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SubscriptionsSection: Argument
Honestly held opinions and provocative argument based on current events or our recent reports.
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Johnson, Harry and the Press: ‘Exposing the Ethical Void’
With a mendacious former Prime Minister now returning to work for the press which enabled his rise, the moral bankruptcy of the media-political class is complete
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The ‘Boris Principle’: How Johnson and his Allies are Rewarded for their Failures
Boris Johnson’s new job at the Daily Mail is the perfect example of how failure is rewarded in British political and media life.
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How the Kremlin’s Miscalculations over Ukraine Will Devastate Russia for Years to Come
Putin’s partial mobilisation has failed to compensate for his military failures, and will deplete Russia’s domestic workforce for generations ahead
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Boris Johnson’s Privileges Committee Verdict Exposes Rishi Sunak’s Complicity
The Prime Minister is deeply complicit in every part of Boris Johnson’s disgraceful period at the top of British politics
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‘Rishi Sunak Continues to Use Johnson’s Brexit-Fuelled Political Racism’
‘Stopping the boats’ and making immigration a key issue is the only strategy the Prime Minister has to keep a core Conservative base come the next election
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‘A Blatant Invitation for Abuse’: Carole Cadwalladr and the Uneven Playing Field of Libel Law
The costs awarded in the Cadwalladr libel case suggest journalists reporting in the public interest are vulnerable to legal harassment
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Double Trouble for IPSO: The Sham Press Regulator is Contending with Two Crises at Once
The very limited authority of the UK press industry’s tame watchdog is under assault from its members, vividly exposing the contradictions in its make-up, writes Brian Cathcart
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Boris Johnson’s Rise and Fall Has Perfectly Exposed Britain’s Broken Political Culture
The disgraced former Prime Minister’s long career at the top of British politics should be a matter of national shame
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Expectation vs Reality: The Hard Hand Dealt Young People in 2023
We could be working 15-hour weeks, enjoying our free time, and living like people of the future. Matt Gallagher asks: Why aren’t we?
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Rogue Drones and Tall Tales
Kate Devlin dispels the sudden Science Fiction panic around superintelligence, and looks at the real threats to employment and the environment from AI and machine learning
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The Volunteer Army: ‘Empty Promises are No Solution to Serious Pressures on Health and Social Care’
Consultant David Oliver laments yet another ‘Policy Zombie’ from the Government
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The Nova Kakhovka Dam Destruction will have a Global Ecological Impact
Mark Temnycky explores the consequences on global food supplies of what appears to be yet another example of the Kremlin’s ecological terrorism
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You Can’t Keep Politics Out of Sports – Especially in Russia
Pekka Kallioniemi says Russia should be excluded from the 2024 Olympics even as neutrals, for their presence will be manipulated yet again in Russian propaganda
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Coronation Controversy Continues: The Met Police Keeps Defending the Erosion of Peaceful Dissent
As the dust settles on the coronation, peaceful protesters need more than hints at a forthcoming apology, writes our Chief Reporter
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‘The Telegraph’s Last Hurrah? Laundering a Hard-Right Think Tank’s COVID Lockdown Claims’
As the newspaper is put for sale, a widely-publicised report claiming ‘only’ 1,700 lives were saved by lockdown – which was splashed on its front page – is not what it seems
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Prince Harry Takes a Stand for Us All: ‘If They’re Supposedly Policing Society, Who On Earth is Policing Them?’
The crisis and corruption in the British press is one of the biggest, ongoing scandals of our time. Byline Times tips its hat to Prince Harry
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Unpicking the Government’s Blacklist Policy: ‘The Devil is in the Details’
A renowned weapons expert uninvited from a government conference sets out his concerns around the policy that has now appeared to justify experts being ‘cancelled’ in Whitehall
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‘The “Butler Did It” Theories of the Turkish Elections Get Us Nowhere’
To blame rampant nationalism or sneaking Islamism for the many failings of Turkish democracy is lazy journalism
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‘The Price of Sausages: The Telegraph’s Calculator of Hate’
Attacks on disabled people have all too often dressed themselves in the clothes of good housekeeping – as the newspaper’s tax calculator suggests
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‘The Dominant Political Culture Refuses to See Adequate Housing as a Fundamental Human Right’
Politicians, landlords and the media have celebrated the financialisation of domestic property. But as the housing crisis deepens, what happened to the basic human right?
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‘The Alliance for Radical Democratic Change is to be Welcomed’
With the UK in need of radical decentralisation, Glyndwr Cennydd Jones celebrates the recent launch of an Alliance for Radical Democratic Change
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France and Britain Need ‘Macronomics’
Despite the controversy, the French President’s economic proposals are far from the ‘Anglo Saxon’ model. Barnaby Towns argues that, when it comes to addressing inequality, the UK could learn from them
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‘Run, Surrender, Or Die: President Zelensky’s Greenlight for Ukraine’s Counteroffensive’
Vladimir Putin is in a catch-22: unable to win any kind of ‘victory’ that he can sell to his domestic audience, while creating folklore about this ‘special military operation’
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‘When Will We Hear these Brexit Truths From an Opposition Leader?’
The UK’s real problem never had anything to do with the EU – but was about the lack of capable and honest political leadership, according to the former diplomat who resigned from the Foreign Office over Brexit
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The Government’s Scandalous ‘40 New Hospitals’ Pledge Exposed
Consultant David Oliver explains how Boris Johnson’s lies continue to have a devastating impact on the infrastructure of healthcare in the UK
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Sleepless in Kyiv: How Ukrainians are Coping with the Kremlin’s Reign of Terror
After nearly 20 drone and missile attacks on the country’s capital this month Anna Morgan fears the real target is Ukraine’s Western partners
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Sadiq Khan’s Pollution Paradox: On the Silvertown Tunnel, and When Rhetoric Doesn’t Match Action
Kids in one of London’s poorest boroughs, Newham, are struggling to breathe. So why is the London Mayor pushing ahead with a new road tunnel that could make the situation even worse?
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What Rishi Sunak is Trying to Hide with his WhatsApp Cover-Up
The Prime Minister’s real motivation for refusing to comply with the COVID Inquiry is not to protect Boris Johnson – but to protect himself, reports Adam Bienkov
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‘The Irony of the Hate Crime Funding Application that Includes Engaging with Prevent’
Fizza Qureshi, CEO of the Migrants’ Rights Network, explains why her charity did not want to apply for funding from the Mayor of London to tackle hate crime and extremism
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‘National Conservatism, Economic Reality and Fake Sovereignty’
In today’s interdependent economic world, UK companies are just too small to survive and thrive without cooperation with the EU, writes Jon Bloomfield
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Why It’s Important Boris Johnson Hands Over WhatsApp Messages to the COVID-19 Inquiry
Lawyer Gareth Roberts explains how theDame Hallet’s inquiry has the full force of the law and is not a constitutional nicety the former Prime Minister can wriggle out of
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Carbon Capture: A Smokescreen for the Fossil Fuel Industry
Britain is ‘strikingly unprepared’ to face the escalating consequences of inadequate action on climate change
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Agribusiness: An Impediment to Net Zero?
Thomas Perrett explores how factory farming and agribusiness industries have successfully lobbied politicians, advocating against carbon taxes and biodiversity targets
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‘Half Measures Will Not Decolonise International Development’
Genuine anti-racist internationalism calls for much greater radicalism, writes Sunit Bagree
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‘Suella Braverman’s Survival Shows Sunak’s ‘Core Value’ is Self-Interest’
Given the choice between restoring ‘integrity and accountability’ to Government or protecting his own interests, Sunak has consistently chosen the latter, reports Adam Bienkov
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‘I Was Cancelled by Sunak’s Government For Criticising Them on Twitter’
Renowned weapons expert Dan Kaszeta reveals how he fell victim to a Soviet-style blacklist after UK officials discovered he had criticised Government policy on Twitter
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The Profitable Nexus: How Ex-British Military Leaders Find Lucrative Roles in Business and Defence
Concerns swirl in Whitehall around retired senior British officers looking to advise foreign governments – conflicts of interest persist even if there is no wrongdoing, writes Iain Overton
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‘From Uganda to Rwanda: The British Political Class’ Ever-Present Hostility to ‘Aliens’’
Jon Bloomfield examines the similarities between the 1905 Aliens Bill and the current Illegal Migration Bill and inflammatory rhetoric around refugees
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‘Britain’s Global Military Engagements: At What Cost?’
As the Prime Minister declares dedication to safeguarding peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region, Iain Overton asks: what is the price of Britain’s global projection of power?
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Gambling White Paper: a Feeble Response to a Social Scourge
Robin Burgess, the first CEO of the Responsibility in Gambling Trust, argues that both Labour and Conservative parties have focused on a few damaged ‘addicts’ and not the wider structural harm
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‘It’s Not the Economy, Stupid. It’s the Press’
The right-wing papers have trashed the country and they mean to go on doing so whoever wins the next election. We must stop them, writes Brian Cathcart
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‘The ‘Crimea Dilemma’? There is No Dilemma’
Many appear to believe it would be reasonable to offer the peninsula as some sort of final settlement of the war in Ukraine to Russia – why? asks Paul Niland
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Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Kremlin Contradictions
The MP’s recent comments on Ukraine and Brexit sit oddly with his stance on Russian aggression in 2014 – and with his firm’s investments in companies close to Putin’s regime, reports Tom Scott
