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Just days before the December 12 election, The Guardian’s opinion poll tracker finds the Tories to “have a significant lead” over Labour even as support for the Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party has slumped. In recent years, opinion polls have been notoriously unreliable. Rob Watson,...
In the frenzy and fury of yet another UK election that whirls and swirls around Brexit, our politicians are dancing in a conga line of counter-accusations, misinformation and outright lies. Savvy political pundits and sage pollsters assess and debate the direction of travel of the conga line. And...
In September, citizens of the former East German states of Brandenburg and Saxony headed to the polls to elect their new legislatures. The results were, on the one hand, a breath of fresh air for traditional parties, in particular the Social Democrats (SPD) who, following a series of disastrous...
Although their arsenals are clearly non-nuclear, the popular media across the English-speaking world have acquired a taste for bombarding their readers with “bombshells.” Prime offenders in the US are MSNBC, CNN and Fox News but also the staid Gray Lady herself (The New York Times). In the UK,...
The Brexit virus has infected the Brits and destroyed their natural immune system. Opportunistic infections and cancers now thrive in the weakened British political metabolism and have enabled Boris Johnson to come to power, and other unnatural organisms to flourish. Brexit Party...
Halloween has passed, the date at which British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised Brexit would be finalized. The suspense continues and will shortly attain a new level of intensity as the British electorate prepares for what will certainly be the most hyperreal UK general election in the...
In a remarkable confluence of events, the right-wing national leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel find themselves, at least for a brief historical moment, besieged by criticism and stark political dangers. In the US, President Donald Trump is facing a more serious...
The disputed existence of the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia has come into focus again in the context of the ongoing diplomatic dispute between Russia and Georgia and the August anniversary of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Abkhazia remains at the heart of discussions because...
For most Western Europeans, Sweden is nothing exceptional — a relatively small country, in terms of population, on the periphery of the continent. In the 1960s and 70s, Sweden was notorious for its sexual permissiveness. In Germany, for instance, in the 1970s, “erotic” movies had instant...
All eyes are focused these days on Boris Johnson, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom. But that’s not the most important news this month out of Britain. The Labor Party has finally come around to opposing the country’s exit from the European Union, though it’s possibly a case of...
Boris Johnson, the former UK foreign secretary who is expected to replace Prime Minister Theresa May, earned his right to reign over the presumably final act of Brexit by becoming a media superstar. Adept at multiple roles to keep his audience entertained, in a recent performance he even donned the...
