national and international events of the year and reflecting on the meaning of Christmas.Continue Reading
When Vladimir Putin faced the world’s media recently for his annual end-of-year press conference, he was characteristically aggressive. Asked by a BBC journalist whether, as Russia’s president for 20 years, he accepted any responsibility for the current “woeful state of relations” between his country and the west or whether theContinue Reading
Authoritarian populists almost doubled their share of electoral votes across Europe between 2001 and 2018 – from 11.8% to 22.3%, according to Swedish think-tank the Timbro institute. There was then a decline after, but it is too early to say if that represents a permanent reversal. Either way, the riseContinue Reading
Shutterstock/fizkes When we come across false information on social media, it is only natural to feel the need to call it out or argue with it. But my research suggests this might do more harm than good. It might seem counterintuitive, but the best way to react to fake newsContinue Reading
When Helen Steel was a young environmental activist in England in the 1990s, she was deliberately manipulated and deceived into having an intimate relationship with a man she knew as John Barker. Steel says she believed she was part of a loving relationship, but shortly after Barker told Steel thatContinue Reading
Polls have found that feminism has been declared unappealing and irrelevant to young women. NakoPhotography/Shutterstock On December 9, debate began to simmer on social media over the resemblance of two popular women’s empowerment books released in 2020: Chidera Eggerue’s How to Get Over a Boy (published in February by QuadrilleContinue Reading
One of the most striking things about the COVID-19 pandemic is just how dramatically different the responses have been from country to country. In early 2020, when little was known about the virus, this difference was unsurprising. Today, with tens of thousands of research articles and cases of best practiceContinue Reading
