What would it be like?

Swati Dhingra and Josh De Lyon, 8 November 2018

Regulation and laws: In the event of No Deal, MPs will have to pass between eight hundred and a thousand new statutory instruments through Parliament in a matter of days.

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In​ the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, prudence, self-interest and the ministrations of Project Fear kept the Scottish electorate from succumbing to the over-optimistic prospectus...

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Prospects for Ambazonia

Adéwálé Májà-Pearce, 25 October 2018

On 5​ January this year, Nigerian security operatives abducted 12 men from a hotel in Abuja, the federal capital. All were members of the self-styled government of the Republic of Ambazonia,...

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Bait and Switch: The Global Financial Crisis

Simon Wren-Lewis, 25 October 2018

In​ 2007, Alan Greenspan, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, was asked by a Swiss newspaper which presidential candidate he was supporting. He said it didn’t matter: ‘We are...

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Ten Typical Days in Trump’s America

Eliot Weinberger, 25 October 2018

President Trump says: ‘I hope to be able to put this up as one of my crowning achievements that I was able to expose something that is truly a cancer in our country.’ He is referring to the FBI.

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Spying on Writers

Christian Lorentzen, 11 October 2018

How many​ living novelists does the FBI keep files on? Is there a filing cabinet in Washington that contains a rundown of Jonathan Franzen’s feud with Oprah Winfrey? Do the Feds keep...

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Reckless, hypocritical, deluded, mendacious and chauvinist as they are, the Brexiteers found a real set of circumstances, and misapplied a popular, off-the-shelf folk myth to it. By simply rejecting the...

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What’s Missing: Tawney, Polanyi, Thompson

Katrina Navickas, 11 October 2018

Capitalism​ is in crisis, again. Inequality, measured in wages, wealth distribution, employment, ‘affordable’ housing, has become the dominant framework for understanding the...

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The template for this presidency is reality television. The lead character is playing a part that depends on his own words and actions and yet is entirely contrived. The drama is organised around a series...

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Whatever the Cost: ‘The Greek Spring’

James Angelos, 27 September 2018

On the night​ of 3 July 2015, Alexis Tsipras, prime minister of Greece and leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, addressed a large crowd that had gathered in front of the...

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Corbyn Now

Lorna Finlayson, 27 September 2018

The significance of Corbynism has less to do with Corbyn or his politics than with what it discloses about the political system in which we live, widening an already growing gap between the reality of...

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Short Cuts: Canberra’s Coups

Philippa Hetherington, 27 September 2018

Shaded​ by eucalyptus and dotted with masticating kangaroos, Canberra is an unlikely contender for ‘coup capital of the world’. But the Australian capital has seen five prime...

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In a Frozen Crouch: Democracy’s Ends

Colin Kidd, 13 September 2018

A historian​ ought to know better, I suppose. But for the last decade – ever since I passed a long queue of anxious depositors outside a branch of Northern Rock in September 2007...

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Tempestuous Seasons: Keynes in China

Adam Tooze, 13 September 2018

If, faced with fundamental environmental challenges, Keynesianism is reaching its ultimate limit, will it end with a whimper or a bang?

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Diary: Weekly Drills

Evelyn Toynton, 13 September 2018

In the​ 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, my New York City primary school, like every other school in the city, held weekly practice drills to prepare us for being bombed by the Russians....

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The Finchley Factor: Thatcher in Israel

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, 13 September 2018

A short book​ could be written about British prime ministers and Zionism. It might begin in 1840, when Lord Palmerston, foreign secretary and prime minister-to-be, received a letter from...

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The Unseeables: Caste or Class

Tariq Ali, 30 August 2018

According to recent estimates by India’s National Crime Records Bureau, every 16 minutes a crime is committed by caste Hindus against an untouchable – or Dalit, as they prefer to be called. The figures...

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Diary: Sankarism

Stephen W. Smith, 30 August 2018

Thomas Sankara​, the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, was shot dead in the presidential buildings in Ouagadougou on 15 October 1987. I was the West Africa correspondent at the time for...

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