Starmer, Burnham and A Very British Coup
The story of how the generals and spooks fell out of love with Starmer and engineered his orderly ousting by a more malleable successor.
The Rest Is Bullshit
Getting under the skin of mainstream media spin.
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Beware the lobbyists beating the drums of war
If legacy news outlets want to be trusted, they could start by warning us when ‘experts’ they invite to advocate spending tens of billions more on arms have a vested interest in it.
Fear-mongering Healey is far from a hero
The former defence secretary wanted to give the armed forces “the resources they need” - but for what and where? The claims don't stack up.
Claude ain’t such a good guy
Anthropic, the tech company behind the Claude app, is using its spat with the Pentagon to position itself as the good guy of AI - but is it?
Pax Silica - a vehicle for vassalage
Without any public debate, Britain has bowed to US pressure and signed up to a Washington-led cartel that unashamedly aims to use AI as a geo-political weapon.
Donald Trump is not the first US president to revamp the Monroe Doctrine
In 1954, against a background of rebellion and repression in Puerto Rico, the Eisenhower administration redefined Monroe to apply to any dissent in Latin America that the US deemed "not indigenous."
The colony Washington could not afford to lose
The US often portrays Puerto Rico as a burden – so why did it resort to repression and covert action to keep it a colony?
Keir Starmer has wasted his chance to stand up to Washington
For a moment, it seemed Starmer might refuse to aid US action in the Strait of Hormuz, but he failed the test - and now, in the last 24 hours, Iran has demonstrated it can strike Diego Garcia.
From the centre of power to pariah
Peter Mandelson once told me that the company he enjoys most is of people from "a strictly bourgeois background.” Writing for Jacobin, I looked at the irony of how those connections brought him down.
Rubio, Rodeo and Tall Tales of Empire
Marco Rubio’s recent call to defend "Western civilization" has provoked the ire of Diane Abbott and put the spotlight on how the US treats people of his own heritage. My piece for The Nation.