Engelsberg ideas

Critics on the right and left are already taking aim at the war-ending Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran. First and foremost, objections focus on the extensive economic relief promised to Iran, alongside f...

British By-Elections, 1769-2025: The 88 By-Election Campaigns That Shaped Our Politics, Iain Dale (ed.), Biteback Publishing, £30

British by-elections became more significant following the Great Reform Act of 1832, once rotten boroughs were abolished and electorates grew in size, but they ‘often seem to take on a far greater political significance than, in ret...

No one is sure how Alexander Gordon Laing really felt upon becoming the first European to reach Timbuktu after crossing the Sahara from north to south. We might assume that he indulged in a moment of self-congratulation. His outward journey had been nothing if...

A 2024 French production of The Count of Monte Cristo is available as a serial on BBC iPlayer, a film I watched for the first time on the first leg of a long-haul flight, only to rewatch it on the second. It distil...

The world trading system, it’s fair to say, is a bit of a mess these days. The World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based body established in 1995 to craft rules for international commerce and adjudicate complaints of rule violations, is largely dysfunctional; the March meeting of trade officials from 166 countries in Yaoundé, Cameroon, failed to reach agreements on much of a...