Showing 1 - 10 of 15
Expect 2019 to test global stability
News, John Lloyd, Published on 03/01/2019
» The resignation of US Defence Secretary James Mattis stands not only as a radical disassociation from the actions of the president he served, but as a foreboding for the future, a warning for 2019 -- and beyond. And, for all the assurances the world is getting better, such as Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now, there are huge geopolitical challenges to face and master to make that optimism real.
Struggling with the prolonged torture that is Brexit
News, John Lloyd, Published on 19/11/2018
» BBC political correspondent Chris Mason stood outside of the mother of parliaments last Monday morning and said he didn't have the "foggiest idea" about where Brexit is going. Then he made what have been described as "exasperated noises" -- and promptly became an online viral sensation.
Beware the online culture warriors
News, John Lloyd, Published on 22/10/2018
» The news media in the Western world remains dominated by newspapers, magazines and broadcasters still known as the mainstream. The most vivid proof of their continued reign over public opinion is in the figure of US President Donald Trump, whose repeated attacks on "failing" publications like The New York Times and the Washington Post as "enemies of the people" is a backhanded tribute to their continued power.
Politics of confrontation heats up
News, John Lloyd, Published on 15/10/2018
» The next president of Brazil, Latin America's giant, is all but certain to be former army captain Jair Bolsonaro -- who was relatively unknown, even in his own country, just a few months ago, but who now has a large public profile all round the world. At 63, he has spent years in public life, leaving a mark -- but not a large one -- as a man of the far right, ready with insults for women who oppose him, disgusted by homosexuality, approving of the military dictatorship that killed and tortured leftists between 1964 and 1985.
Three liberal prophets of doom
News, John Lloyd, Published on 31/07/2018
» Liberal democratic institutions and states are under sustained pressure, from outside and from within. The question now is how well liberal and democratic defences can withstand the onslaught.
The outsized power of Hungary's Premier Orban
News, John Lloyd, Published on 18/06/2018
» Closing a major university is a big deal. Created, staffed and maintained at large, usually public, expense, universities serve both a utilitarian and an idealistic purpose: to provide the highly-educated workforce modern economies require, and to uphold and further civilised values through the understanding of the world the various academic disciplines claim to provide.
Italy's right to make wrong choice
News, John Lloyd, Published on 04/06/2018
» The Italian crisis is over, and has just begun. Its dimensions go far beyond Italy; they are now European, even global. The near three-month long improvisations on a theme of governance ended Thursday with the announcement of an administration headed by Giuseppe Conte, a law professor with no government experience tasked with running a cabinet controlled by the leaders of the two parties which form that administration -- a signal of weak, divided and warring politics at the summit of power for the foreseeable future.
In times of trouble, Meghan radicalises the royals
News, John Lloyd, Published on 21/05/2018
» In at least one thing, in its present time of troubles, the United Kingdom remains pre-eminent. At 92, Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-serving head in the world, both of a state and a royal family whose magnificence and capacity for display easily tops anything else in the West. Though far outranked in wealth by the Sultan of Brunei, 71, and in both wealth and power by King Salman of Saudi Arabia, 82, she has a firm base of popularity. Good for her; a problem for her successors.
Why Putin is still – genuinely – popular in Russia
News, John Lloyd, Published on 22/03/2018
» Vladimir Putin won big on Sunday. According to the central election commission, the Russian president glides into his fourth term after winning his biggest-ever election victory, with nearly 77% favouring him. His nearest rival was an affluent multi-millionaire communist who got more than 11% by presenting himself as a Putin-plus, with a programme of nationalising the oligarchs' property instead of merely controlling it.
Once centres of hope, political parties are dying
News, John Lloyd, Published on 03/01/2018
» There's little difficulty in showing that some of the most venerable political parties of the democratic world may be facing terminal crises. The difficulty is in determining if government by a party or parties -- the sustaining base of administrations the democratic world over -- can last.