Max Weber defined a key attribute of a state as holding the monopoly on the legitimate exercise of violence within a given territory. For anybody other than the state to use substantive physical force against you or to imprison you is regarded as an extremely serious crime. The state itself may however constrain you, beat…
Britain seems to be going through a period of ritual flagellation. The Labour Party is tearing itself apart in order to assuage charges of anti-Semitism that seem to rain down on it from all sides. But in order to understand the true motivation behind Labour’s anti-Semitism charges, it’s important to focus less on the actual…
Trump’s direct intervention in the domestic political affairs of the UK is as naked, obnoxious, and unavoidable as the Trump baby balloon that Sadiq Khan allowed to fly over the city to mock him, but unlike that highly publicized stunt, the President himself isn’t full of hot air at all but is as serious as…
If the penny, or cent, has not dropped by now, it never will: Donald Trump presents a greater danger to his allies than he does to his foes. He imperils America as a world power. In 48 action-packaged hours, he has threatened to pull out of Nato (telling the organisation’s leaders that if they did…
The complicity of Western governments in the ocean of suffering being wrought in Yemen exposes them as agents of Saudi brutality. After three years of relentless conflict, it has been estimated that out of a population of 27.4 million, 22.2 million people in Yemen are in need of humanitarian assistance, 17 million are food insecure,…
Britain has a special relationship with Israel that is little recognised in the mainstream media but unmissable in light of the killings in Gaza. With more than 110 protesters dead, Britain is in effect defending Israeli actions. The British government has not, as far as I have seen, actually condemned Israel for the killings. Rather,…
