Wednesday 24 June 2026 One of the most striking features of British economic policy in the first half of the 2020s was the persistence of fiscal caution in an era that appeared to demand strategic ambition. The government led by Keir Starmer inherited a country facing stagnant productivity, under-invested public services, deteriorating infrastructure and mounting geopolitical dangers. Nonetheless Britain possessed one of the most powerful monetary institutions in the world, t

Wednesday 24 June 2026 Ever since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 Ukraine has sought ways to increase the costs of occupation while avoiding direct military confrontation on the peninsula itself. In the early years after annexation, the principal instruments were economic and infrastructural. Ukraine restricted water supplies through the North Crimean Canal, limited commercial links and, amid considerable controversy, saw the interruption of electricity supplies from ma

Tuesday 23 June 2026 One of the more curious features of contemporary Western European society is the widening gap between reality and perception in matters of public safety. Across much of Western Europe, crime rates have fallen substantially over the past three decades. Yet public opinion surveys consistently reveal that large majorities of citizens believe crime is rising and that their societies are becoming less safe. This apparent contradiction has profound implications

Tuesday 23 June 2026 Ukraine is often discussed today through the lens of war. Images of ruined cities, drone warfare, diplomatic negotiations and heroic resistance dominate international perceptions of the country. Yet to understand Ukraine solely through the prism of contemporary conflict is to overlook one of the most remarkable facts about this nation: for centuries Ukrainians have made profound contributions to the development of global civilisation. The story of Ukraine

Monday 22 January 2026 For generations, intelligence services faced a paradox. The problem was rarely the absence of information. Rather it was the abundance of it. Vast quantities of intercepted communications, aerial photographs, surveillance reports and human observations accumulated faster than analysts could process them. The art of intelligence lay in finding the needle in the haystack. Artificial intelligence is changing that equation. The most significant intelligence