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Who would have thought some 3000+ year old media advice would be still relevant today? The Israel-Hamas conflict  has put reporting centre stage. The antagonism of both belligerents  and their supporters towards each other is increasingly forcing the media to choose a side. For some it is quite simple Al Jazeera and GB News have already chosen, but for those seeking to maintain balance it is getting harder. The BBC so far has had a bad war, its efforts to…

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The rise and rise of the single issue activist have been one of the noteworthy features of the last 30 years. Whether it is gender, climate, dogs, cats, oil or housing there will be a pressure group full of activists ready to swing into action. Activists are focused on their pet project and are quite vocal about it too. And it’s not just individuals, often charities are corporate activists while receiving money from taxpayers. Issue activism has been living through…

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The Oxford Reference dictionary defines terrorism as: “The calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear. Terrorism is intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.” On the face of it this seems like a reasonable definition but, as we have seen in numerous examples over the last century, it is a definition that fails in the face of the complexities of asymmetric warfare and…

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Possibly the worst invention of the last 25 years. How else can we describe social media? What was meant to brighten up our lives has made us anxious and at times depressed. So, lets switch the whole thing off and reclaim a simpler more satisfying life. Who’s going to miss it? Maybe some creepy marketing execs who can no longer stalk your every purchase or bombard you with rubbish you don’t need, but the planet will be the better for…

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The recent parliamentary by elections will be subject to endless detailed analysis, but they are just two data points. There are many more council by elections, several every week: can they tell us anything about how voters are viewing the parties? Any individual council by election may be subject to local factors; but taken together, a picture may emerge of how a party is performing overall, and how the electorate feel about them. Let’s look at how the Conservatives have…

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According to the long list of “inevitable” events this is meant to be China`s century, a century when it overtakes the West and becomes the world’s hegemon. However, as we approach the first quarter things appear to be going seriously off the narrative. No longer is China the world’s most populous state, as we look forward its population is about to fall off a demographic cliff. The current 1.4 billion Chinese will decline to about half that by the end…

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Where does time go ? It struck me that the first quarter of this century is just over a year away and what 25 years it has been. We started this century on a high, the world was at peace, the Millenium Bug didn’t kill civilisation, Britannia was still cool. The West was dominant and helping struggling nations get onto the wealth ladder. A young business-like President called Vladimir Putin had just taken his first steps to sorting out the…

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Will Labour win a majority at the next election? One potential barrier that has been much cited here is the party’s poor performance in 2019, which means that it faces a steep climb to win a majority. But others have argued that we should be thinking of its challenge not in terms of the additional seats it needs to gain, but the absolute number of seats it needs to win (326, although de facto fewer). To formalise the discussion, suppose…

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