Explainer-in-brief: The latest BBC impartiality row October 25, 2022 “Am I allowed to be this gleeful? Well, I am” were the perhaps unfortunate words of BBC presenter Martine Croxall on Sunday night. She made the remark while reviewing how the papers covered Boris Johnson’s decision to step out of the leadership race. Her comment sparked the latest squabble over the broadcaster’s impartiality, with seasoned [...]
No, it’s not sci-fi. Robots really could help dig us out of our low productivity spiral October 25, 2022 Earlier this month, a robot named Ai-Da gave evidence to the House of Lords on the future of the creative industries. The members of the Lords Communications and Digital committee were fairly quite stumped. For all its weirdness, this episode proved a point: robots are among us. When thinking of robots, many of us imagine [...]
Explainer-in-brief: A Tory leadership election, all over again October 24, 2022 It’s almost hard to believe it, but here we are again: today marks the beginning of another Tory leadership campaign. This one, however, has very different rules compared to what unfolded over summer.
Explainer-in-brief: Calling time on the case of Harry Dunn October 21, 2022 Bringing a seemingly never-ending story to its final act, yesterday Anne Sacoolas pleaded guilty to causing the death of Harry Dunn by careless driving in 2019. She appeared via video to her trial at the Old Bailey, finally admitting what had happened. The British teenager died after a collision with Sacoolas’ car outside of a [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Triple locked and loaded, the fight over pensions October 20, 2022 Among the plethora of recent U-turns, Liz Truss might have just backed herself into another corner she’ll have to reverse ferret on: the pensions triple lock. In the Commons yesterday, Liz Truss said it was a manifesto promise they were committed to keeping. We’ve heard that before. It was in stark contrast to Jeremy Hunt, [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Just Stop… Sunflower Oil? October 17, 2022 The environmental protesters at Just Stop Oil reached the highest level of creativity last week by taking their cause to the art world. They threw soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s acclaimed “Sunflowers” painting in the National Gallery and then glued themselves to the wall. “What is worth more, art or life? … Are you more [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Liz Truss’ u-turns will make us all dizzy October 14, 2022 Boris Johnson was often ridiculed for his frequent u-turns on policies, but his successor has been happy to take up the mantle. After the fierce backlash following the not-so-mini-budget, the government decided to scrap plans to ditch the 45p tax rate at the beginning of October. The Chancellor then said he was bringing forward to [...]
Commons snapshot: a rather stiff parliamentary to-and-fro on energy October 13, 2022 The back-and-forth in the Commons yesterday between Liz Truss and Keir Starmer was like a ping-pong match – a rather boring one. The leader of the opposition accused the PM of favouring the rich and making working people “pay the bill”. He said her party was “lost in denial”. Truss, on her part, sounded stiff. [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Putin’s desperate bid to look tough escalates violence October 12, 2022 Moscow is running out of ammunition, and its military forces are exhausted. This assessment was provided yesterday by GCHQ chief Sir Jeremy Fleming – the man in charge of the intelligence agency. His comments came after the appalling bombing that shook Kyiv on Monday. Putin described it as retaliation following the bombing of the Kerch [...]
Curbing foreign students coming to the UK is a short-sighted act of self harm October 11, 2022 The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman is a hard-liner on immigration just like her predecessor Priti Patel. Over the past weeks, she’s used each of her public appearances to show she’s willing to go further. She has a clear policy aim: bringing the net number of immigrants down. She sees migrants as one uniform group, so [...]
