Few public inquiries have been so closely followed by the British press, or its findings awaited by them with such nervous anticipation as Lord Leveson’s into their culture, practices and ethics. The waiting…
The Leveson Inquiry, set up by the UK coalition government in response to accusations of phone hacking at the now defunct Murdoch newspaper the News of the World, has reported – calling for press regulation…
There are few cardinal sins in politics – but campaigning on behalf of your opponent has to be one of them. So when news broke this week that the British Conservative Party MP Chris Heaton Harris had boasted…
The release of Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report into the death of 96 football fans at the 1989 FA Cup Semi Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest is not just a landmark in British history…
What are political parties for? Do they exist only to win elections or are they for the benefit of members with process as important as outcome? These are the fundamental questions that former British…
The first buildings in Las Malvinas – or the Falklands as the British call the islands in the South Atlantic – were houses made of stone and were built by Argentinean hands. It was in 1831 when forty men…
Argentinean wordsmith Jorge Luis Borges could be cryptic. But his powers of perception were always daunting. Borges came up with an excellent description of the 10 week conflict in 1982 that took place…
Scotland has always been a distinct nation but since the Act of Union in 1707, it has been a nation within a larger political entity: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The election…
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to veto the new European Union agreement for greater financial stability in the Eurozone reminds us that despite the talk of greater European integration…
MEDIA & DEMOCRACY: On the final day of The Conversation’s series on how the media influences the way our representatives develop policy, John Keane examines how the relationships between politicians…
MEDIA & DEMOCRACY: Today, Anne Tiernan looks at how voters have become consumers of political marketing, as part of The Conversation’s week-long series on how the media influences the way our representatives…
The situation in Libya remains fluid but with armed rebel fighters now in Green Square in central Tripoli, it appears the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is in its final hours. Two of the dictator’s…
As the streets of England have calmed, the political debate over what to do with the rioters has been brought to a boil. A steady stream of individuals continues to flow into the court system, some being…
The powers that be describe the street violence and social upheaval which took place in England’s major cities last week as “mindless”. Yet it was anything but. Prime Minister David Cameron, among others…
English police officers have defended their handling of the riots which erupted in several cities across the country last week. After the worst urban disorder in living memory, leading politicians are…
There’s a colourful and evocative term among regular users of social media: “headdesking”. It’s what you do when somebody says or does something so stupid that your instant reaction is to smack your head…
The recent riots in major English cities like London have seen the media focus on the involvement of young people. In particular, many media outlets have claimed that organised youth gangs have orchestrated…
The dramatic events around the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s London News of the World are unprecedented in a major news media organisation in an advanced industrial country. A newspaper closed…
Where to begin? The closure of a 160-year-old newspaper, the arrest of the man who until recently was the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, the revelations that the Metropolitan Police, or at…