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SubscriptionsSection: Argument
Honestly held opinions and provocative argument based on current events or our recent reports.
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Inside the Collapse: How Putin’s Russia Turned Its Opponents into Exiles
There is a deliberate policy by the Kremlin to exile, neutralise, and effectively erase alternative political life within the country, reports Denis Mikhailov
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Labour Apart: How Morgan McSweeney Levered the Left Out of Power
The story of how Keir Starmer’s chief adviser hoodwinked Labour party members tells us a lot about how power really works, argues Neal Lawson
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‘The Telegraph Headline That Exposes the Hollowness of Right-Wing Rage’
The coverage of Greta Thunberg’s Gaza flotilla tells you everything you need to know about the media’s failings, argues Mathilda Mallinson
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Who Are the People Rachel Reeves Is Really Providing ‘Security’ For?
The Chancellor offered security for the profit margins of defence and construction companies while largely missing the opportunity to invest in the economic security of working people, argues Labour MP Clive Lewis
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Rachel Reeves Has Quietly Ended the Thatcherite Consensus and Opened the Door to the UK Becoming a Nordic-Style Economy
The Chancellor’s Spending Review was far more radical and transformative than anyone has yet realised, argues Josiah Mortimer
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‘Britain Will Be Better off for Rachel Reeves’ Spending Review’
The Chancellor’s decision to prioritise growth, while investing in green energy, social housing and levelling up the country, should be welcomed, argues Simon Nixon
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‘Donald Trump’s Los Angeles Military Deployment Is an Assault on American Democracy’
It’s time to shake off our ‘Trump denial syndrome’ and wake up to the clear and present danger posed by the President, argues Alexandra Hall Hall
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‘When Hate Spreads Faster Than Truth, Should We Fight Fascism With Censorship?’
Censorship is dangerous, but I am struggling to see how we fight the rising tide of hate and fear without it, writes Mathilda Mallinson
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‘Geert Wilders Thought He Could Finally Push Through His Destructive Agenda – But He Ran Out Of Patience’
No government in recent history has produced so little new legislation – yet the damage caused is immense, writes Chris Keulemans
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‘The Gaza Genocide and the Double Standards of the UK Government’s Commitment to International Law’
Keir Starmer’s commitment to upholding international human rights law doesn’t appear to extend to the Israeli Government, argues Martin Shaw
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‘BP’s Cynical Greenwashing Sponsorship Tactics Over British Cultural Institutions Has Now Been Exposed’
These internal memos reveal how fossil fuel companies use cultural sponsorship as a means of cultural and political control, argues Juliette Daigre
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‘They Don’t Make Them Like This Any More’
In an era of Donald Trump’s naked self-service, Alexandra Hall Hall pays tribute to the passing of a true American public servant, Richard L Armitage
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‘How the Media is Cashing in on the Rise of Nigel Farage’
News organisations are failing the country at the moment when responsible independent journalism is most needed, argues Mathilda Mallinson
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‘Seven Reasons the Left Keeps on Losing’
Progressives need to learn these lessons from the national populists in order to defeat them, argues Neal Lawson
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How Russia’s Fake Spirituality Became a Key Weapon in the Kremlin’s Disinformation Toolbox
Under Putin, Christianity has been turned into a political tool to spread false narratives about the war in Ukraine
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How Our Politicians Created an ‘Island of Strangers’ So They Don’t Have to Make Our Lives Any Better
By presenting tougher immigration as a solution to people’s discontent, Keir Starmer and others sidestep the real reasons why people feel estranged in their lives – it’s a cynical and simplistic political ruse that keeps everyone alienated, writes Hardeep Matharu
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‘George Floyd Murder Gave Us Hope Things Would Change – But They’ve Changed for the Worse’
Five years on from the death that shocked the world, Shabna Begum explains how political denial and repressive legislation has made things worse for people of colour in the UK
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‘UK Energy Is on Trial – But You Probably Didn’t Even Know’
Brits urged to listen to the plight of indigenous people, whose environments have been destroyed by fossil fuel companies, as ‘one day it will be you’
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‘The Case for Climate Popularism in the Green Party’
The future of UK politics is a fight between the Greens and Reform and its clear which Green candidates are the best placed to lead that battle, argues Rupert Read
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‘The Draconian Anti-Protest Laws That Are the Real Threat to Free Speech in the UK’
A new report calls on the Government to ‘look again’ at repealing laws passed under the last Conservative Government
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After Nearly 600 Days the End of the Israel-Gaza War Looks as Far off as Ever
As the world continues to wring its hands, the suffering of the people at the heart of this conflict only continues to grow, writes Alexandra Hall Hall
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‘Google’s Illegal Monopoly and How US Court Decision Comes at a Critical Time for UK and EU Policymakers’
A landmark antitrust decision against Google in the US will have profound iImplications for the digital economy in the UK and beyond, writes Stephen Kinsella and Tim Cowen
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How Wales Became the Target of a Right Wing Culture War
Rachel Morris on the politicians and media organisations now cynically trying to exploit Wales for their own political gain
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‘Keir Starmer’s EU Deal Is Far Better Than the Media Is Telling You’
Much more needs to be done to repair the damage of Brexit, but this is a welcome step in the right direction, argues the Director of the Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations
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‘I Was Targeted by a Hostile Crypto Spambot Swarm That Revealed How X’s Algorithm Has Been Truly Broken’
The automated block attack tricks the algorithm into thinking your account should be suppressed, reports Iain Overton
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Keir Starmer’s EU Reset Deal Is the First Crack in the Brexit Wall Holding Britain Back
This agreement marks the beginning of the end of the suffocating Brexit consensus that has gripped British politics for a decade, argues Adam Bienkov
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‘Why the Critics of University Expansion May Have Had a Point’
Opening up higher education to half the country hasn’t been quite the progressive boon we were promised, argues Neal Lawson
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Why the Home Office’s ‘AI Asylum Success Story’ Was Anything But
The Home Office briefed the media that their AI tool would save officials 44 years of working time. What they didn’t mention was all the mistakes that it made
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‘Keir Starmer’s Painful Immigration Speech Is a Direct Affront to the Diagnosis He Was Voted in On’
The PM’s white paper was not the ‘evidence-led’ policymaking he promised, rather it was ‘cheap, short-termist, headline politics’, writes Mathilda Mallinson
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‘Keir Starmer’s Government Is Now Even More Anti-Migrant Than Its Conservative Predecessors’
Hopes that Labour would abandon the Conservative trend of treating incomers as disposable and lesser beings have been dashed, argues Daniel Sohege
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Keir Starmer’s Reform-Lite Strategy Has Left Him Marooned on an Island of Strangers
New polling finds a collapse in support for the Prime Minister among Labour voters, as he pursues a strategy that is also failing to win over supporters of Reform, reports Adam Bienkov
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Murder in Uniform: Britain’s Special Forces and Their Killings in Afghanistan
A groundbreaking new investigation has unveiled the horrifying scale of unlawful killing done in our name, reports Iain Overton
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‘Keir Starmer’s Attempt to Out-Farage Reform on Migration Will Only End Badly’
The Prime Minister’s ‘unutterably depressing’ decision to follow Nigel Farage into the gutter of inflammatory anti-migrant rhetoric is a terrible error, argues former UK diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall
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‘Why We Must Call the National-Populist Far Right by Its Name’
The centre left should stop being afraid of accurately describing and countering the global far right threat we now face, argue Jon Bloomfield and David Edgar
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‘As Trump Wrecks the Global Order, Big Business Must Decide Which Side It’s On’
Where are the voices defending the huge benefits that globalisation has brought to the world, asks Matthew Gwyther
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‘The Cold Electoral Cynicism Behind Keir Starmer’s Blue Labour Strategy’
The Prime Minister’s advisers believe that when push comes to shove most progressive voters will have no real choice but to vote Labour, and they may be right, argues Neal Lawson
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‘Why Tony Blair’s Intervention on Net Zero Is the Most Irrational Contribution to Climate Discourse in Some Time’
There can be no “third way” to tackling the existential threat of man made climate change, argues Russell Warfield
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Local Elections: ‘Keir Starmer’s Rightward Shift Is Laying the Ground for Nigel Farage’
Labour’s embrace of economic and political orthodoxy is forcing voters to look elsewhere for change, argues Keir Starmer’s former adviser Simon Fletcher
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Nigel Farage Is Killing the Conservative Party and Starmer Must Change Course to Avoid the Same Fate
Telling voters that the Reform leader is right, but they shouldn’t vote for him anyway, is no more likely to work for Labour than it has for the Conservatives, argues Adam Bienkov
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The Beginning of the End or ‘Trump 2028’? 100 Days of an Unprecedented Presidency
There may be a far more sinister motive for Donald Trump to go as far as to try to violate the constitutional ban on running for a third term, writes Washington-based Alexandra Hall Hall
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‘Trump’s War on Academic Institutions Is Even Worse Than You Think’
This is the greatest assault on academic freedoms in generations, argues Emma DeSouza
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How a ‘Populist’ Media Has Mainstreamed the Far Right
Right-wing daily papers in the UK do not represent ‘public opinion’ – they simply reflect the radical right views of those ‘who own and run them’, argues Julian Petley
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Power, Visas, and the Politics of Exclusion: How Borders Are Being Used to Silence Dissent
Borders are now being used not just to prevent the passage of people, but of ideas too, argues Iain Overton
