As of the 8th March 2019, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, has been sentenced to 47 months in prison, after charges for tax and bank fraud crimes were pressed. Manafort’s conviction arises following accusations that he hid millions of dollars from the taxman that he had earned as a consultant for Ukraine’s former […]
Trump
Venezuela: How the Media Got It Wrong
Venezuela is a topic on which our media has failed us. A dramatic claim, yes, but something which has become abundantly clear in recent weeks. The country is currently in financial and social crisis after an oil price crash, five years of Nicolás Maduro’s administration, US sanctions and a contested election last year. From the […]
US Election Profile: Best of the Rest
Unusually for an election against a sitting Republican president, there could be a wide number of Democratic candidates who make a run for the presidency. Indeed, some of the more promising candidates may be the lesser known ones. Among the more interesting potential candidates are Cory Booker, the Junior Senator from New Jersey, a younger […]
Bird Box – Review
Could this be the front-runner for most memed movie of the year? Bird Box, Netflix’s latest viral hit, is a clunky mish-mash of a film that is barely redeemed by Sandra Bullock’s occasionally strong performance as a woman facing the transition to maternal commitment. Set in an apocalyptic scenario akin to A Quiet Place, the monsters […]
US Government Shutdown Continues
The United States has broken their national record for the longest government shutdown in history, lasting over six weeks since the 22nd December 2018, with no end to the crisis seeming imminent. The polarisation of the Democrats and the Republicans has reached a climax as the opposing sides of the house are unwilling to cede […]
Album Review: The 1975 – A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships
Shortly after the release of The 1975’s second record in 2016, I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful, yet so unaware of it, eclectic frontman Matty Healy described the group to MTV as being “the biggest band in the world that nobody’s ever heard of”. Two years on, perhaps only the first half […]
Wanted: Modern- Day Dickens
If there’s one thing that’s on everybody’s mind these days – it’s politics. Who said what, who did what, who trumped who (ha), who’s bad and who’s good. This is a good thing. More people than ever are now beginning to get involved with political affairs, activism and voting and are generally committed to making […]
Gun Control in the US: How Long Until Change?
Orlando June 12th 2016, Las Vegas 1st October 2017, Sutherland Springs November 5th 2017, Parkland 20th February 2018, Santa Fe May 10th 2018, Pittsburgh October 27th 2018 and Thousand Oaks November 7th 2018. All of these dates and places represent a US shooting where 10 or more people have been killed since the start of 2016. Since the Sandy Hook shooting in […]
Civility: The Last Resort against Terror
In recent weeks several critics of American President Donald Trump were sent suspicious packages containing pipe bombs. The apparent threat, made to the recipients, seems climactic of a global phenomenon that has been gaining potency over recent years: incivility. Floridian Cesar Sayoc was arrested after authorities named him as a suspect for sending the packages. […]
How to Build a Better Britain: An Interview with Owen Jones
You could say that Owen Jones has a knack for spotting trouble – the socio-political kind, at least. In 2011, less than half a decade since graduating from Oxford with a postgraduate degree in U.S. History, he published his first novel, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, which unexpectedly threw him into the spotlight […]