A group representing 350 Palestinian families living in Britain have called on the PM to condemn Israel's 'systematic assault on the press' and back an inquiry
Journalism
Extremist threats are no longer confined to virtual echo chambers but spreading into offline harassment – a phenomenon known as ‘stochastic terrorism', reports Dan Evans
Alternative media platforms cannot thrive in a vacuum and policy reforms will not succeed without grassroots pressure, argues Tom Hardy
The British press has been the most consistently bellicose on the subject of Russia-Ukraine: the same phrases, the same sentiments were on display in every mainstream newspaper and political magazine An accepted difference between a despotism and a democracy is that in the first there is a single opinion while the second allows a variety … Continue reading “Slava Ukraini!”: how the British media went to war against Russia
Fri 13 Jun 2025 Fiona Hill’s assessment of the Russian threat to Britain is a classic example of how a seemingly rational argument based on a false premise and scanty evidence can lead to a mad conclusion (Russia is at war with Britain and US is no longer a reliable ally, UK adviser says, 6 … Continue reading Letter in The Guardian: Russia adviser Fiona Hill’s alarming conclusion
5th of June 2025 In George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother’s state of Oceania is perpetually at war. This never-ending conflict is not a conventional war to be won, but rather a tool of control. The paradoxical party slogan “War is Peace” is the key idea. Continuous war justifies continuous surveillance. Orwell’s novel vividly illustrates how … Continue reading 1984 Revisited – Robert Skidelsky and Attila Mesterházy Jr.
27th of May 2025 I. Some of you may know the famous scene at the start of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, when one of our fur-covered ancestors picks up a bone from a skeleton lying on the ground and realises that it can be used to fight off enemies. Having killed the leader of … Continue reading Robots as Weapons of War
15th of May 2025 As John Lanchester recently remarked (LRB 27 April 2025) ‘However little money there is for anything else, there’s always enough money for a war’. The failures of neoliberal economics threaten all kinds of political backlashes, some of which have already been seen in the nationalist turn of international relations. ‘Military Keynesianism’ … Continue reading Military Keynesianism?
13th of May 2025 As the Ukrainian war enters its third year, there has been renewed, if rather limp, talk of a ceasefire followed by negotiations. The premise is that since neither side can ‘win’, it makes sense to start making peace. Few now remember that the war almost ended before it got going. On … Continue reading The Lost Peace?