Politics

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor David Ward, a Liberal Democrat MP, has been forced to apologise after suggesting on Twitter, that he would consider firing rockets into Israel if he lived in Gaza, again highlighting the dangers of elected officials using social media. Originally he refused to say sorry and he faced losing the party whip.  On Tuesday, Mr Ward was accused of inciting violence after he tweeted: "The big question is - if I lived in Gaza would I...

By Lock Bailey It surprises me very little that there is nearly no heard outcry in the United States on the recent war-crimes committed by Israel against the civilians in Gaza. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “urged” Israel along with “many regional and world leaders together” to refrain from killing civilians in Gaza. Over three-quarters of the casualties, approximately 77% of the now over 500 killed and over 2,000 injured, are civilians. Outcry around the world against Israel’s military barrage...

By Max J Freeman  There is a feeling of underlying angst amongst the protesters, almost as though they are not willing something to happen, but they can sense today London is a boiling pot, which may just yet turn into a police kettle.  I am glad, for the moment, that I heeded my partners advice, and did not bring my child with me to today’s protest against Israeli incursions into Gaza over the last couple of weeks. But I need...

By Elsa Buchanan The United States’ choice to take a more passive role in the Gaza conflict and delegate the responsibility of leading a ceasefire to Egypt is a blunder from the Obama administration, a leading academic has warned. But the US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to express a growing frustration over the number of Palestinian civilians killed in Israel's offensive in Gaza, which reached 500 on Monday evening. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, Kerry’s comments made for...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The threat of a real war with Russia still hangs in the air, but one academic believes a cyber-attack is a more likely scenario. A silent, but digitally destructive scenario, which could cause chaos across the globe, adversely affecting the UK. Cyberwarfare is politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage and espionage. It is a form of information warfare sometimes seen as analogous to conventional warfare. Professor Mike Jackson – computer security expert at Birmingham City...

By David Binder The issue of economic inequality has once again been thrust into the spotlight by French economist Thomas Picketty’s new book ‘Capital in the Twenty-First century.’ Whilst his research has been discussed at great length elsewhere (the Washington Centre for Equitable Growth has produced a useful summary of some reviews) it is worthwhile to step back and consider the virtues of pursuing policies aiming to reduce economic inequality. In other words, is economic inequality in itself always a...

  By Gregory Taylor So the Prime Minister seems to have had a “Night of the Long Knives" part 2, as any political geek will know that Harold Macmillan famously sacked seven members of his cabinet in one night. Although the PM has not sacked seven members of the cabinet he seems to have sacked most of the moderate Tories from the pre 2010 election, and he seems to have brought in a lot of the ‘class of 2010’ intake....

  By Marcus Hunt There are potentially many reasons why an individual might be pro- or anti-immigration. Beliefs about immigration’s concrete effect on the economy, crime, or public services like health and education can be important. However, most people who take a strong view on immigration – and here I include myself – are not well educated about its actual empirical effects. Even if they tried to educate themselves, they would find a whirl of contradictory socio-economic evidence emanating from...

By Guy Dorrell @GuyDorrellEsq This week’s reshuffle gained a huge amount of media and airtime, as it was surely meant to, and coincidentally prevented much coverage of the on-going investigation of paedophilia among the establishment and also prevented proper scrutiny of the DRIP intelligence intercepts legislation. It was cast as a triumph for women in the Cabinet, though in reality there was an increase of a sole post going to a woman over that which we had back in 2010....