Home / Author Archives: Rob Marchant

Author Archives: Rob Marchant

Rob Marchant is a Senior Fellow at the HSC. He is a political commentator, management and communications consultant, Labour activist, social entrepreneur and blogger. He previously worked as a senior manager for the Labour Party through the 2001 and 2005 general election campaigns. He writes for The Centre Left and, as well as in the New Statesman,the Huffington Post and in his regular column at LabourList, publishes at LabourUncut, Left Foot Forward, Harry’s Place and Progress.

2015 is going to be a dangerous year

During the course of the next 12 months, we could easily see development in one or more of these threats: a total meltdown in Iraq and neighbouring Middle Eastern states; a nuclear Iran, toward which Israel might well lose its patience, in the absence of meaningful American support; and a renewed Russian campaign against the rest of Ukraine, or even a Baltic state or two

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Alarm Bells in Ukraine

I may have read this wrong, but I have an increasing sense of foreboding that the long-running “Euromaidan” occupation in Kyiv is not going to end well. Yes, Yanukovych has agreed to come to the negotiating table - he has even offered a prime ministerial job to one of the opposition leaders - but I suspect that this is merely playing for time. He has not offered the job to his most capable rival, Klitschko, and his word is not exactly his bond.

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Letter from Moscow: declining Human Rights, drifting economy and the return of “spheres of influence”

Moscow, I have recently discovered, has a decent daily English-language newspaper, the Moscow Times. While its attitude to the Putin government tends to be a fairly balanced criticism rather than either cosying up it or vitriol against it, neither is it afraid to criticise, unlike a seemingly increasing number of other Russian media outlets.

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