Politics

  By J T Coombes @GMagnaCarta There was a time, not many decades ago, when warfare was defined by the combatants wearing uniforms to identify who they were and also to separate them from the civilian population and other non-combatants. Within this arena there were also codes of practice on how the actual war was conducted, including an ‘etiquette’ for dealing with the wounded and captured prisoners. We have moved a long way from these ‘Marquis of Queensbury rules’ as...

By Pallav Patankar  Many LGBT people in India grow up without understanding their sexuality and feeling dirty about it because they’re surrounded by homophobia.  Most delay addressing their sexuality which causes problems later.  Once you’re in your mid-twenties you have to get married.  In Indian society your social status is determined by your marital status.  You have to be married with children in order to be accepted. If you’re coming out to your parents, sometimes those issues aren’t very well...

By J T Coombes www.globalmagnacarta.com @GMagnaCarta Looking at the television screens I, like millions of others, struggled to understand the latest horror to come out of this troubled land and the resultant five hour ceasefire. But almost immediately afterwards I thought, “Why five hours?” What is the mind-set of the people responsible that they come up with such a figure? What was the instruction that came from the command post? "Oh Fuck!!! Some more kids got killed. Better have a...

  By Guy Dorrell @GuyDorrellEsq The Cabinet reshuffle instigated by David Cameron on 15 July has generated more media coverage than almost any other. As with any reshuffle, comparatively little of this coverage is positive – the exception to this being the deafening chorus of approval of Michael Gove’s removal from Education, applauded by teachers and parents alike. The excess of coverage can, in part, be ascribed to how we now consume our media; social media counts for a huge...

By Marcus Hunt Whether it is welcomed or not, Western Europe is in the midst of a great upheaval driven by immigration, one that poses questions about ethnic and national identities and how the state and civil society should relate to these identities. It may at times seem as though this upheaval is the first of its kind: that there is nothing to be gleaned from history with which we might infer our future course. Although it is true that...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The Church of England has voted to allow women to become bishops for the first time in its history. The Dean of Salisbury, the Very Reverend June Osborne, said it was a "historic day". She said: "I don't think you can overstate the fact that the Church of England allowing women to take up the role of bishop is going to change the Church. "I think it's going to change our society as well because...

By Joe Mellor Deputy Editor Widespread doubts about the appointment of Butler-Sloss have forced her to step down from the inquiry, into allegations of historical child abuse. Seen as an establishment figure, the suspicious was she is too close to senior politicians, police and civil servants, who could be implicated in her findings. Her own brother was Sir Michael Havers was Attorney General in the 1980s. There were also concerns about her age (she will be 81 next month) and...

By Toby James  We need the police. They keep us safe, keep crime off our streets and bring criminals to justice. Their job is somewhat thankless, however, and they are under fire more often than not. At the time of writing, the current scandal is the inquest over the 1985 shooting of Dorothy ‘Cherry’ Groce, which found that a series of police failures contributed to Groce’s injury. Police officers searching for her son had entered her home and an inspector...

By Steve Taggart As ISIS gain new territory and funds with which to establish an Islamic state and ‘’Caliphate’’, they are perhaps unaware that the institution of Caliphate is already in existence here in the UK. The UK first became the home to a world-wide Caliphate in 1984 when His Holiness, Mirza Tahir Ahmad, the fourth Caliph, migrated from Pakistan to England. Today, the leafy streets of Southfields, South-West London, are home to his successor, the fifth Caliph and worldwide...