SubscriptionsSection: Argument
Honestly held opinions and provocative argument based on current events or our recent reports.
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‘Israel’s Shrill Attack on Ed Miliband Exposes Its Weakness’
Alexandra Hall Hall, a former UK diplomat who worked on the Middle East Peace Process in the Foreign Office, argues that Israel’s extreme response to the UK shows it is now losing the argument
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‘A Cap on Donations Is Not Anti-Union — It Is Anti-Oligarchy’
New Electoral Commission figures show £14.2 million flowed into party coffers in three months, one day after ministers finally admitted mega-donations are a problem
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The BBC Is Just Nodding Along
The corporation’s news coverage has lost its soul as a bulwark against unaccountable power and extremism, writes a former BBC News producer
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‘Our Anger Over Jason Arday’s Death Is Not Enough’
As Cambridge University launch an inquiry into the case of Professor Arday, led by former Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal, Richard Sudan from The Voice argues his death must inspire action, accountability and lasting change
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‘The 2026 Plan to Steal This Election, and All Those After’
If Republicans fail to hold onto the House or Senate in the 2026 midterms, Brynn Tannehill comes to the conclusion that they will reject the results
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USS Lincoln: ‘The Ships Are Breaking Almost as Fast as the People’
Exhaustion, low morale, ‘starvation’ rations and broken equipment: Brynn Tannehill examines what the 260-day deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln says about the limits of US power
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Is Andy Burnham About to Create a British Constitution?
The Prime Minister has just opened the door to a radical change to how we are governed, writes Anthony Barnett. Will he now walk through it?
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Jason Arday: We Must Rage – Rage Against the Journalism of Cruelty
The death of the academic shows the casual conversion of humiliation into entertainment by a media running on monetised hate and cruelty
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‘Republicans Pushing the ‘Red Scare’ About Democrats Should Look First at Trump’
Trump’s kleptocratic authoritarianism is a much closer reflection of the evils of communist regimes than anything being pushed by the Democrats, argues Katherine Stewart
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There Will Be Another Jason Arday
There is no check to fetter power when unfettered power resides in the check
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How Ukraine Is Now Targeting the Russian Economy
Ukraine’s targeting of massive warehouses belonging to an e-commerce giant aims to destabilise the banking sector and the entire Russian economy, reports Paul Niland
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Did the Trump Administration Have a Role in the Ceuta ‘Migrant Invasion’?
Trump-aligned think tanks have previously advocated using Ceuta to exert pressure on Madrid, reports Simon Nixon
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‘It’s Trump, Not Ed Miliband Who Is the Source of the UK’s Transatlantic Problems’
The first job of the Foreign Secretary is to stand up for Britain’s interests, not to appease a President trying to undermine them, argues former British diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall
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The Business of War: Who Really Benefits From Britain’s Planned Military Spending Surge?
As the Government gears up for a military spending bonanza, Iain Overton asks whether Britain is really defending its territory, or simply the profits of the global defence industry
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Andy Burnham’s Cabinet Represents Starmerism Without Starmer
The new Prime Minister promised radical change, yet his picks for the Cabinet tell a very different story, argues Adam Bienkov
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Andy Burnham Making Shabana Mahmood Chancellor Would Resurrect the Failed Politics of Morgan McSweeney
If the incoming Prime Minister does buckle to media and city pressure not to appoint Ed Miliband as Chancellor it will be an ominous sign of things to come, argues Adam Bienkov
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‘The BBC’s Ill-Conceived Cuts Sacrifice Journalists In Order To Save Managers’
The BBC is sacking journalists whilst leaving layers of largely superfluous and expensive management in place, argues former BBC reporter Patrick Howse
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A Hostile Foreign State Could ‘Buy A UK Election For Just £25m’
A former UK diplomat who spent a decade tracking Russian influence operations explains how open our politics is to foreign capture
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James Orr: Reform UK’s Religious Cambridge Professor’s Politics of Contradictions
Nigel Farage’s Head of Policy provides a veneer of respectability to a politics that seeks fewer restraints, fewer mediating institutions, and less liberal democracy
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Nigel Farage’s ‘Pro-Sleaze’ By-Election Is A Sign Of Terminal Weakness
The Reform leader’s desperate decision to call a back-me-or-sack-me by-election is a sign of a politician who knows he is finally being exposed for the man he really is, argues Adam Bienkov
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‘There’s No Money In Politics If You’re Straight’: How Farage’s Words Are Coming Back To Haunt Him
The Reform UK leader once claimed that only the corrupt could make money in politics. Now questions about his own multi-million pound fortune threaten to bring him down
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‘Why Andy Burnham Must Break With Israel’
The likely incoming Prime Minister must break with Keir Starmer’s “morally bankrupt” legacy on Gaza in order to restore his party’s reputation with the public, argues genocide scholar Martin Shaw
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Why the British Press Is Really Angry About the Government’s Planned Media ‘Prominence’ Law
Julian Petley on the real reasons why the right-wing press are so worried about plans to ensure online platforms prioritise trustworthy news over disinformation
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‘Ten Years On, Brexit’s Real Legacy Has Been an Assault on Human Rights’
The rise of nationalism that followed Brexit has brought with it a concerted campaign to undermine our fundamental human rights, argues Daniel Sohege
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The Real ‘Moral Bankruptcy’ That Brought Down Keir Starmer’s Premiership
The Prime Minister promised to restore morality to our politics, but ended up falling far short of his own standards, argues Adam Bienkov
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‘Burnham is a Giant Step Backwards to a Better Sort of British Politics’
Makerfield’s new MP will face deep challenges if he makes it to Downing Street – but he can succeed where others haven’t been able to
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Makerfield By-Election Result: How Voters Rejected Nigel Farage’s Politics of ‘Pure Cold Rage’
For the third time in a row Reform sought to stoke division and violence on Britain’s streets and have been roundly rejected by voters as a result, reports Adam Bienkov
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‘After Burnham’s Win in Makerfield, the Answer Cannot be Managerial Politics with a Different Accent’
Only structural change which seeks to transform a failing system can actually deliver a politics people will believe in, writes Labour MP Clive Lewis
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Trump Went to War In Order to Break Iran and Left It More Powerful Than Before – US Defence Analyst
Brynn Tannehill explains how Trump’s war has resurrected an Iranian regime that sanctions and drought had been on course to topple
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‘Makerfield Is the Right Seat for Andy Burnham to Contest – Precisely Because It Isn’t Safe’
To beat the threat from Reform UK, Labour has to take it on where Farage’s party could be at its strongest – this is exactly what the Makerfield by-election asks Andy Burnham to do
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‘Northern Ireland Does Not Have an Immigration Problem, It Has a Problem With Violence’
Bad faith actors are exploiting the vulnerabilities of a society scarred by violent disorder and racism, argues Emma De Souza
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‘The Two Big Lies About Trans People at the Heart of the EHRC Codes of Practice’
The EHRC are increasingly struggling to justify their interpretation of the law on the rights of trans people, argues Helen Belcher
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All US Options for Ending the Iran War Are Terrible, Warns US Defence Analyst
Every realistic path to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the war in Iran would be catastrophic, argues Brynn Tannehill.
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Tommy Robinson, Nigel Farage and the ‘Pure Cold Rage’ Used to Trigger a Racist Pogrom in Belfast
Mainstream politicians have stood by as the global far-right campaigns for anti-migrant violence on our streets. Now we’re suffering the consequences, argues Adam Bienkov
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Big Oil Employees Wrote Paper Behind Kemi Badenoch’s North Sea Fantasy
The Conservative leader and her media supporters used a new study as evidence to support her plan to increase drilling in the North Sea, without declaring who was really behind it
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Peter Mandelson, the New Statesman, and How the ‘Soft PR’ Sausage Gets Made
Mic Wright looks at evidence of backroom media wheeler dealing revealed in the recent tranche of documents released to Parliament
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Nigel Farage’s ‘White Lives Matter’ Speech Is a Sign of Reform’s Growing Desperation
The Reform leader’s descent into explicitly far-right rhetoric is the mark of a politician and party which fears its time at the top of British politics may soon come to an end, argues Adam Bienkov
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No One Can Reopen the Strait of Hormuz – and That Is the New Regional Order
Every instrument the United States uses to reopen the Strait of Hormuz – force, sanctions, a treaty – accelerates the structural decline that closed it
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‘Tony Blair Is Offering a Victorian Answer to a 21st Century Crisis’
Britain is living through five interlocking technological revolutions and the former Prime Minister has only noticed one of them, argues Nafeez Ahmed
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How to Stop Billionaires From Buying British Politics
Nigel Farage’s £5 million handout from a crypto billionaire is a worrying sign of things to come. We must act now to prevent a complete oligarch takeover, argues Oliver Bullough
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He Who Pays the Piper: The BBC, Tony Blair, Rishi Sunak and a Failure of Journalism
News organisations need to be much clearer about the potential conflicts of interests that surround the ‘interventions’ made by former politicians, argues Adam Bienkov
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How ‘Anonymous Quotes’ Are Used by Political Journalists and Spin Doctors to Deceive the Public
A startling admission by a Times journalist has revealed how political journalism and power really works in Westminster, reports Peter Oborne
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‘This EHRC Code Will Make the UK a Hostile Environment for Trans People’
Keir Starmer’s Government promises trans people ‘dignity and respect’ but is overseeing a colossal failure to protect their rights and safety, argues Helen Belcher
