For most of the world, the Houthis appeared suddenly: a ragged insurgency from Yemen’s northern highlands that seized a capital, defied a Saudi‑led coalition, and then—almost impossibly—began shaping global shipping routes. But the movement known as Ansar Allah is not a creature of the last decade. It is the modern expression of a thousand‑year Zaydi … Continue reading
UKIP gathered at the steps of the Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral on the afternoon of the 21st of March for a march and rally to be addressed by their leader, Nick Tenconi. I attend Sunday Mass at this cathedral, and the local Dean had opposed this being used as a gathering place because the event was … Continue reading
How a micro‑union led by a think‑tank director is experimenting with a new model of worker advocacy Solidarity Union’s 2026 Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh offered a compelling case study in how a small, agile union can carve out a distinctive role in the UK’s evolving labour landscape. For the Third Way think‑tank, the meeting … Continue reading
There are countries that drift into crisis, and there are countries that live inside it. Lebanon is now firmly the latter: a state hollowed out by economic implosion, governed by a political class that has outlived its legitimacy, and trapped on the fault line of a regional war it cannot control. The country is not … Continue reading
There are moments in British foreign policy when the country moves not by strategy but by gravitational pull—nudged, coaxed, or quietly dragged into someone else’s war. The current escalation with Iran has exactly that texture: incremental steps, each individually defensible, collectively forming a trajectory no one has openly chosen. It is the drift that should … Continue reading
For most people living on the gas grid, heating oil feels like a relic — a faint memory of metal tanks behind farmhouses, the smell of kerosene on cold mornings, the quiet dread of watching the gauge sink towards empty. Yet for around 1.5–1.7 million households across the UK, oil is not a curiosity but … Continue reading