OPINION
— Labour promising yet again to abolish the House of Lords is just more of the same old waffle, which will lead to an upper chamber which serves the interests of the government of the day.
OPINION
— Labour promising yet again to abolish the House of Lords is just more of the same old waffle, which will lead to an upper chamber which serves the interests of the government of the day.
Political Cartoons
— Elon Musk’s ‘erratic’ leadership causes him to mass-fire Twitter employees and then call them back in. Did this guy actually have a plan when he bought Twitter besides driving it into the ground as quickly as possible? – Today’s political cartoon by FM Hansen
Immigration
— The new deal with France provides clear and compelling evidence that the way the UK chose to leave the EU actually meant a reduction in the ability to control irregular migration.
Refugees
— If the Canadian government sticks to its new plans for refugee resettlement, the next three years could have significant implications for refugees and refugee policy beyond Canada’s borders.
Analysis
— Donald Trump made little mention of his personal legal battles as he announced his bid to retake the White House. But would an indictment end the former president’s run for presidency?
OPINION
— Given how little the COP conferences have achieved since they began in 1995 – not to mention their gigantic carbon footprints – it is time to end this spectacle of private jets flying in dignitaries and delegates to discuss the climate emergency.
X (Formerly Known As Twitter)
— Any moves by Elon Musk to remove content moderation on Twitter risk breaching corporate human rights obligations. Moderating content is a box that still needs to be ticked.
COVID-19
— With poor public health messaging, the general public doesn’t seem to know some important things about how COVID-19 and the immune system actually work.
Climate Change
— Focusing our attention on attitudes towards climate change could help us take a valuable step back from potentially deadlocked ideological debates.
OPINION
— We are stuck in the Tory game of make-believe that everything is coming up roses in an English country garden. The reality is that following Brexit the rest of the world looks at England with a mixture of perplexity, pity, and amused contempt.
Analysis
— A third of the people surveyed incorrectly thought there was a £2,500 cap on energy bills following Liz Truss’s claim that her government was “making sure nobody is paying fuel bills of more than £2,500”.
Press Freedom
— Eight journalists covering a protest on the M25 motorway were recently detained by police. Preemptively limiting media access is the hallmark of an authoritarian rather than democratic state.
Analysis
— The prospect of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss adding peers to the House of Lords has reopened a knotty debate that never quite gets resolved.
COMMENT
— A new study shows that repeat COVID infections contribute to a significant additional risk of adverse health conditions in multiple organ systems. Long COVID is going to be a defining issue of our times.
Environment
— How can eco-activists halting the traffic on the M25 possibly threaten Rupert Murdoch so much that his newspapers decide to invent stories about them?
Analysis
— Recent scenes at Victoria Station and Manston immigration centre are one way the government drives anti-migration sentiment. 12 years of Tory governance has pushed narratives that dehumanise vulnerable people, and turned the border into a spectacle.
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