Over the past three days, London has witnessed something like 500 people protesting throughout the City. With the initial aim of reaching the London Stock Exchange in Paternoster Square, the group have settled on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral after being refused entry to London's financial home by the police. Emulating the hugely attended (but, as of yet, ineffective) Occupy Wall Street protest across the pond, the marchers, or rather campers now, have taken to the streets to fight for the return of equality to our country and all other countries; for the return of ethical financial practises by the much-hated bankers; and for the downfall of Capitalism - 'We are the 99%!' they cry. 

Movements like these have found great success before, and show a positive rise in our population's democratic engagement - it seems that, perhaps coincidentally (although many would argue otherwise), since the Coalition have come to power in Great Britain there has been a resurgence in political activism: first the student protests this time last year over tuition fees, now Occupy LSX, and another anti-cuts student rally planned for November ensuring the student voice is well heard. Of course, the real reason on a larger scale is the economic recession, galvanising many across the West to stand up and shout at the financial overlords we so heavily rely on but so equally hate. Egypt, Libya, Syria - revolutions across the Arab world: this era, like so many promised before it, appears to be one of change.


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Receiving a zealous applause as he stepped upon the stage and a standing ovation as he left it, Mahmoud Abbas today submitted his bid for Palestinian Stateship to the UN. His rhapsodic reception hallmarked a definitive moment that will no doubt send shockwaves through the Knesset and beyond. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is coming to an end. As the FTSE-100 lost £65 billion and the Republicans precipitated near-total shutdown of Congress, Abbas delivered a historic reminder that the Wind of Change is sweeping through the West – and that Israel won’t go untouched.  America’s undisputed geopolitical command is slowly waning and China, in publicly siding with the PA, delivered a typically dauntless reminder of this.

The US continually demands negotiations to resolve the Palestinian question. Yet after the Oslo Accords, Camp David and eighteen years of fruitless negotiation, the PA’s pragmatic approach is becoming ever-more reasonable.  At present, 127 of the UN’s 193 members recognize Palestine as an independent state including its four rising stars: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The political divergence of the West’s fading elite – France, Germany, the UK and Japan – from the international community is becoming increasingly unviable. They and the US do not recognise statehood. 75% of the world’s population or 5.2 billion people are represented by governments that do. The States will soon have awoken to it, if not already: the tide is turning – Netanyahu, for one is fully aware.

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Economic might has historically been the definitive characteristic of all great superpowers. Whether Dutch Mercantilism, Britain's corporate colonialism or  the manufacturing might of America, every true global force has only been able to assert cultural or political influence through - and as a consequence of - its financial power.  

  There is no doubt that once fiscal dominance is acquired, other forms of dominance and control become easily wielded by the nation in question: the Dutch introduced tea, cocoa and tobacco as household Western substances; Britain globally exported football, tennis and cricket, and America, along with unprecedented media supremacy, saw one of its own men on the moon for the first time. All of this would have never been achieved without serious economic force on each nation's behalf. The Space Race itself was a manifestation of US economic strength. JFK pumped an enormous $5.2 billion into NASA in 1965 - representing over 5% of GDP spending. There was a fair bit of spare cash, and the States utilised their financial clout to cultivate an empire of outstanding cultural, technological and political strength. 

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Perhaps the only thing Nick Clegg said in the run up to the election that was actually fulfilled.

Apologies for the lack of updates over the past few months, normal service will be resumed shortly.

Youtube user snooo's comment 'I'm convinced Ed is still in Millbank repeating these answers until someone switches him off' seems worryingly accurate...

Seven months in to his role, Ed Miliband has undeniably and  spectacularly failed at making his mark as Leader of the Opposition. Ousting his Blairite brother David, who won the hearts of the PLP and public, the younger of the siblings has  lost out on the unmissable opportunity to reform and re-establish Labour. Having been leader for over half a year now, the brutal British media recently turned on Ed, and just weeks after marrying his long-term partnter Justine, the honeymoon period is almost certainly over for him -  if there ever was one. 

Firstly and foremost, there is a lack of imagination and ideas. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown both loyally stood behind the banner of New Labour throughout their political careers, and even during the Iraq War, even during the recession, the public had some idea of what the duo fundamentally stood for. Naively, Ed has abandoned New Labour altogether, dispelling it as an unwanted ghost from the past  and an unattractive vestige of Tony and Gordons' joint 13 year premiership. Admittedly most of Britain identify those 13 years as one of high hopes, early progress but eventual disaster - ones partly sculpted by Ed himself as advisor to Brown, rendering his abandonment of the associated political ideology entirely unsurprising. The leaked documentation on how he, Balls and Brown plotted to remove Blair in 2005 that surfaced this week was an untimely reminder of the past he hopes to escape. However, some ideology is better than none, and whilst abandoning the party's old New Labour slogan, Ed has done nothing to replace it. Cameron's bland Big Society is a depressing indictment upon British politics as well as a veil behind which he can orchestrate un-mandated cuts, however even his attempt at a flagship policy is more impressive than Ed's self-authorised muting. With the lack of responsibility that inherently comes with Opposition, Ed can push through whatever ideas he wants. At the very least, one would expect one policy - infuriatingly, not even that has come so far. His most pertinent slogan has been protecting "the squeezed middle": he is yet to articulate how he hopes to achieve it, and after the party's second worst election result ever in 2010, Miliband has just not found a new niche for the party, who are increasingly sailing towards ideology abyss. 50% in a YouGov poll say they don't know what Ed stands for... worryingly, most would not be able to fathom a guess as to what the other half actually think it is. 

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.A couple of months ago, my uncle woke up to discover a pulsating cyst  in the corner of his eye. Eager to uphold his undying masculinity, David refused to visit our local clinic to get it sorted out. After a week however, the mischievous crimson blob was causing extreme irritation - most notably because most of his colleagues were finding it difficult to look him in the eye (or what little left of it was visible). He duly went to our local NHS clinic in Hammersmith. After waiting an hour, he was given temporary medication and referred to the Western Eye Hospital in central London - they would give him a call for an operation in a few weeks to get the cyst removed. Surprisingly after three weeks, David had not been called by anyone and by this time, was left with few options. So circumventing the whole NHS process altogether, he drove to the private Cromwell Hospital where he was seen immediately and in an hour or so, the cyst had been removed. 

The chasmic gulf  between private and public practise is becoming ever more apparent, especially for what should be simple procedures. The Commonwealth Fund ranks the NHS second in its report of various health systems, in front of Germany, Canada, Australia and the US. However, the placement is misleading. Since our coalition took shape a year ago, 27% more people are waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment, while over 11,000 patients have waited more than 6 months for their NHS to treat them - a 43% rise. The BMA has  placed the blame for the appalling figures on financial restrictions applied to the Health Service... the House of Commons Library shows that under Thatcher, real terms NHS spending increased by £1 billion year-on-year. Under the last Labour government: £4.8 billion. And under the coalition's? A forecasted average of barely £1 billion, while the Institute for Fiscal Studies recently reported a 0.1% decrease. Thatcher came into power when the British government was on its knees and the unions had their hands firmly round its throat, yet even she, widely regarded as the 20th century's most right-wing PM, increased spending in the NHS considerably. It seems again Cameron's claims to be cutting certain services out of necessity are wearing thin, as his coded policies are increasingly unravelled by the suspecting public - meanwhile, the NHS is suffering.

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The Coalition's fiscal policy has never been popular amongst the Left, or the public in general. Never one to let mass disapproval get in the way of government policy though, Prime Minister David Cameron has kept true to his initial aspirations, a real 'child of Thatcher'. Today's Misery Index figures will provide uncomfortable viewing for Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne. The Misery Index, a combination of inflation and unemployment, has reached a twenty year high. As though it couldn't get much worse, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, predicted that inflation will rise further too, hitting 5% in the coming months. 

The Misery Index has been steadily dropping since 1991, and even throughout the start of the recession was below 10%. Quantitative Easing (essentially printing slightly more money) led to a rapid drop in late 2008, yet we have seen a rapid rise back up to 13.5% since this government has come to power. Their excuse is that the cuts are cutting deep, people are spending more, and that Labour's last term forced us to cut back on spending. This has been proven untrue; as The Cuts Won't Work argues, Britain should be cutting less, cutting later, and cutting differently

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A year after power and a day after its second major hurdle, the Conservatives still fail to command any outright majority. For the moment, David Cameron can still only dream with his shining,  airbrushed forehead.  This morning though, he smugly trundled to the cameras to celebrate his party's resounding victory over AV. The most pertinent issue of late, the referendum  and its outcome can only do the Prime Minister good. A 69% majority, a beaming backbench, and a slash across the Lib-Dem jugular. However, it would be unwise for him to pass over his party's at best underwhelming performance in the Council Elections.

Labour gained almost 1000% more councillors than the Conservarive's paltry increase of 81. Red Ed, despite his blundersome campaign, can be the proud leader presiding over 24 new councils (eclipsing the Tory's meagre four). Two months ago, 500,000 took to central London in protest against this coalition. Back in November, the UK's waged war against its proposals for higher education. Today, the disillusioned public made their mark again. Clearly the Conservatives have utterly failed to compose a sense of community and sacrifice, and clearly thought dissaproval over their dire policies would go away. Well, it didn't and the senior-partner of the coalition has now paid the price: the Conservatives no longer seem to be the public's first choice. 

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The arguments have been endlessly recycled by politicians for a month now. Today, it is the public that will pass their verdict on our voting system  - whether it does or doesn't need to be changed. The main argument against FPTP is that it produces MPs who haven't the majority of their constituents' consent. For AV, the popular objection is that while most people vote for a candidate, they are elected under both second choice votes and first - but some people will get two votes, others one.

The two proposed systems are undeniably very different. One similarity though, is the disappointing attitude with which both campaigns  have been fought. The 'No' Campaign claims instituting AV would cost £250 million - a figure drawn out of thin air. It has also resorted to pure-scaremongering; one poster claims that voting in AV would somehow reduce the number of UK maternity units - I don't think anyone could sympathise with that, however cute the baby on the untruthful banner is. The 'Yes' Campaign hasn't be quite as brutal, but simply hasn't justified its system's unavoidable flaws. Both campaigns claim their respective systems are the most fair.

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RedCurrent are divided over AV (Alternative Vote).

On one hand, one is tempted to support it solely due to David Cameron's seething damnation of it, and the absurd, scaremongering campaign run by the 'No' campaign: "Under the Alternative Vote system, Nick Clegg would have the power to choose the government, NOT you" warns a gripping 'No' poster, stylising Clegg as Shepard Fairey's Obama 'Change' poster. Nick Clegg choosing which government is in power? No-one wants that.

On the other hand, for every measure untruthful the 'No' campaign have been, the 'Yes' campaign have been a measure shambolic. AV is complicated, and it is pretty much unproven (Only Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea have it on a national level so far), but it is as step in the right direction towards electoral reform. With PR risky, AV+ being brand new, and STV even more complicated, AV seems just about the only legitimate alternative to FPTP, a system where, despite 'only having one vote', it is not democratic, because a candidate can win with less than half a constituency's support.

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“Bit of a headache”, “I had a late night”, “the football’s on”: we’ve all pulled a sickie in exchange for a day of TV and cereal. This year already, British workers on average have taken twice as many sick days as their American counterparts, costing employers £32 billion. While unscheduled absence tolls at around 4.5 days per year in Asia and 5 days in the US, the UK’s increasingly sluggish economy takes off 10 days of unplanned leave per annum. This is a cause for concern, and certainly won’t aid our delayed recovery from 2008’s recession. Yet with high average wages, good healthcare, and long holidays, there should be no excuse for Britain’s increasing laziness. 

The coalition has already commissioned an independent report on sickness absence. Part of the report will deal with the “long term” absentees  from the UK’s economy, those who live off welfare benefits. This year, public welfare spending has reached a ridiculous £165 billion, a lot of which works it ways to what the media refers to as “benefits thieves”. Thieves or not, Britain’s “economic A.W.O.L.s” need to be incentivised to get working again. Are growth-suppressing cuts the answer? The depressing performance of our economy already discourages people to get back to work, even before cuts have been implemented. It could be a great opportunity to change the way of public works and investment in new industries that could kick-start our economy, and take the absentees along with it.

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Blair's intention was to change the tone of Prime Minister's Questions and the House of Commons from that of a rowdy gentleman's club into a modern political forum. Unfortunately, he achieved little, and the UK's lower-house is ever descending in tone and perhaps use.

Founded in 1706, it is, of course difficult to escape the well-embedded and witty exchanges that characterise its atmosphere. While the public don't have a problem with that, they do dislike it when the tone becomes darker and even abusive. Unpleasant exchanges are becoming more common in Prime Minister's Questions, and the sardonic laughter from the surrounding MPs merely encourages the main perpetrators. Sadly, the key culprit behind the unsightly conversations has been the Prime Minister himself. David Cameron is renowned for his snappy, school boy rhetoric, his rousing truisms, and his ability to undermine the opposition. He did it opposing Gordon Brown, and as PM, he's doing it to Ed. Naturally, the Tories behind him love it, and their rowdy reactions merely spur him on. His retorts can be witty, but in the last few weeks' Prime Minister's Questions, Cameron's behaviour has been ugly and unacceptable. 


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