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How could Britain look under proportional representation? See the results for your area

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These visualisations from exclusive polling modelling show how the UK parliament could change under different voting systems

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The class divide in British politics didn’t erode slowly – it collapsed under New Labour

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But the shift has more to do with how parties behave than any changes in the class system.

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Nato summit will reveal how alliance plans to manage European security as US cuts back its support

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As ever, a lot will depend on the mood of the US president, Donald Trump.

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How Realism and Liberalism Explain Key Global Developments Since 2000 in A Level Politics | EYNTK

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Sudan war: ICC tells BBC of breakthrough in war crimes investigation

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The ICC has been looking into atrocities committed in Darfur over the past three years.

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Media Reform coordinates the work of advocacy groups campaigning to protect the public interest in light of the Leveson Inquiry and Communications Review.

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LSE British Politics | Informed debate for better governance

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The Conservatives didn’t lose because they weren’t “conservative enough” | LSE British Politics

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Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel think the Conservatives lost because it wasn’t “conservative enough”, but this belief it’s unlikely to lead the Party back into government.

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Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour party, will take over from Rishi Sunak as UK prime minister with the most emphatic election victory by any British political party this century.

Individual constituency results overnight signalled Labour would comfortably win an overall majority on a modestly increased share of the vote, returning the left-of-centre party to government for the first time since 2010.

A despondent Sunak conceded defeat in a short speech shortly after 4.30am, following a lacklustre campaign in which the Conservative leader failed to dent a substantial deficit in the polls that had lasted throughout his premiership.

1. 1. Labour on track for record-breaking election victory in the UK

Starmer's Labour was on course to achieve a remarkable turnaround from a disastrous result for his party 2019, with a landslide victory forecast to be roughly on a par with Tony Blair's first election win in 1997.

Predictions were that Labour would win 408 seats out of 650, well ahead of the 326 required for a majority, with some seats falling to the party on swings of over 20 percentage points from the Conservatives, including both Tamworth and Lichfield in the Midlands.

Its first gain, South Swindon, in the south-west of England, saw a swing of 16.4 percentage points from Sunak's losing Conservatives to Labour. That was well ahead of the 12.7 points needed to win an overall majority in Britain's parliament, and would be the biggest swing to any winning party in the UK since the second world war.

Five years ago, few politicians or commentators expected Labour could recover so quickly, but the winning party was aided by a divided opposition in which insurgent rightwing party Nigel Farage's Reform UK took votes from the Conservatives weakened and tarnished by the unpopular premierships of Sunak predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

2. 2. It was more of an anti-Conservative vote, than a pro-Labour one

The Conservative vote collapsed, while the Labour vote increased only modestly. Sunak's party polled about 22.3% of the vote with more than two-thirds of the seats declared, a catastrophic fall of 20 percentage points from the 42.4% achieved in 2019.

The party was predicted to win 136 seats, its worst ever election result in the three-century history of Britain's democracy. Eight Conservative cabinet members had lost their seats by 5am, a record, headed by Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, and Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons. In Wales, the party lost every seat.

Labour's share of the vote, however, was 36.3%, 4.2 percentage points higher than in the previous election, although the party's share of the vote overall was below the level of Blair's victories in 1997 and 2001 but not 2005.

In Nuneaton, in the Midlands, Labour gained a seat previously held by the Conservatives with a sizeable majority of 13,144. The Conservative vote fell by 32.7 percentage points while Labour increased its share by a more modest 5.4 points.

British voters had clearly not forgiven the Conservatives for a series of disasters, most recently a catastrophic mini-budget from Sunak's predecessor Liz Truss in September 2022, where unfunded tax cuts led to sharp rise in mortgage costs for ordinary Britons as interest rates soared because of concern about the health of the UK's public finances.

3. 3. Scotland's independence movement took a body blow

The previously dominant Scottish National party was knocked back for the first time in a decade, setting back its struggle for independence. The SNP, which won 48 seats in Scotland in 2019, was forecast to win eight. Labour, which had won only one seat in 2019, had won 35 seats by 5am, including every seat in Glasgow.

Though the SNP failed in its bid to secure Scottish independence at a referendum in 2014 it had won a majority of Scottish seats at every UK election since 2015 and has run the Holyrood parliament since 2007.

It had campaigned on the argument that if it won a majority of Scotland's 57 seats it would have a mandate to renegotiate a second independence referendum. But the party's comprehensive defeat pushes the issue into the background for now.

4. 4. Nigel Farage's hard-right Reform UK wins a handful of seats

The pro-Brexit, anti-immigration Nigel Farage won a seat in the UK parliament, at the eighth attempt, alongside three others, creating a small but potentially noisy bloc at Westminster. Though Farage, now the MP for Clacton, in the east of England, is already a familiar media figure, leading a small party in the Westminster parliament guarantees him more media exposure in the future.

The party won four seats, lower than the 13 initial projections had forecast, taking seats in Great Yarmouth, and Boston and Skegness from the Conservatives and retaining Ashfield in the east Midlands, where the party had been represented by a defector from the Tories, Lee Anderson. Labour, however, held on to the two seats in Barnsley, Yorkshire, by around 8,000 and 5,000 votes respectively. Reform UK had been predicted to win both.

Significantly, Reform UK also came second in dozens of seats, particularly in areas that previously supported Brexit, positioning the party as a challenger to Labour in future elections should Starmer falter and prove unpopular.

5. 5. British politics has become more volatile

Five years ago, at the last election, there was talk of a realignment in British politics as the Conservatives, then led by Boris Johnson, took traditional working-class areas from Labour, largely because voters in those areas were willing to support him to complete Brexit.

Labour needed a record postwar swing simply to achieve a majority of one seat, but as the results came in it was clear the party was on track to do considerably better than that, as voters had moved on to focus on the Conservatives' economic record in office.

Starmer's victory suggests there was no long-term realignment, but rather that old tribal loyalties in British politics, where people vote habitually, are not as strong as they once were. British voters are quite prepared to judge politicians harshly if they are deemed to fail. A landslide victory in one election does not render defeat in the next impossible.

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UK general election 2024: five key points

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Keir Starmer's Labour is heading for power with a large majority as voters punish Rishi Sunak's Conservatives

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The London School of Economics and Political Science

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Is the return of great power rivalry and conflict eroding the collective capacity and willingness of the international community to address environmental, trade, and public health crises globally?

Leading international relations experts from LSE and Tsinghua University discuss the global resurgence of geopolitical competition and the implications of this for strategies that sustainability leaders can adopt to sustain international cooperation over climate, trade, and health in our increasingly fractured world.
Meet your speakers and chair:
Catherine Boone is Harold Laski Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on questions of comparative political economy, and especially on questions of institutional change and economic development. Her books include Inequality and Political Cleavage in Africa: Regionalism by Design (2024), Property and Political Order: Land Rights and the Structure of Conflict in Africa (2014); Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice (2003). She was elected to the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. At the LSE, she convened the MSc in African Development and has led the LSE-UCL Land Politics Working Group since 2015.

Robert Falkner is Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at LSE, and the Academic Dean of the TRIUM Global Executive MBA, a world leading executive MBA programme jointly run by NYU Stern School of Business, HEC Paris and LSE.

Stephanie J Rickard is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government at LSE. For over fifteen years, she has researched issues related to the international political economy, including trade agreements and international financial rescues. In her award-winning book, Spending to Win, Rickard investigates how economic geography influences countries' economic policies and international economic relations.

Tang Xiaoyang is the chair and a professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University. His research interests include political philosophy, China's engagement in the developing countries and global modernization process. He is the author of Coevolutionary Pragmatism: Approaches and Impacts of China-Africa Economic Cooperation (Cambridge University Press 2020) and has published extensively on the Belt and Road Initiative. Previously, he worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC and as a consultant for the World Bank, UNDP, USAID. He was also deputy director for Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy until 2021. He completed his Ph.D. in the philosophy department at the New School for Social Research in New York. He earned his M.A in philosophy from Freiburg University in Germany and his B.A in business management from Fudan University in Shanghai.

Zhao Kejin, Professor and Deputy Director of Global Development Institute at Tsinghua University. He received his Ph.D in International Relations at Fudan University and worked at the Center for American Studies at Fudan University until 2009 when he moved to Tsinghua University as Professor at Institute of International Studies. He has published more than 120 papers in academic journals and published books on such topics as the American studies, public diplomacy and China's foreign policy. His current research focuses on global governance, public diplomacy and China's foreign affairs

Peter Trubowitz is Professor of International Relations, and Director of the Phelan US Centre at LSE and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs.

More about this event

This event is part of the LSE Festival: How to save the planet running from Monday 15 to Saturday 20 June 2026. This year's Festival explores how existential threats including the climate crisis, conflict and AI are affecting all parts of the world, transforming the way and where we live, and how our societies function. With a series of events asking what can we be doing to save the Earth, its people and environment? Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 18 May.

LSE's Phelan United States Centre (@LSE_US) is a hub for global expertise, analysis and commentary on America.

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LSE holds a wide range of events, covering many of the most controversial issues of the day, and speakers at our events may express views that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do not reflect the position or views of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Saving the planet | International cooperation

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7pm Fri 19 Jun | Catherine Boone, Robert Falkner, Stephanie Rickard, Tang Xiaoyang, Kejin Zhao | Free event at the LSE Festival: How to save the planet | Ticket required

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Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) - Department of Politics and International Relations, University of York

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Department of Politics and International Relations launches free online course

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Governments should consider taxing artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies to generate funds to deal with the climate crisis, one of the architects of the Paris agreement has said.

Laurence Tubiana, the chief executive of the European Climate Foundation and a former French diplomat, is co-lead of the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, an international initiative to find new sources of funds for climate action by taxing highly polluting activities including aviation and fossil fuel extraction.

She said cryptocurrency should certainly be taxed, and levies on AI should be considered.

"That could be a first step - again, it's the same rationale [for AI as taxing cryptocurrency], because they use a lot of energy," she said. "Crypto seems to be something which is not regulated at all, and of course it's a concern, from the financial stability element."

The equivalent of Poland's annual energy consumption is expended each year just on generating bitcoin, one of the leading cryptocurrencies. AI also consumes vast resources, resulting in IT companies scrabbling to secure electricity supplies in locations around the world.

Taxing AI could prove tricky, Tubiana conceded, as companies might try to shift the location of their datacentres. Although there was likely to be "pushback" against taxing cryptocurrencies, particularly from the US, where Donald Trump is an enthusiastic supporter of the technology, she said central bankers had expressed an interest.

"Because we need to regulate it - it's organised crime sometimes, so you should look at where the money's coming from, and who is the user," Tubiana said. The taskforce has assigned a group of experts to examine how this could be achieved.

The taskforce has scored an early success in the form of an agreement among some countries to put new charges on business-class and first-class airline tickets, and private jets. France, Spain, Kenya, Barbados, Somalia, Benin, Sierra Leone, and Antigua and Barbuda were the first countries to sign up to the accord announced at the end of June.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: "We have to mobilise more and more countries in order for these critical sectors which are benefiting from globalisation to contribute to the financing of this common effort [to combat the climate crisis]. I want to urge all possible countries to join this international framework because it's absolutely key, and it's part of our agenda."

Such taxes could raise €147bn (£127bn) a year, if the big economies joined in. The use of private jets increased by almost 50% between 2019 and 2023, and first- and business-class flying recovered more speedily than economy class after the Covid lockdowns. Polls suggest that charging premier-class passengers more would be a popular move.

Tubiana said: "When you have your car, you pay tax, and when you fly you don't pay tax, so there is an element of justice there that resonates."

Countries could impose such taxes without a global agreement, she added. "The aviation tax is not that complicated, because it's really a sovereign decision."

A potential carbon tax on shipping is also still under discussion, after the International Maritime Organization agreed steps towards such a deal in April. A further meeting will take place in October, and Tubiana said she was "reasonably optimistic" a new levy would be decided.

The taskforce is also examining options such as a tax on buying shares in the stock market, which could raise as much as €105bn a year without distorting the market, according to research.

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Rebecca Newsom, the global political lead of Greenpeace International's Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign, urged the taskforce to go further and push for taxes on fossil fuel production.

"The obvious next step is to hold oil and gas corporations to account," she said. "As fossil fuel barons rake in obscene profits, and people are battered with increasingly violent floods, storms and wildfires, it's no surprise that eight out of 10 people support making them pay. Members of the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force and rich countries around the world should act upon this enormous public mandate."

Tubiana, who guided the Cop21 conference in 2015 at which the Paris agreement was signed, also expressed concern about the direction France was taking in international climate negotiations.

Macron has mooted a delay to the European Commission's proposal of a 90% cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, a target that is supposed to be confirmed by the EU parliament and member states in September before the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil in November.

Tubiana said Macron's new-found hesitation over climate policy was "a very sad story". She warned that it would backfire and would reduce the chances of a strong outcome for Cop30, at which countries must set new emissions goals under the Paris agreement.

"How can we ask anybody to do something if we're not doing it, if we're not proving that we believe we can decarbonise the economy?" she said. "I hope they will wake up to the bad signals they are giving. It's really not reasonable to think that delaying action will benefit the economy of France. We need innovation, we don't need to delay."

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Tax on AI and crypto could fund climate action, says former Paris accords envoy

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Laurence Tubiana urges governments to consider levies on energy-hungry technology

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Trading blocs: Is global governance under threat? - Hodder Education Magazines

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What are the key international economic institutions, and what challenges do they face under the second Trump administration?

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■ Edexcel 4: Relations between the branches.

■ AQA 3.1.1.4: The judiciary.

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How far can judges go? Evaluating the balance between law and politics - Hodder Education Magazines

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How far can judges go? How far can judges go? Evaluating the balance between law and politics Sarra Jenkins EXAM LINKS ■ Edexcel 4: Relations between the branches. ■ AQA 3.1.1.4: The judiciary. Judicial review in the UK has grabbed headlines in recent years, with high-profile controversial cases over the Rwanda Bill, Shamima Begum and [...]

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Emma Kilheeney McSherry and Josh Lynbeck

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A review of the much publicised ‘reset’ in the relationship between the United Kingdom and European Union under Keir Starmer’s Labour government

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Climate change and global governance - Hodder Education Magazines

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Climate change and global governance Climate change and global governance How does global governance relate to climate change? Craig Bennett EXAM LINKS ■ Students following Edexcel’s global route will find this article useful in relation to Topic 3: Global governance: human rights and environmental. Climate change is a huge worldwide threat, from food security to […]

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EXAM SUCCESS: Global politics EXAM SUCCESS Global politics How to write the 12-mark Section A response Answering 12-mark questions in global politics Paper 3 can be a daunting prospect, as you only have limited time to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding to the examiner, without losing time on the longer and more complex 30-mark essays. […]

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We're ending our live coverage of today's Prime Minister's Questions, but we'll leave you with an analysis from BBC Verify following a question to Starmer about energy.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage asked the prime minister to consider increasing extraction of natural gas in the North Sea, saying it would lead to "thousands of jobs, increased tax revenues and cheaper gas prices".

Granting new licences for drilling might well safeguard jobs in this sector and lead to higher tax revenues but it's not clear that it would make gas prices cheaper.

The UK is highly integrated with the European gas market, being physically linked with the wider continent through undersea pipelines.

Private energy companies operating in the UK's section of the North Sea do not sell gas exclusively to UK customers, they sell into this pan-European market and the UK wholesale price tends to move in line with the European wholesale price.

Experts told us the potential additional supply available from granting more exploration licences to get more gas from the North Sea would not be big enough to significantly move the European price and hence would be unlikely to reduce the price for UK consumers.

The prime minister and Kemi Badenoch attacked each other's leadership style at PMQs.

The Tory leader took aim at Keir Starmer's appointment of Peter Mandelson, while Starmer attacked Badenoch over her stance on the Iran war and comments by her shadow justice secretary.
Peter Mandelson's appointment
Badenoch persistently pressed Starmer on whether he spoke to Mandelson about Jeffrey Epstein before his appointed as US ambassador. In response, Starmer reiterated that the appointment was a "mistake" and repeated his apology to Epstein's victims.
Shadow justice secretary's comments
In his exchange with Badenoch, Starmer called for shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy to be sacked over comments he made about Muslims praying in public ( here's what Timothy said). "If he were in my team, he'd be gone," the PM said.
Angela Rayner's warning
Badenoch also mentioned comments from former deputy PM Angela Rayner, who called Labour's immigration proposals "un-British". The Tory leader said she and Rayner agreed this "weak man" should be replaced by a "strong woman" - watch the moment.
On Iran
The prime minister reiterated that the UK would not be drawn into the wider Iran war, and said the longer it went on the more it would increase the cost of living.
The future of the UK's nuclear deterrent
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey asked whether the UK should be reliant on the US when it renews its nuclear deterrent - the PM said he'd do what's in the UK's "best interests".

Kemi Badenoch used today's PMQs to return to the issue that has dogged Keir Starmer over recent weeks - his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as British ambassador to the United States.

Speaking to me on Politics Live, the Shadow Environment Secretary Victoria Atkins said: "The idea that the prime minister of the UK would not interview the person that they are proposing to send to Washington on behalf of the UK is frankly crazy."

I asked Justice Minister Jake Richards whether the PM should have just given a straight answer to Badenoch's question.

His response: "What would be dangerous would be for a prime minister to storm out, make broad statements and not respect the due process."

During PMQs, Keir Starmer singled out shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy for comments he made about Muslims praying in public on social media.

Accompanying a video of Muslims praying at an event in Trafalgar Square, Timothy wrote: "Mass ritual prayer in public places is an act of domination."

"Perform these rituals in mosques if you wish. But they are not welcome in our public places and shared institutions," he added.

Starmer told Tory leader Kemi Badenoch she should "denounce his comments and she should sack him".

In response to Starmer's comments, Badenoch took aim at his justice secretary and proposals to abolish jury trials.

"My shadow justice secretary is defending British values," Badenoch said. "I know who I would rather have sitting on the front bench next to me."

Since the post on Tuesday night, Timothy has accused people of interpreting it with "wilful misunderstanding".

This week's PMQs has come to a close. We'll bring you a round-up of the key lines from the Commons soon.

Andrew Snowden will have won some brownie points with his leader with an impassioned attack on the PM for failing to answer her questions on Mandelson.

Conservative MP Andrew Snowden criticises Starmer for his earlier responses to party leader Badenoch - claiming the PM comes to the House every week with "pre-scripted nonsense that bears no resemblance to the questions he's asked".

Snowden says that, when asked repeatedly about Mandelson's appointment, the Starmer responded by talking about the war in the Middle East, the shadow justice secretary, and protests in London.

He asks: "What is he scared of? What is he hiding?"

He asks Starmer again whether he spoke to Mandelson "personally" after finding out he had a personal relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The prime minister says the process in relation to Mandelson has been set out.

He also says he knows why the Conservatives "don't want to talk about" the war - because they supported going in before "thinking of the consequences".

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage asks Starmer about energy reserves. He says Norway has opened 49 drill sites for gas and oil but on the UK's side of the North Sea there are none.

He asks whether the prime minister believes the UK should become self-sufficient in natural gas.

Starmer replies that oil and gas will be part of the mix of energy for "many years" to come.

He says Farage is talking about the consequences of a war "he said we should rush into" before changing his mind a week later.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey asks about the UK's nuclear deterrent programme.

The UK has operational control of its nuclear arsenal, including British-built warheads, but it depends on the US to supply and maintain the Trident missiles that would deliver them.

With the use of Trident missiles set to expire by the 2040s, he says the UK faces a choice between leasing new missiles from the US - "accepting whatever terms the president gives us" - or building our own in the UK.

Davey says the Conservatives and Reform say we must rely on the US "because we couldn't possibly do it ourselves - does the prime minister agree with them?"

Starmer says renewing the nuclear deterrent will be done according to the "best interests of Britain" but argues Davey is advocating for a plan without knowing how much it'll cost and how it would work.

Those main exchanges this week were quite something.

The prime minister and the Conservatives lobbed insults about what each perceive to be the leadership failings in each other - doing so often at cross purposes to the questions or points being made.

Kemi Badenoch was able - via a specific question - to highlight that the prime minister didn't speak to Mandelson himself prior to appointing him ambassador in Washington.

The lack of such a conversation, reported by The Times in recent days, prompted Badenoch to repeatedly offer the prime minister to say this reporting was wrong - and he didn't.

Instead, the Prime Minister chose to turn the question of leadership and judgement on Badenoch, by questioning her outlook on the war in Iran and remarks made by the Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy.

This morning's story about the former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner's critique of the government was mentioned in passing by Kemi Badenoch, but not in a sufficiently direct way to prompt an answer about it from Starmer.

Badenoch had some sharp punchlines this week, but on two occasions managed to deliver them and then forget she needed to actually ask a question.

Social Democratic and Labour Party MP Claire Hanna asks the prime minister if he can guarantee that the UK will not be drawn into the wider war in Iran, and whether MPs would "get a vote before the UK involves in any further conflict".

Starmer says he will "protect our people in the region" and take action to defend the UK and its allies.

"We will not be drawn into the wider war," Starmer says, adding: "I want to see this war end as quickly as possible.

"The longer it continues, the bigger the impact on the cost of living, and that's where we've intervened to support households with cost of heating oil".

The Speaker is not amused by the PM throwing questions at Badenoch. It's meant to be questions to the prime minister.

Starmer has come prepared with attack lines on Iran but the Tory leader wants to talk about Mandelson.

Badenoch says Starmer wants the public to believe he is a serious leader "but he doesn't do the work" - accusing him of outsourcing decisions and blaming "anyone but himself" in relation to Mandelson's appointment.

She says he appointed Mandelson but "didn't bother to ask the questions", and asks why the House should believe what he says about anything if he "can't be straight" about this matter.

Starmer responds by saying Badenoch tried to rush the UK into a war "without thinking of the consequences".

"She's utterly irrelevant and she's got no judgement," he continues. He says she "jumped into a war with Iran without stopping to think".

Keir Starmer laughs off Kemi Badenoch's jibe about Angela Rayner's alleged leadership ambitions.

David Lammy finds it even more funny, as the Tory leader indicates that she has not finished her question yet.

Badenoch turns to Starmer's leadership suggesting his former deputy Angela Rayner has "fired the starting gun" on the race to replace him.

She says she and Rayner both agree this "weak man" should be replaced by a "strong woman".

Badenoch presses the PM on his appointment of Mandelson as the UK's ambassador, asking if the prime minister did not speak to Mandelson ahead of the appointment, then how could Mandelson have lied to him.

In response, Starmer deflects saying the process is "clear" and is being looked at by an independent adviser.

Badenoch accuses Starmer of trying to "talk about anything else" and says he did not answer her question.

She says we know the prime minister was warned of the risk of appointing Mandelson and asks again whether he spoke to the former ambassador before giving him the job.

Starmer responds that he has already made clear Mandelson was "asked questions and gave untruthful replies".

The prime minister says this is "a question of my judgement" but asks, too, "what about her judgement" - and accuses the Conservative leader of wanting to rush into the UK into the war in the Middle East.

The BBC understands Mandelson's view is that he answered questions about his relationship with Epstein in the vetting process accurately.

Starmer responds that Mandelson's appointment was his "mistake" and repeats his apology to Epstein's victims.

He adds that the government is continuing to support the ongoing police investigation and says it is clear the appointment process wasn't strong enough which is why he has strengthened it.

He then calls for Badenoch to apologise for calling for the UK to join the Iran war "without thinking through the consequences".

Kemi Badenoch has her first question for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The Conservative leader says the PM tried to avoid scrutiny on files relating to the appointment of former ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson by releasing the documents immediately after PMQs last week.

She then asks Starmer whether he personally spoke to Mandelson about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, before he was appointed as the UK's Washington ambassador.

Mandelson has repeatedly let it be known that he believes he has not acted criminally, did not act for personal gain and is cooperating with the police during an ongoing investigation.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer is on his feet at this week's Prime Minister's Questions.

Before taking questions, he takes the opportunity to offer his "deepest condolences" to the families of two young people who have died as a result of the meningitis outbreak in Kent.

He says health experts are working to identify close contacts, and distribute antibiotics.

Starmer asks anyone who attended Club Chemistry in Canterbury on March 5, 6 or 7 to come forward and receive antibiotics.

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Badenoch presses Starmer on Mandelson appointment at PMQs

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On Iran, Starmer tells MPs the UK will "not be drawn into the wider war", adding that the longer the conflict continues, the bigger the impact on the cost of living.

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Peter Walker and Pippa Crerar and Daniel Boffey

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Starmer rejects accusation Labour is ‘complacent’ on defence funding

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PM responds to warnings by former Nato chief George Robertson by saying defence spending is increasing rapidly

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On this page you will find discussion and analysis of electoral systems. The content here is specifically designed for A level politics and early undergraduate level students looking to deepen their understanding of the topic. At A level specifically, the component 1 topic on 'electoral systems' is where this topic will most apply.

Click on any of the questions below to be taken to the answer.

What are electoral systems?

Why do types of electoral systems matter?

What different electoral systems are used for elections in the UK?

What is First-Past-the-Post?

Why is First-Past-the-Post criticised?

If first-Past-the-Post is unfair, why hasn't it been replaced?

What is proportional representation?
What is the Single Transferable Vote s ystem and how does it work? What is the Additional Member system and is it a pr oportional system? What is the Supplementary Vote and is it proportional? Is the Supplementary Vote working in London?
PowerPoint
Further reading What are electoral systems?
An electoral (or voting) system is the process through which the electorate - those eligible to vote in a particular election - choose who they want to represent them. The video below explains more about what electoral systems are and why they're important.
Why do types of electoral systems matter?
Electoral systems are crucial to the way in which people take part in politics, and who holds power in a representative democracy. The electoral system determines how a fundamental political right - the right to vote - is exercised. The way in which votes are cast and counted impacts the composition of the democratic chamber, the manner in which representatives relate to the public, and which party, or group of parties, is able to form a government. The type of electoral system used can influence the choices individuals make when casting their vote(s), as well as the kind of government that can be formed. Electoral systems therefore play a defining role in the character of the political system.

According to Channel 4 News, this is how seats would have been allocated in 2019 if the party list system had been used (a form of proportional representation). What different electoral systems are used for elections in the UK?
First-Past-the-Post (with a long history, but imposed uniformly as the system for UK parliamentary elections across the board since the Representation of the People Act 1948)

Single Transferable Vote (first used in special university constituencies at Westminster elections from 1918, and for Northern Irish parliamentary elections from 1919)

Additional Member System (first used in elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly in 1999)

Supplementary Vote (first used for London Mayoral elections in 2000)
What is First-Past-the-Post?
First-Past-the-Post (also referred to as the Single Member Plurality system) is the system used for UK parliamentary elections. It has been used in every Westminster constituency since the 1950 election, and was widely employed long before that point. Each voter can vote for one candidate from the list of candidates standing in their constituency. The candidate who gets the most votes wins, and is elected to be the Member of Parliament for that constituency. It is what is often referred to as a 'majoritarian' (as opposed to 'proportional') electoral system. This means that the seat is won outright by a candidate (rather than distributed in relation to the proportion of votes cast). The winning candidate does not actually need to win an outright majority of votes cast, however, simply at least one more than any other candidate (or a 'plurality').
Why is First-Past-the-Post criticised?
First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) has had its critics since the nineteenth century. A range of different arguments are raised against the system.

One of the main criticisms of FPTP is that it is disproportionate. On this account, an electoral system should make sure that a party's level of support is reflected in the number of seats they win. FPTP, however, does not produce a distribution of seats that reflects the overall way in which votes have been cast across the country. Parties that receive less than half of the total UK vote regularly win a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Detractors say this means that under FPTP the legislative chamber fails to reflect and represent the public's political preferences and awards unearned majorities to one of two main parties (since 1918, the Conservatives and Labour).

The 2015 election illustrates how disproportionate the system is, with UKIP winning 12.6% of the vote but securing just 1 MP. The SNP on the other hand won 4.7% of the popular vote but secured 56 seats (Source: Daily Mail).
Another part of this criticism of FPTP is that, while it rewards the two main parties, it disadvantages some smaller parties and candidates. Parties like the Brexit Party (now known as Reform UK), Green Party or the Liberal Democrats, might pick up a significant percentage of votes cast. But because these are spread across many constituencies, none (or very few) of which they are likely to receive the most votes in, they may end up winning much fewer seats than their vote share suggests (or potentially none at all). This is said to be unfair to these smaller parties, depriving them of a realistic chance of winning seats despite modest levels of national support.
Caroline Lucas of the Green Party explains why FPTP harms smaller parties like hers during a Westminster Hall debate on electoral reform.
FPTP is also said to suppress potential levels of support for these parties, as people may opt to vote instead for a larger party that has a better chance of winning, even if they do not best reflect their political views. People, in such accounts, end up voting for the candidate they dislike the least or voting tactically rather than out of genuine support. Through this, FPTP leads to and preserves the dominance of two main parties at the expense of smaller political forces.

Two-party dominance also means that the main parties have to be broad, encompassing a spectrum of political views. Whilst some say this is a positive, meaning that they have to rely on support from across the electorate; others say it means that parties end up fighting endless internal battles, with different factions vying for control but never able to break away and form a new party.

Taken together, it is argued that all of this can lead people to become disillusioned with the political process. This in turn may cause people to feel that voting is pointless and to stop participating in elections altogether.

FPTP also has an issue with so-called safe seats. In some areas, a particular party has won for many generations - making the party assume the seat is a safe win. This means that parties end up paying little attention to these places, focusing instead on the marginal seats they need to win to secure a majority. Elections end up focusing on the issues that concern these marginal constituencies rather than those that are of wider importance.

Others make more practical criticisms of FPTP. They suggest that it does not bring the benefits that its proponents claim. For example, it is often said that FPTP produces stable, single party governments, typically with large majorities in Parliament. However, a series of recent elections (2010, 2015, 2017) have shown that this is not always the case. Furthermore, it does not necessarily even reward the party with the most votes with the most seats, failing to do so at general elections in 1951 and February 1974.
If First-Past-the-Post is unfair, why hasn't it been replaced?
Although there has been significant opposition to FPTP over many years, it remains the system that is used for UK Parliamentary elections. Why is this? One obvious reason is that if FPTP helps one of two main parties to get elected at each election, then neither of these parties have an incentive to get rid of it. FPTP often produces a majority for a particular party in Parliament, meaning they can form a single-party government on less than a majority of the overall vote. It is hard to see why this party, now in government, would change the system to make it more likely that at the next election they would lose power, or have to form a coalition government with a smaller party.

There are other reasons FPTP for Westminster elections has not been replaced. To start, there is disagreement on what electoral system should replace it and a number of possible models to choose from. In 2011, there was a referendum to replace FPTP with a system called the Alternative Vote (AV), which was unsuccessful. Although there are some significant differences, AV is a majoritarian system like FPTP rather than a proportional system. Some proponents of changing the electoral system, who would have preferred a proportional model, therefore found it difficult to support the Yes to AV side in the campaign.

Others would say that we still have FPTP because it is the best system for UK Parliamentary elections. They argue that the most important feature of an electoral system is not whether it produces a Parliament that most accurately reflects the political attitudes of the electorate, but whether it produces an effective government that voters can hold to account. As we have seen, proponents of FPTP say that it produces single-party, majority governments which can carry through a distinct political agenda more effectively than coalition or minority governments. Voters are given a clear choice of government - typically one of the two main parties - who they can then vote out of office at the next election if they don't deliver. Supporters of FPTP propose that this is preferable to confusing and ever-changing coalition and minority governments that may manage to cling on to power with the support of smaller parties, despite being rejected by the voters.
What is proportional representation?
Proportional representation refers to a range of voting systems that aim to produce a distribution of representation in the democratic assembly that reflects the way the electorate has voted. For example, in a perfectly proportional system a party that received 25 per cent of the votes would get 25 per cent of the seats. Of the electoral systems mentioned above, the Single Transferable Vote system and, to a certain extent, the Additional Member System fall into this category.
What is the Single Transferable Vote system and how does it work?
The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is a proportional electoral system used primarily in the UK in Northern Ireland. STV is often said to be more complicated than some other voting systems. However, it produces a high degree of proportionality whilst also maintaining a strong connection between representatives and their local area.

Under STV, multiple representatives are elected to each constituency (unlike FPTP). So, one area may be choosing four members, for example. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. A quota of votes that a candidate has to reach in order to be elected is determined by dividing the total number of votes by the number of seats available. If a candidate receives more votes than the quota they are elected, and their additional votes are redistributed to the other candidates on the basis of who was put as the next preference. If this process doesn't fill all the available seats, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed to whoever their voters put as their second preference. This process is repeated until all the seats in the constituency have been filled.

Proponents of STV say that it allows voters to vote for who they really want, rather than tactically or for the least bad option. They can vote for candidates all from the same party or for individuals from a number of different parties or independent candidates. Furthermore, it is said that constituency boundaries under STV are more in keeping with recognisable town, city, or county distinctions than a system like FPTP, where artificial boundaries are drawn based on population density. However, others argue that STV is complex and less easy to comprehend than FPTP. Nevertheless, its use in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and for some elections in Scotland indicates that voters are able to get to grips with STV and use the system effectively.
What is the Additional Member system and is it a proportional system?
The Additional Member System (AMS) is used in the UK for elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Greater London Assembly. It is intended to mix aspects of FPTP and proportional representation - it is neither wholly proportional nor wholly majoritarian. Its proponents claim it forms a hybrid of the two types of system that combines their advantages and avoids their disadvantages.

Electors are asked to cast votes for two types of representative. They cast one vote for a constituency candidate under the FPTP system, where the constituency candidate with the most votes wins. They also cast a vote for a party list in a wider election, covering a particular region, and for which multiple representatives are elected. The seats for these larger, multi-member districts are distributed so that the overall number of seats the party gets for that region (including the FPTP constituencies) is as proportional as possible to the percentage of votes the party received for their list.

The 'party list' electoral system is a form of proportional representation. When the UK was a member of the European Union, it was used in Great Britain to elect members to the European Parliament. Each party presents a list of candidates for a particular district, for which several representatives will be elected. Each voter casts a vote for the list of their preferred party and the seats for the district are distributed proportionally to the number of votes each party list received. In the AMS system this is combined with the use of FPTP for the constituency seats.

Many point to Scotland and Wales, where the Scottish National Party and the Labour Party have been in government for a long period, to demonstrate that AMS can produce stable governments, with close to a single-party majority, whilst also producing a legislative chamber that is more proportional to voters' choices than under FPTP. However, critics argue that the system can be gamed in certain ways, for example through tactically splitting votes and voting for one party in the constituency election and another, smaller party in the list election. Others say that AMS creates two tiers of MPs, given that constituency MPs often have responsibilities that party-list MPs do not.

This video from the BBC explains how AMS works in Scotland's parliamentary elections.

Further reading: David Klemperer, 'A gameable electoral system? The Additional Member System in Scotland'
What is the Supplementary Vote and is it proportional?
The Supplementary Vote (SV) is the system used for electing mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners in the UK. It is what is referred to as a preferential voting system: voters give a first preference and a second preference. In this sense, it is similar to the Alternative Vote (AV) system, which was the subject of the 2011 referendum. However, under the AV system, voters can rank as many candidates as they like. If once all the votes are counted a candidate has secured an overall majority, then they are elected. However, if no candidate secures over 50 per cent, then under SV all the candidates other than the top two are eliminated. The second preferences of those who voted for an eliminated candidate are then distributed between the top two. Whoever has the most votes in total after this process is elected.

SV is not a proportional electoral system. However, it is said to be an improvement on FPTP in that candidates cannot win outright with low levels of support. It is a system which is designed to produce overall majorities for a candidate, something which is not required under FPTP. Critics say that SV continues to maintain two-party dominance, as only two candidates can get through the first round - usually the two biggest, most well-known parties. Votes for smaller parties are only relevant in relation to whether their second preference is for one of the two larger parties that has made it through to the second round. Ballots where both the first and second preference are for small parties will usually be wasted and not count towards the final result.
Is the Supplementary Vote working in London?
SV has been used for London Mayoral elections since 2000. The two main parties - Conservative and Labour - still dominate these elections. However, it is argued that SV means that candidates for these parties have to try and develop a broad level of support, as they are also competing for second preference votes and so have to appeal to a broad range of voters. It is said that this gives smaller parties more sway around elections, as the big parties will be keen to be picked second by their voters.
PowerPoint
Click here for a PowerPoint on electoral systems that condenses the information above. The PowerPoint is primarily designed for teachers covering the topic.
Further reading:
David Klemperer, Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform in Historical Perspective

David Klemperer, The Electoral System and British Politics

Nat le Roux, 'Labour and the electoral system: The myth of defeat and the chimera of victory'

Neil Kinnock speaks with the Constitution Society, 'FPTP is fundamentally flawed'

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Electoral systems - The Constitution Society

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On this page you will find discussion and analysis of electoral systems. The content here is specifically designed for A level politics and early undergraduate level students looking to deepen their understanding of the topic. At A level specifically, the component 1 topic on 'electoral systems' is where this topic will most apply.

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In Edexcel global politics, an understanding of the impact of the challenges to US hegemony is vital in evaluating the likelihood of war and conflict. It can also provide useful context for investigating the possible consequences of various polar distributions of power.

In 2017, Graham Allison, an expert on US foreign and security policy, published Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? Allison based his work on the ancient historian Thucydides' theory that the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) broke out because the existing dominant power, Sparta, was not prepared to tolerate the rise of Athens as a potential rival. According to Allison, the USA is in a similar position to Sparta today. If it is to maintain its dominant/hegemonic position, it may decide to confront the rising power of China.

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Challenges to US hegemony - Hodder Education Magazines

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How threatening to international stability are challenges to US hegemony? America's withdrawal from Afghanistan prompted fears that the world is entering a dangerous period of power transition, in which challenges to US dominance may provoke conflict

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China remains the United States' top military and cyber threat, according to a new report by US intelligence agencies that said Beijing was making "steady but uneven" progress on capabilities it could use to capture Taiwan.

China has the ability to hit the United States with conventional weapons, compromise US infrastructure through cyber-attacks, and target its assets in space, as well as seeking to displace the US as the top AI power by 2030, the Annual Threat Assessment by the intelligence community said.

Russia, along with Iran, North Korea and China, seeks to challenge the US through deliberate campaigns to gain an advantage, with Moscow's war in Ukraine having afforded it a "wealth of lessons regarding combat against western weapons and intelligence in a large-scale war", said the report published on Tuesday.

Released ahead of testimony before the Senate intelligence committee by Donald Trump 's intelligence chiefs, the report said China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) probably planned to use large language models to create fake news, imitate personas and enable attack networks.

"China's military is fielding advanced capabilities, including hypersonic weapons, stealth aircraft, advanced submarines, stronger space and cyberwarfare assets and a larger arsenal of nuclear weapons," the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, told the committee, labeling Beijing Washington's "most capable strategic competitor".

"China almost certainly has a multifaceted, national-level strategy designed to displace the United States as the world's most influential AI power by 2030," the report said.

The release coincided with the Chinese publication of a report by the China Cybersecurity Industry Alliance, accusing US intelligence agencies of "large scale and longterm" phone and online network hacking. The report described incidents stretching back over a decade, but was pushed out widely by state media and government agencies.

Foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, expressed "grave concern" at a regular press briefing on Tuesday.

"Over the years, the US has been accustomed to crying 'stop thief' on supply chain security issues, manipulating double standards, and vigorously hyping the so-called '5G supply chain security issues', while cooperating with major internet companies or equipment suppliers in its own country to preinstall back doors in global information equipment products, serving its own network attack activities," Guo said.

The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, told the Senate committee that China had made only "intermittent" efforts to curtail the flow of precursor chemicals fueling the US fentanyl crisis due to its reluctance to crack down on lucrative Chinese businesses.

Trump has increased tariffs on all Chinese imports by 20% to punish Beijing for what he says is its failure to halt shipments of chemicals used to make fentanyl. China denies it plays a role in the crisis, which is the leading cause of US drug overdose deaths, but the issue has become a major point of friction between the Trump administration and Chinese officials.

"There is nothing to prevent China ... from cracking down on fentanyl precursors," Ratcliffe said.

The spokesperson for China's embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, said Washington has long "hyped up" the China threat as an excuse to maintain US military hegemony.

"China is determined to be a force for peace, stability and progress in the world, and also determined to defend our national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity," Liu said, adding that "fentanyl abuse is a problem that the United States itself must confront and resolve."

The committee hearing was overshadowed by Democratic senators grilling Ratcliffe and Gabbard over revelations that they and other top Trump officials discussed highly sensitive military plans in a Signal messaging app group that accidentally included a journalist.

But US concerns about China dominated about a third of the 32-page report, which said Beijing was set to increase military and economic coercion toward Taiwan, the democratically governed island China claims as its territory.

"The PLA probably is making steady but uneven progress on capabilities it would use in an attempt to seize Taiwan and deter - and if necessary, defeat - US military intervention," it said.

Still, it said, China faces "daunting" domestic challenges, including corruption, demographic imbalances, and fiscal and economic headwinds that could impair the ruling Communist party's legitimacy at home.

China's economic growth probably will continue to slow because of low consumer and investor confidence, and Chinese officials appear to be bracing for more economic friction with the US, the report said.
Reuters contributed to this report

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China remains top military and cyber threat to US, intelligence report says

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Annual report says Beijing making 'steady but uneven' progress on capabilities to capture Taiwan

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Over the last two decades, China has regained much of its influence in the world, as Beijing is making progress toward its dream of restoring what it sees as its rightful great power status. Beijing has built up its influence over global governance in particular, gaining a greater say within important organizations while also launching new initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative. China's increased involvement in global governance expands its international political clout, helps it project soft power, and also promotes its domestic economic development.

In the future, if its economy continues to grow over the long term, China will more forcefully set the terms for global governance. It will wield greater power within long-standing organizations like the World Bank and United Nations and also will strengthen new, China-dominated institutions.

Beijing's more assertive approach could enhance the international system. China could shoulder greater international responsibilities and prod global governance institutions to better represent the needs of emerging powers. It could facilitate international solutions on climate change in particular. And Beijing has shown, with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, that it can launch an institution that works within existing global governance norms.

But China's increasingly assertive presence could prove divisive, especially in areas like development finance, where Beijing's approach could marginalize existing institutions. Such divisions could paralyze collaboration in critical realms of global governance. And while in some areas, such as climate change, China does not try to impose its own visions and models, in areas of human rights and internet governance, Beijing tries to promote its own, more authoritarian norms. In May 2020, Beijing passed new legislation giving China extensive powers to crush dissent in Hong Kong, seriously threatening the special administrative region's autonomy. If China (and Russia) can set the standards for internet governance, for instance, they could pave the way for other countries to embrace cyber sovereignty, sparking a divided world with two internets-one generally open and the other closed and favored by autocracies.

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Learn about China's evolving approach to global governance and how it has shifted strategy under President Xi Jinping related to trade, the belt and road initiative, and the coronavirus pandemic.

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UK slashes climate aid programmes for developing countries

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Exclusive: Schemes worth hundreds of millions of pounds to protect biodiversity and oceans likely to be substantially reduced

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Christopher S. Chivvis, Beatrix Geaghan‑Breiner

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Collectively, a group of emerging powers in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East are growing in their geopolitical weight and diplomatic ambition. How closely do they align with the United States when it comes to Russia and China? What drives their decisions on the world stage? How can the United States integrate them into its foreign policy strategy?

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The London School of Economics and Political Science

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Join us for this lecture by New York Times bestselling author and Harvard academic Cass R Sunstein.

More than at any time since World War II, liberalism is under pressure, even siege. On the right, some have given up on liberalism. They hold it responsible for the collapse of the family and traditional values, rampant criminality, disrespect for authority, and widespread immorality. On the left, some are turning their backs on liberalism. They think that it lacks the resources to handle the problems posed by entrenched inequalities, racism, sexism, corporate power, and environmental degradation. But those opposed to liberalism do not depict it accurately; they offer a caricature, and they neglect its history.

Cass Sunstein will offer an understanding of "big tent liberalism," capturing core commitments that unify much of the Anglo-American tradition. He points to the centrality of freedom, pluralism, and the rule of law - and to the value of experiments in living.

Join us for this lecture by New York Times bestselling author and Harvard academic Cass R Sunstein.

More than at any time since World War II, liberalism is under pressure, even siege. On the right, some have given up on liberalism. They hold it responsible for the collapse of the family and traditional values, rampant criminality, disrespect for authority, and widespread immorality. On the left, some are turning their backs on liberalism. They think that it lacks the resources to handle the problems posed by entrenched inequalities, racism, sexism, corporate power, and environmental degradation. But those opposed to liberalism do not depict it accurately; they offer a caricature, and they neglect its history.

Cass Sunstein will offer an understanding of "big tent liberalism," capturing core commitments that unify much of the Anglo-American tradition. He points to the centrality of freedom, pluralism, and the rule of law - and to the value of experiments in living.

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Join us for this lecture by New York Times bestselling author and Harvard academic Cass R Sunstein. More than at any time since World War II, liberalism is under pressure, even siege. On the right, some have given up on liberalism.

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The London School of Economics and Political Science

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To talk about the current state of US-China relations, in October 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a leading authority on Chinese economic policy and US-China commercial relations.

The discussion conversation covered the October 2025 deal between US president Donald Trump and China's president Xi Jinping, the state of relations between China and the US two countries during the first months of the second Trump presidency, and the insights that can be gained by speaking to scholars and experts on the ground in China.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.
Further reading and resources Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!
The Ballpark is ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we're running a listener survey:

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LSE: The Ballpark | US-China relations in an era of illiberalism with Dr Scott Kennedy

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The London School of Economics and Political Science

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The London School of Economics and Political Science

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The war in Ukraine raises questions about whether states must be 'strategic' about their national economic policies due to geopolitical risks. The scramble for supplies to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, long-term trends of growing competition between the United States and China and the rise of populism had already fuelled geopolitical tensions, along with fears that globalisation is eroding. As a result, some of the global economy's most prominent players prioritise economic resilience and reshoring global supply chains with 'friendly' allied states. The potential outcome is a fracturing of a globalised economy based on these alliances or outright deglobalisation. All of this is culminating in escalating economic disruptions for lower-income countries, with countries in sub-Saharan Africa facing possible default on their sovereign debt. Added to this, the war in Ukraine has caused the most significant commodity shock since the 1970s. International institutions, like the World Trade Organization, continue to defend global trade and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank continue to champion international cooperation to address economic and social welfare.

What are the political, social, and economic implications of these challenges for the global economy? How should international laws and institutions address these challenges to economic integration? How do precedents for twentieth-century international economic institution building help us contextualise today's challenges?

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The Past, Present, and Future of Global Economic Governance

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The war in Ukraine raises questions about whether states must be 'strategic' about their national economic policies due to geopolitical risks. The scramble for supplies to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, long-term trends of growing competition between the United States and China and the rise of populism had already fuelled geopolitical tensions, along with fears that globalisation is eroding.

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Andres Schipani, Peter Foster, John Reed

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Narendra Modi’s government pushes historic opening of traditionally insular economy

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A new vision of EU integration is slowly but surely taking shape

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Jimmy Lai: Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon gets 20 years’ jail under national security law

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Lai’s supporters say this amounts to a death sentence, but authorities say it demonstrates the rule of law.

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European governments are terrified of Donald Trump's threats on trade, Greenland and the future of Nato. But the biggest threat is not that Trump invades an ally or leaves Europe at the mercy of Russia. It is that his ideological movement could transform Europe from the inside.

A year after Trump's return to the White House, his " second American revolution" is radiating outward into Europe. The Epstein files reveal how this began clumsily in 2018 with Steve Bannon; but it has become a much more sophisticated partnership with the second coming of Trump and the rise to power of JD Vance. The US National Security Strategy published by the White House in November called for strengthening the growing influence of "patriotic" European parties such as Reform UK, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National (RN), Fidesz in Hungary and Vox in Spain. As with the communist movements of the cold war, these nationalist, populist and in some cases far-right parties are best understood not as isolated national phenomena but as expressions of a shared intellectual project - a movement that is, to varying degrees, now being reinforced by a foreign power.

The movement is often portrayed as backward-looking or reactionary, intent on restoring an imagined past. In reality, its strength lies in being radically contemporary - finely tuned to the political, social and intellectual conditions of the 21st century. I have spent the past 18 months trying to understand this movement, talking to everyone from bespectacled Hungarian intellectuals to freshly shaven young RN politicians in France, from Orthodox Jewish political philosophers to Maga diehards in the US. Based on this research, I am convinced that far from being lodged in the past, it is hyper-modern and its standard-bearers have a compelling analysis of the failings of liberal democracy and a pathway to power. Hence the designation "new right".

Central to the movement's self-understanding is the claim that liberalism has failed, along with the deeply interdependent globalised order it promoted after the cold war. In its telling, citizens have seen their national cultures and economies battered by an unbroken sequence of shocks that come from liberalisation: the global financial crash of 2008, the eurozone crisis two years later, the refugee crisis of 2015, the Covid pandemic in 2020, and the sharp rise in living costs following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Each crisis, it argues, has exposed the limits of liberal governance, overwhelmed state capacity and fuelled suspicion about whose interests governments were really serving. Governments rescued the banks, they point out, but cut welfare payments and let people's homes be repossessed. Ordinary people paid the cumulative price of these crises - through lost jobs, strained services or rising bills - while elites were shielded from the consequences.

One of the most articulate exponents of this view is Benedikt Kaiser, accused of once moving in neo-Nazi circles, who has embraced electoral politics and is becoming one of the leading voices in the AfD's intellectual ecosystem. Kaiser told me it was the convergence of these crises that had sapped the legitimacy of the postwar liberal order and mainstream parties, providing the essential opening for political insurgents to capture the political agenda.

Off the back of these crises, the movement set out to construct a new electoral coalition, appealing above all to working-class voters who felt they had lost out, experiencing a relative decline in income, security and social standing. This appeal has been distilled into a clear policy agenda spanning immigration, trade, foreign policy and state reform, all bound together by a promise to restore a shared national identity. Borders became a tool for distinguishing the "real" members of the nation from outsiders. Tariffs were recast as a way to rebuild domestic production and elevate the dignity of work. Foreign policy was stripped down to a narrowly defined national interest. And institutional resistance was overcome by attacking the "deep state" and discrediting experts as guardians of a discredited liberal order.

The political centre must reinvent itself as the real defenders of national sovereignty

The success of the new right also rests on its mastery of a fractured media environment - and its use of the algorithmic information space. As the public sphere splintered into online subcultures, it learned to bypass traditional journalism and dominate digital platforms. By advancing a permissive interpretation of "free speech", it forged alliances with technology magnates such as Elon Musk and saturated the online space with its narratives and slogans. Often armed with "alternative facts" and edgy memes, the new right now dominates the attention economy. I interviewed the US conservative writer Rod Dreher, who cited the case of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a Christian activist who was arrested twice in Birmingham for praying outside an abortion clinic, to illustrate how the mainstream and digital right now inhabit entirely different realities. Although Vaughan-Spruce has become a cult figure in the new-right information sphere, most of the Guardian's readers will not have heard of her.

Perhaps their most effective manoeuvre has been to force mainstream parties into an unwinnable position - casting them as defenders of elites rather than workers, of continuity rather than change. For too long, established parties downplayed the scale of the threat. When they did respond, they often resorted to mimicking the new right's divisive rhetoric, particularly on migration. Yet imitation has often had the inverse effect of strengthening the challengers instead of neutralising them.

Any effective response, then, must begin by acknowledging the force of the new right's critique of liberalism. This must be paired with a political project that speaks to working-class concerns and uses new methods of engagement, an approach that has worked successfully in Denmark and the Netherlands, as well as in Kentucky and New York.

Maybe the clearest lesson comes from figures such as Mark Carney and Anthony Albanese, who have realised that their countries' populists' association with Trump's revolution could be a liability for them. Polling conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations suggests that Trumpism could follow a similar trajectory: in country after country, clear majorities now see Trump's re-election as harmful. If centrist forces wake up to the international threat posed by the second American revolution and rally around a strategy that turns the new right's strengths into vulnerabilities, there is still a chance that the political centre can reinvent itself as the real defenders of national sovereignty and use the links between new right parties and Trump to defeat them.

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The biggest threat facing Europe is not a Trump invasion. It's his global political revolution | Mark Leonard

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I am convinced that Europe's 'new right' is a radically contemporary movement. Defeating it means understanding its critique of liberalism, says Mark Leonard of the European Council on Foreign Relations

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During Cop30 negotiations in Brazil last year, delegates heard a familiar argument: rising emissions are unavoidable for countries pursuing growth.

Since the first Cop in the 1990s, developing nations have had looser reduction targets to reflect the economic gap between them and richer countries, which emitted millions of tonnes of CO ₂ as they pulled ahead. The concession comes from the idea that an inevitable cost of prosperity is environmental harm.

That pattern seems to be holding. In 2024, global GDP per capita reached a new high as did annual carbon emissions. But as climate targets slip and warnings mount that tipping points may already have been crossed, faith in growth for growth's sake is starting to fracture.

This week, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for economies to "move beyond GDP" as a measure of progress, warning that the world's "existing accounting systems" were driving the planet towards disaster.

His remarks echo an increasingly influential school of economics, known broadly as "post-growth", that asks what was once unthinkable: will solving the climate crisis mean learning to live without constant expansion?

Post-growth economists often reject GDP in favour of new frameworks that account for environmental damage - such as the " doughnut economics" adopted recently by Amsterdam, or New Zealand's attempt at a " wellbeing budget ".

The field has its disagreements, particularly over the extent to which countries should actively pursue de-growth measures to scale down their economies. But proponents agree that with the planet pushed to the limit, a radical rethink is needed.

"Economic growth has a near mythical status in the affections of economists and politicians. But wishful thinking won't solve the climate crisis," said Tim Jackson, professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey and a leading post-growth economist. "Post-growth economics offers us more choice, more realism and more insight into the possibilities for human prosperity. It's not about returning to the cave but about breaking free from our intellectual prisons."

The roots of post-growth can be traced back to one book, which caused a storm upon its publication in the 1970s.

Some argue that Limits to Growth underestimated humanity's ability to adapt in the face of environmental breakdown.

This technological optimism underpins the idea of "green growth" - that the world economy can keep expanding while avoiding catastrophe. Advocates point to the uptake of renewables, which has taken place to such an extent in some nations that growth has seemingly been decoupled from emissions.

Countries such as the UK, France, Germany and the US have all increased GDP per capita since the 2000s while cutting carbon emissions.

But experts heavily contest the evidence of decoupling. "It's inconclusive because it focuses on the wrong thing: annual flows of emissions rather than their accumulation," said Peter Victor, an emeritus professor at the University of York.

"It is the accumulated stock of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that causes climate change, not the annual flows. We are very far from decoupling the stock of atmospheric carbon dioxide from economic growth."

Others point out that while some countries may have decoupled their growth from domestic emissions, the picture is more mixed when accounting for imported goods. Meanwhile, many countries - notably India and China - have yet to significantly decouple annual emissions from growth.

More broadly, since Limits to Growth was published, our understanding of how economic activity is damaging the planet has widened beyond just carbon emissions. Post-growth economics has emerged alongside the study of so-called "planetary boundaries" - hard environmental limits that, once crossed, could have disastrous consequences.

The research focuses on nine ecological processes, from climate change to ocean acidification and ozone depletion, and for each identifies the safe zone in which we should operate.

The most recent planetary health check, published in September, found seven of these nine boundaries were being breached to a dangerous degree.

When put against living standards, the study of planetary boundaries reveals a trade-off.

In 2018, researchers at the University of Leeds applied these boundaries to more than 150 countries, looking at metrics such as CO ₂ emissions, ecological footprints and land use. They examined how many of these boundaries a country had breached and compared this with progress on a variety of social indicators such as income, nutrition and life satisfaction.

Their key finding: no nation had met the basic needs of its residents while also staying within its biophysical limits.

The better off a country's residents were, the more environmental ceilings were broken - the very opposite of where they should be if they were growing sustainably.

How this relationship can be broken, if at all, is where the efforts of ecological economists are now focused.

The Guardian spoke with a range of academics working in the field and, broadly speaking, they identified three contemporary positions.

One group are the green Keynesians, who believe green growth is possible through state-led transition. A signature policy idea from this family has been the green new deal and the need for public policy that delivers green investment, infrastructure and jobs.

On the flip side are the green capitalists, who again hope for growth but believe market reforms and technology will deliver it sustainably. Aside from optimism that innovation offers a way out, this group has also pushed ideas such as carbon pricing and deregulation of green industries. Both sides have shared ground, such as support for renewables or the need for public-private partnerships.

By contrast, those in the post-growth camp disagree on a more fundamental level: they say continued growth is not possible while keeping within the planet's boundaries.

Victor said: "Post-growth encompasses many approaches, which differ in their scope and emphasis. However, they share a common understanding that the physical scale of the economy must be reduced to avoid further degradation of life-supporting planetary systems."

The de-growth movement has been one of the most high-profile incarnations of this view, with its calls for the radical scaling down of production and consumption. Many in this family believe the scenario in Limits to Growth is already playing out, or will do shortly, pointing to long-term productivity slowdowns and low growth in many western economies.

De-growth proposals have included working time reductions, such as a four-day week, and maximum income caps, particularly to reduce the purchasing power of the rich. But there are others working within post-growth economics who take a more agnostic view. To them, whether green growth is possible is beside the point - instead policymakers need to shift priorities away from growth altogether to other measures of prosperity that can still improve wellbeing.

In any case, as of the most recent Cop negotiations our global destination has been agreed. Under the Paris agreement, global carbon emissions need to fall 45% by 2030, with net zero achieved by 2050, to stick to the target of 1.5C.

What remains uncertain is the path there and how, and whether, we can grow at the same time. It is, to take current global GDP, the $111.1tn question.

Data sources

In the introductory chart, data for CO ₂ emissions is sourced from the Global Carbon Budget project, while data on GDP per capita is sourced from the World Bank.

The Limits to Growth chart was generated using PyWorld3, a Python implementation of the World3 model used in Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World (1974).

This model differs slightly from the original Limits to Growth model (1972) because of different numerical parameters and a slightly different model structure.

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Economic growth is still heating the planet. Is there any way out?

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Rising GDP continues to mean more carbon emissions and wider damage to the planet. Can the two be decoupled?

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As the US announces its withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, Earth.Org looks at the history of the treaty - one of the most inclusive international agreements ever created.-
What Is the UNFCCC?

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international treaty that aims to prevent "dangerous" human interference with the climate system and serves as a foundational framework for future global efforts to mitigate climate change and adapt to its inevitable impacts. The treaty, which entered into force in 1994, provides a foundation for global efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at levels that allow ecosystems to adapt naturally, ensure food security, and support sustainable economic development.

Its primary objective is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous interference with the climate systems, stating that "such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner."

With 198 ratified parties, the UNFCCC has near-universal membership, making it one of the most inclusive international agreements ever created. In January 2026, the US announced its withdrawal from the treaty, becoming the first country to do so.

While the UNFCCC itself does not mandate specific emissions reduction targets, it serves as a framework for future climate agreements. The treaty has facilitated key milestones such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement, which have defined global climate action and established mechanisms for emissions reduction and climate change adaptation.
More on the topic: 10 Years of the Paris Agreement: How the Climate Has Changed, in 4 Charts
Common But Differentiated Responsibility

A fundamental principle of the UNFCCC is the recognition of common but differentiated responsibility. It acknowleges that while all countries share responsibility for addressing climate change, industrialized countries are historically major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and therefore bear greater burden in combating this global issue.

Furthermore, the UNFCCC acknowledges the pressing need for economic development in the world's poorer countries and accepts that the share of planet-warming gases produced by developing countries will grow. The convention also advocates for the provision of financial and technological support to developing countries for action on climate change.

Data-Gathering and Transparent Reporting

The UNFCCC establishes mechanisms for monitoring and reporting on countries' progress towards their climate commitments, ensuring transparency and accountability in reaching the shared goal. Industrialized countries are required to report regularly on their climate change policies and measures and submit an annual inventory of their emissions. Developing countries report in more general terms on their actions to address climate change and adapt to its impacts. They are required to report less regularly than industrialized countries and their reporting is dependent on availability of funding for the preparation of the reports.
You might also like: A Comprehensive Guide to COP28 and the Global Stocktake
Conference of Parties

Central to the UNFCCC is the annual Conferences of Parties (COP), the decision-making body of the convention. Its purpose is to review and advance the implementation of the convention. Countries who have joined the UNFCCC meet to measure progress and negotiate multilateral responses to climate change.

COPs have created global milestones for the climate movement, setting standards and advancing action. The COP brings together not only the government but also the private sector and thousands of representatives from the civil society, green and polluting industries, and non-governmental organisations to tackle the climate crisis.

The first universal, legally binding international climate agreement was achieved at COP21, marking a historic moment in global climate action. The Paris Agreement mobilized parties in taking action to decrease greenhouse gas emissions with an agreed-upon goal of staying below a global average temperature increase of 2C above pre-industrial levels but encouraging parties to strive to keep it below 1.5C.

In an unprecedented move, COP28 in Dubai recognized the need to transition away from fossil fuels for the first time, after unprecedented pressure from the scientific community and the UN, which repeatedly said that limiting global heating to 1.5C is impossible without the phase out of all fossil fuels. In line with the framework, the final agreement acknowledged common but differentiated responsibility, with emphasis on phasing out fossil fuels with justice and equity.
More on the topic: Did COP30 Succeed or Fail?
The most recent summit, COP30, held in November 2025 in Belém, Brazil, marked a significant yet contentious chapter in climate diplomacy. Known as the "COP of Truth," COP30 sought to address key issues such as climate finance, deforestation, fossil fuel dependency, and Indigenous rights. However, the outcomes of the conference were a mixed bag of progress and disappointment. Notably, the final agreement did not mention fossil fuels.

Criticisms to the UNFCCC

While the UNFCCC plays a pivotal role in providing a framework to combat climate change and facilitating global cooperation, it still has its shortcomings. The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, was a historical agreement that legally bound key economic players to strict climate targets for the first time. However, by exempting developing countries from the emission reduction commitments, its effectiveness was limited, with China and India - the first and third largest emitters in the world, respectively - experiencing a significant rise in emissions in the decades that followed. By 2012, the year after the first commitment period, global emissions actually rose by 44% from 1997 levels, driven predominantly by the developing nations' emissions.

Consequently, the US senate refused to ratify the protocol, with potential damage to the US economy as their reasoning. Their decision eventually led to other major countries such as Canada and Japan to pull out of the deal.

More recently, COPs have faced backlash for the continued presence of fossil fuel lobbyists. At COP30, fossil fuel representatives outnumbered the delegations of all but one country, Brazil, sparking criticism from civil society groups. This has fueled concerns that the UNFCCC process is being influenced by corporate interests at the expense of meaningful climate action.

Featured image: UNclimatechange/Flickr This article was updated and republished on January 8, 2026. It was originally published on December 22, 2023.
Furthermore, while developed nations have repeatedly pledged financial support to assist vulnerable countries, the actual delivery of funds has fallen short. The Loss and Damage Fund, established at COP27 and designed to help countries recover from climate impacts, remains underfunded, with wealthy nations reluctant to accept financial and legal liability for climate-induced damages.

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Explainer: What Is the UNFCCC? | Earth.Org

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The US has announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC.

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IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

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Case study: Who owns the moon? How the lunar frontier could become the new Wild West The US’s NASA has put together a group of three dozen countries into ‘the Artemis Accords’ for cooperation and investment in lunar and space development. In part this is a cost-sharing exercise, in part it is to

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The revival of NATO? Has the war in Ukraine awakened an intergovernmental giant? - Hodder Education Magazines

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has led to a re-evaluation of the role of NATO. How has the importance of this organisation changed since it was established?

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Parliament transformed: Representation and reform from Thatcher to Starmer - Hodder Education Magazines

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How has Parliament changed over the past four decades?

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■ Edexcel Component 2: Feminism.

■ AQA 3.3.2.2: Feminism.

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To what extent do feminists agree on sex and gender? - Hodder Education Magazines

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IDEAS AND THINKERS: To what extent do feminists agree on sex and gender? IDEAS AND THINKERS To what extent do feminists agree on sex and gender? EXAM LINKS ■ Edexcel Component 2: Feminism. ■ AQA 3.3.2.2: Feminism. All feminists believe three main things: that women suffer systematic and unjust disadvantages in society due to their [...]

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Constitutional reform under Labour - Hodder Education Magazines

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What constitutional reform promises were made by Labour in its 2024 manifesto, and to what extent have these been achieved?

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What are the key international economic institutions, and what challenges do they face under the second Trump administration?

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How to Answer the Edexcel 12 Mark Global A Level Politics Question

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Scandal after scandal reveals an ever-growing arms race when it comes to party funding, with voters often coming second to big donors and spending rules sidestepped. Left to themselves t

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UK ministers urged to cap political donations to ‘rebuild voter confidence’

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Letter from 19 organisations says a cap would help to protect democracy, weeks after £9m donation to Reform UK

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How and to what extent is Sir Keir Starmer reforming the Labour Party?

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Development of the Norther Irish Assembly

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Development of the Norther Irish Assembly

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How has history influenced the way the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive operate today?

On 2 December 1999, the UK Parliament devolved powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time. Devolution was not new to Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Parliament and Executive which governed between 1921 and 1972 were also devolved institutions. When they were suspended in 1972, Northern Ireland came under Direct Rule from Westminster.

The Northern Ireland Assembly model of devolution is very different from the old model. From 1929, the Northern Ireland Parliament was elected using a ' First Past the Post' electoral system based on the Westminster system. The party that won a majority of the seats in the election formed the government. This was always the Unionist Party.

The system established by the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (1998) is a power-sharing, consociational model of democracy. The political scientist, Arend Lijphart, designed this model of democracy for societies where there has been, or is potential for, conflict. The Northern Ireland model is unique. It takes account of our political history. It is a power-sharing arrangement between the two main political communities in Northern Ireland, unionist and nationalist. It is worth noting that, In 2022, the Alliance Party, which does not designate as unionist or nationalist, significantly increased its numbers of MLAs in the Assembly, from 8 to 17. It is considered by the Assembly to be in the third group or designation, called 'Other'.

There have been changes to the operation of the system since 1998.

The positions of First Minister and deputy First Minister are shared between the two communities, unionist and nationalist. As a result of the St Andrews' Agreement in in October 2006, the largest party nominates the First Minister and the largest party on the other side of the community nominates the deputy First Minister. Originally, they were elected together, on a 'joint ticket' and needed cross-community support.

Under the Hillsborough Agreement (February 2010), powers over policing and Justice were devolved, creating an additional government department - of Justice. The Stormont House Agreements of December 2014 and November 2015 ('Fresh Start') reduced the number of government departments from 12 to nine (effective from May 2016) and the number of MLAs from 108 to 90 (effective from March 2017 election). In May 2016, an 'official opposition' was established for the first time. Although the UUP and SDLP were entitled to one minister each under d'Hondt, they opted out of the Executive to become the first Official Opposition.

The Executive Committee now consists of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, and 8 other departmental ministers. This is mandatory coalition, which means that it is based on the strength of the mandate given to parties by voters in the election. A mathematical formula known as ' D'Hondt' is used to determine membership. Until 2016, the four main political parties had seats on the Executive Committee under d'Hondt, with the fifth largest party (Alliance) also represented, due to election of their candidate as the Justice Minister. This election of one Minister is a special arrangement due to the sensitive nature of policing and justice issues, given our history of conflict. Following the May 2022 election, Allliance gained the right to nominate a minister under D'Hondt.

The New Decade, New Approach Deal of January 2020 led to further developments in how the Assembly works, including the further strengthening of 'the Opposition', as any official opposition will now be called; and reform of the Petition of Concern mechanism by which 30 MLAs can request that a vote in the Assembly be taken on a cross-community basis. Now, a petition will require support from at least 2 parties and a vote on the matter will take place after 2 weeks, not at the next sitting of the Assembly. This will allow time for reflection and resolution of a contentious issue.

Many events influenced the model of devolution we have today. View further information, archive photos and video footage on our Evolution of Devolution timeline.

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How has history influenced the way the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive operate today? On 2 December 1999, the UK Parliament devolved powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time. Devolution was not new to Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Parliament and Executive which governed between 1921 and 1972 were also devolved institutions.

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Published 07/12/2020 &nbsp | &nbsp Last Updated 07/10/2021 &nbsp | &nbsp

Law making and government in Wales has changed significantly over the years. Here is a brief overview.
950-1450
Wales has its own native law-making tradition which can be traced back to the mid 10th century. Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) is reputed to have overseen the codification and re-ordering of Welsh law during this period. However, the failure of the final great rebellion led by Owain Glyndŵr (1400-c.1415), a popular leader who organised parliaments in Machynlleth and Harlech, brought an end to native Welsh law.
1535-1542
During the reign of Henry VIII the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 were passed. The Acts annexed Wales to the Kingdom of England. The Act extended English law to Wales, and specified English as the language of the law, though it established separate judicial structures for Wales in the Court of Great Sessions. There were 26 (rising to 27) Members of Parliament for Wales in the English Parliament.

When the United Kingdom was formed in 1707, the English and Scottish Parliaments were dissolved and a new Parliament of Great Britain was formed. In 1801, this expanded to include Ireland, becoming the Parliament of the United Kingdom

In 1746 the Wales and Berwick Act changed the legal definition of England to include Wales (and Berwick). In 1830 the Court of Great Sessions was abolished, removing the last recognisable distinctive feature of law in Wales.
1880-1921
The roots of political devolution in Wales can be traced to the end of the nineteenth century. In 1886, Cymru Fydd (Young Wales) was established to promote the objectives of the Liberal Party in Wales and to campaign in favour of Welsh 'home rule'. In 1881 a specifically Welsh Act (the Sunday Closing Act) was passed in the UK Parliament for the first time. The twentieth century saw the beginning of administrative devolution in Wales through the creation of the Welsh Board for Education in 1907 and eventually in 1920, the disestablishment of the Anglican church in Wales.

Various schemes for 'home rule all round' were proposed between the 1880s and the outbreak of World War I. These envisaged the creation of parliaments and governments in Dublin, Edinburgh and Cardiff, all belonging to the British Empire. The establishment of the Irish Republic, and the partition of Ireland under the premiership of the first Prime Minister from Wales, David Lloyd George, ended this phase in the history of devolution.
1940s and 50s
In the early 1950s the Parliament for Wales campaign put devolution back onto the political agenda. This cross-party campaign, led by Lady Megan Lloyd George, culminated in the presentation of a petition containing 250,000 signatures calling for the establishment of a Welsh parliament.

A series of developments started the process of shifting powers from Westminster to Wales.

Petitions to create a Secretary of State for Wales were turned down by the Labour Government of 1945-50, which, as a substitute, created a Council for Wales and Monmouthshire in 1948. This was an unelected body that advised the government on Welsh affairs.

In 1951, the Conservative Government created a new junior Home Office Minister of Welsh Affairs . The post was upgraded to Minister of State in 1954.
1960s
Following the 1964 UK election, the new Labour government created the office of Secretary of State for Wales.

The following year the Welsh Office, headed by the new Secretary of State, was established to execute UK Government policy in Wales.

At first, the Secretary of State only had responsibility for housing, local government and roads. Other areas including education and training, health, trade and industry, and the environment and agriculture were gradually added over the years.

1965 also saw the Welsh speaking village of Capel Celyn in the Afon Tryweryn Valley submerged under the newly formed Tryweryn reservoir. In order to provide a new water supply for Liverpool, Liverpool City Council obtained authority via an Act of UK Parliament to create a reservoir on the site of the village. As a result, Liverpool City Council did not require planning consent from the relevant Welsh local authorities and also avoided a planning inquiry which would have enabled arguments against the proposal to be made at a Welsh level. This process and the fact that the village was one of the last Welsh-only speaking communities, meant that the creation of the reservoir and the consequent destruction of the village was extremely controversial.

The Welsh Language Act 1967 repealed part of the Wales and Berwick Act to remove Wales from the legal definition of England. It also expanded areas where use of Welsh was permitted, including in some legal situations.
1970s
The 1970s saw a prolonged parliamentary battle over the establishment of devolution to Wales and Scotland. The Labour Government of 1977-79 faced ongoing opposition from within its own party to its plans for devolution, but was kept in power through the support of, among others, nationalist MPs from Wales and Scotland."

The 1973 Royal Commission on the Constitution, chaired first by Lord Crowther and subsequently by Lord Kilbrandon, recommended the creation of elected bodies for Scotland and Wales. A referendum on the proposal was held in Wales on St David's Day in 1979. Despite the proposal having been put forward by the UK Labour Government, opposition was spearheaded by members of the Labour Party. The proposal was rejected in Wales by a majority of 4 to 1. For many, this appeared to be the end for devolution in Wales..
1979-1997
In the immediate aftermath of the 1979 referendum, devolution became something of a dormant political issue in Wales. However, the policies of the UK Conservative Government during the difficult economic conditions of the 1980s, coupled with the Conservative Party's relatively low levels of electoral support in Wales (in contrast with the UK as a whole), led to renewed calls for Wales to have its own democratic institution.

The powers of the Welsh Office had been markedly increased in the lead up to the referendum, a process which continued through the years of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister.

This process also saw the creation and expansion of the quangos (quasi non-governmental organisations). These were arms-length bodies to which government powers were delegated. The UK Government retained a degree of control, with the Secretary of State for Wales appointing much of the leadership of quangos. Demand grew for greater accountability and democratisation of this layer of government.

The Welsh Language Act 1993 put Welsh on an equal legal footing to English in much of public life, and repealed the 16 th century Laws in Wales Acts.
1997 -1998
Welsh support for devolution had increased during the 1980s and 1990s, and in May 1997 the incoming Labour Government's manifesto included commitments to hold referendums on the creation of devolved administrations in Wales and Scotland. Following the publication of a White Paper, A Voice for Wales, in July 1997, a referendum was held on 18 September 1997. The result was 50.3 per cent in favour, and 49.7 per cent against: a majority of just 6,721. However, this was enough to change the course of Welsh history. Ron Davies, then Secretary of State for Wales, described devolution as "a process, not an event". This has been borne out by developments in Welsh devolution since 1997

In 1998 the UK Parliament passed the Government of Wales Act, providing the legal basis for the National Assembly for Wales. The legislation included a number of core values, including a commitment to equality, sustainable development, partnership working and parity of treatment for both the Welsh and English languages. The Act granted the National Assembly the power to make secondary legislation in specified areas, including agriculture, fisheries, education, housing and highways. Such powers were broadly equivalent to those previously held by the Secretary of State for Wales.
1999
The National Assembly for Wales met for the first time on 12 May 1999. It was officially opened by the Queen on 26 May. Of the 60 newly-elected Members, 24 were women. This represented a significant change in the previously male-dominated Welsh politics.
2000 - 2006
The newly-established Assembly was based on a more inclusive and consensual style of politics, and prioritised public access to its work. However, its structure as a single corporate body responsible for executive and scrutiny functions proved to be problematic. The minority Labour administration experienced difficulties in securing agreement from other parties, and the First Secretary was replaced in February 2000.

In response to increasing calls for change, the Assembly resolved in 2002 to separate the functions of executive and legislature. The term 'Welsh Assembly Government' began to be used to describe the policies and actions of the Cabinet, allowing the term 'National Assembly' to refer to the scrutiny, representative and legislative work of the legislature.

In 2002, the Commission on the Powers and Electoral Arrangements of the National Assembly for Wales was established. Known as the Richard Commission, in 2004 it recommended the legal separation of the executive and legislature as individual legal entities, the devolution of primary law-making powers to Wales, and an increase in the number of Members.

The majority of the Richard Commission's recommendations were accepted by the UK Government, and given effect by the Government of Wales Act 2006.

The Senedd building was opened by the Queen on St David's Day 2006. Designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership, the building makes extensive use of Welsh materials like slate and oak. It also embodies in physical form the values that underpinned the National Assembly, including environmental sustainability, transparency, and openness.
2007
Following the third Welsh General Election, Assembly Members met in a National Assembly that had been formally separated from the Welsh Government by the Government of Wales Act 2006. This new settlement also gave the Assembly the power to make primary legislation for the first time.

Through separation, the 2006 Act clarified the roles of each institution. The National Assembly made laws and represents the interests of the people of Wales. The Welsh Government (the First Minister, the Welsh Ministers, Deputy Ministers and the Counsel General) became responsible for making and implementing decisions, policies and subordinate legislation.

The Welsh Government's decisions and actions are kept in check by the National Assembly (the body of 60 elected Members) which holds the Welsh Government to account.

The 2006 Act also provided that the property, staff and services required by the National Assembly would be provided by the Assembly Commission.
2011 - 2014
On 4 March 2011 the Welsh electorate voted in a third devolution referendum, this time on whether or not full primary law-making powers should be extended to the National Assembly in those areas over which it had responsibility. This time 63.5% of voters supported further devolution. 'Home rule' had come of age.

The UK Government established the Commission on Devolution in Wales, known as the Silk Commission, to consider the future of the devolution settlement in Wales. In 2012, the Silk Commission published Part I of its report, making recommendations on the financial powers of the Assembly. The Silk Commission published Part II of its report in 2014, making recommendations on the Assembly's future legislative powers and arrangements.

As a result of the Part I report, the UK Government introduced the Wales Act 2014 which bestowed a number of new financial powers on Wales, including taxation and borrowing powers.
2015 - 2016
The UK Government published Powers for a Purpose in 2015, providing the basis for the development of a reserved powers model of devolution for Wales.

The Assembly passed the Tax Collection and Management (Wales) Act 2016, in preparation for exercising the powers devolved by the Wales Act 2014. This period also saw the start of the Assembly's role in scrutinising relevant legislation and the UK's negotiations for leaving the EU, and defining Wales's place in a post-Brexit UK.
2017
The Wales Act 2017 established the National Assembly on a new constitutional basis, making it a permanent part of the UK constitution. The 2017 Act moved the Assembly from the conferred powers model to the reserved powers model. Among the new powers Wales' devolved legislature had responsibility for was the power to decide its own name and the voting system by which its Members are elected.
2018
In April 2018 the first two devolved Welsh taxes were introduced - the Land Transaction Tax, which replaced Stamp Duty, and Landfill Disposals Tax. This was followed in April 2019 by the devolution of control over £2 billion of income tax. These taxes are now subject to the agreement of the Senedd.
2019
In February 2019 members of the Welsh Youth Parliament met for the first time in the Senedd chamber. Mirroring the election of Members of the Senedd, 40 members of the Youth Parliament are elected from every constituency in Wales with another 20 elected to ensure wider diversity and inclusivity.
2020
After 20 years, the National Assembly was recognised as a fully-fledged parliament after the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020 became law. This changed its name on 6 May 2020 to Senedd Cymru or Welsh Parliament to fully reflect its constitutional status as a law-making and tax-setting parliament. The 2020 Act also gave 16 and 17 year olds and qualified foreign nationals the right to vote in Senedd elections, the largest extension of the right to vote in 50 years.

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The Welsh Parliament is the democratically elected body that represents the interests of Wales and its people. Commonly known as the Senedd, it makes laws for Wales, agrees Welsh taxes and holds the Welsh Government to account.

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In 1969, a Royal Commission on the Constitution was set up to look at the structures of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Various models of devolution were considered and rejected.

In the mid-1970s, the pressure for reform grew. The Labour government of the time put forward a law to create a Scottish Assembly. The Scotland Act 1978 became law on 31 July 1978.

The Act required that 40% of the Scottish electorate (not just of those who voted) had to support the Act for it to come into force.

In the referendum of 1 March 1979, the devolution scheme was supported by 52% of those voting. This amounted to only 33% of the electorate so the scheme could not go ahead. Following this, there was a vote of no confidence in the Labour government, which was defeated at a general election in May 1979. The Act was "repealed" (cancelled) in June 1979.
Read the Scotland Act 1978
Developments from 1979 to 1997

The new Conservative government of 1979 did not support devolution as set out in the 1978 Act. Instead, it:

devolved further powers to the administrative government of Scotland

allowed special treatment of Scottish business in Parliament

Many people were not satisfied with these changes and continued their campaigns for devolution or independence.

The Scottish Constitutional Convention

After the 1987 general election, people who were not satisfied with the changes united to become the Scottish Constitutional Convention (SCC). The SCC was made up of:

representatives from political parties in Scotland

local authorities

churches

voluntary organisations

Following its first meeting in March 1989, it published a "Claim of Right for Scotland". This was a document asking for a Scottish assembly, or parliament with law-making powers.

Over the next few years, the SCC produced several reports based on its detailed inquiries and consultations. Its final report "Scotland's Parliament, Scotland's Right" was published in November 1995. The report contained proposals for a devolution arrangement.

Read the report Scotland's Parliament, Scotland's Right (237KB, pdf) posted 12 September 2020

Referendum results

After the election on 1 May 1997, the new Labour government arranged for a referendum on its proposals. They were set out in a white paper in July 1997, "Scotland's Parliament".

Unlike 1979, this referendum was held before the relevant devolution bill was introduced into Parliament, not after it had been enacted. This was to ensure that devolution was the expressed will of the people of Scotland and not simply a government policy. Unlike 1979, a simple majority was required to implement change.

A referendum was held on 11 September 1997, with two questions. 74.3% of those who voted on the first question backed a Scottish parliament, and 63.5% of those who voted on the second question were in favour of it having tax-varying powers. The turn-out was 60.1% on the first question and 60% on the second question.

After this result, the Scotland Bill was introduced in the UK Parliament in December 1997. It became law as the Scotland Act in November 1998.

The Secretary of State for Scotland appointed a Consultative Steering Group (CSG) in November 1997. Its members were the major political parties in Scotland and other public groups and interests. It was set up to develop proposals for how the new Parliament would operate.

The CSG produced a report in January 1999, "Shaping Scotland's Parliament". It was used as the blueprint for the Parliament's initial set of Standing Orders (rules of procedure for the Parliament).
Read the Scotland Act 1998
Read the report Shaping Scotland's Parliament (985KB, pdf) posted 12 September 2020

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In 1969, a Royal Commission on the Constitution was set up to look at the structures of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Various models of devolution were considered and rejected. In the mid-1970s, the pressure for reform grew. The Labour government of the time put forward a law to create a Scottish Assembly.

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How are political parties and politicians funded?

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With the cost of politics continuing to rise it’s important to understand just where politicians get their money from.

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The European Union, and its role within the global system, has provided a blueprint for diverse forms of regional integration across the world.

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The Politics Shed - Are the constitutional reforms started in 1997 finished?

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A deal aimed at staving off dangerous climate change has been struck at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

The Glasgow Climate Pact is the first ever climate deal to explicitly plan to reduce coal, the worst fossil fuel for greenhouse gases.

The deal also presses for more urgent emission cuts and promises more money for developing countries - to help them adapt to climate impacts.

But the pledges don't go far enough to limit temperature rise to 1.5C.

A commitment to phase out coal that was included in earlier negotiation drafts led to a dramatic finish after India and China led opposition to it.

India's climate minister Bhupender Yadav asked how developing countries could promise to phase out coal and fossil fuel subsidies when they "have still to deal with their development agendas and poverty eradication".

In the end, countries agreed to "phase down" rather than "phase out" coal, amid expressions of disappointment by some. COP26 President Alok Sharma said he was "deeply sorry" for how events had unfolded.

He fought back tears as he told delegates that it was vital to protect the agreement as a whole.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he hoped the world would "look back on COP26 in Glasgow as the beginning of the end of climate change".

"There is still a huge amount more to do in the coming years. But today's agreement is a big step forward and, critically, we have the first ever international agreement to phase down coal and a roadmap to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees," he said.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the planet was "hanging by a thread". "We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe... it is time to go into emergency mode - or our chance of reaching net zero will itself be zero."

As part of the agreement, countries will meet next year to pledge further major carbon cuts with the aim of reaching the 1.5C goal. Current pledges, if fulfilled, will only limit global warming to about 2.4C.

If global temperatures rise by more than 1.5C, scientists say the Earth is likely to experience severe effects such as millions more people being exposed to extreme heat.

Main achievements of the deal:

Re-visiting emissions-cutting plans next year to try to keep 1.5C target reachable

The first ever inclusion of a commitment to limit coal use

Increased financial help for developing countries

"We would like to express our profound disappointment that the language we agreed on, on coal and fossil fuels subsidies, has been further watered down," Swiss environment minister Simonetta Sommaruga said. "This will not bring us closer to 1.5C, but make it more difficult to reach it."

Despite the weakening of language around coal, some observers will still see the deal as a victory, underlining that it is the first time coal is explicitly mentioned in UN documents of this type.

Coal is responsible for about 40% of annual CO2 emissions, making it central in efforts to keep within the 1.5C target. To meet this goal, agreed in Paris in 2015, global emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and to nearly zero by mid-century.

"They changed a word but they can't change the signal coming out of this COP - that the era of coal is ending," said Greenpeace international executive director Jennifer Morgan.

However, Lars Koch, a policy director for charity ActionAid, said it was disappointing that only coal was mentioned.

"This gives a free pass to the rich countries who have been extracting and polluting for over a century to continue producing oil and gas," he said.

Sara Shaw, from Friends of the Earth International, said the outcome was "nothing less than a scandal".

"Just saying the words 1.5 degrees is meaningless if there is nothing in the agreement to deliver it. COP26 will be remembered as a betrayal of global South countries," she said.

Finance was a contentious issue during the conference. A pledge by developed nations to provide $100bn (£75bn) per year to emerging economies, made in 2009, was supposed to have been delivered by 2020. However, the date was missed.

It was designed to help developing nations adapt to climate effects and make the transition to clean energy. In an effort to mollify delegates, Mr Sharma said around $500bn would be mobilised by 2025.

But poorer countries had been calling throughout the meeting for funding through the principle of loss and damage - the idea that richer countries should compensate poorer ones for climate change effects they are unable to adapt to.

This was one of the big disappointments of the conference for many delegations. Despite their dissatisfaction, several countries that stood to benefit backed the agreement on the basis that talks on loss and damage would continue.

Delegations pushing for greater progress on the issue included those from countries in Africa, such as Guinea and Kenya, as well as Latin American states, small island territories and nations in Asia such as the Philippines.

Lia Nicholson, delegate for Antigua and Barbuda, and speaking on behalf of small island states, said: "We recognise the presidency's efforts to try and create a space to find common ground. The final landing zone, however, is not even close to capturing what we had hoped."

Shauna Aminath, environment minister for the low-lying Maldives, said: "We have 98 months to halve global emissions. The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees is a death sentence for us."

Climate stripes visualisation courtesy of Prof Ed Hawkins and University of Reading.

Follow Paul on Twitter.

More on this story

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COP26: New global climate deal struck in Glasgow

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A deal aimed at staving off dangerous climate change has been struck at the COP26 summit in Glasgow. The Glasgow Climate Pact is the first ever climate deal to explicitly plan to reduce coal, the worst fossil fuel for greenhouse gases.

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COP26: What is it and why is it happening in Glasgow in 2021?

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The highly anticipated climate change conference begins today in the Scottish city of Glasgow. Find out all you need to know about it here.

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Happy anniversary to the Paris Agreement? A 10-year review of climate action, setbacks and the fight to keep 1.5°C alive - Greenpeace International

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Ten years after the Paris Agreement was adopted at COP21, governments remain dangerously off track from staying within the 1.5°C limit. What must happen now to cut fossil fuel emissions and end deforestation?

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COP 21: Paris climate change conference 2015 | The Guardian

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Latest news and comment on the COP21 UN climate change conference in Paris, France

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A deal to attempt to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than 2C has been agreed at the climate change summit in Paris after two weeks of intense negotiations.

The pact is the first to commit all countries to cut carbon emissions.

The agreement is partly legally binding and partly voluntary.

Earlier, key blocs, including the G77 group of developing countries, and nations such as China and India said they supported the proposals.

"Looking out to the room I see that the reaction is positive, I see no objections. The Paris agreement is adopted."

As he struck the gavel to signal the adoption of the deal, delegates rose to their feet cheering and applauding.

US President Barack Obama has hailed the agreement as "ambitious" and "historic", but also warned against complacency.

"Together, we've shown what's possible when the world stands as one," he said.

And although admitting that the deal was not "perfect", he said it was "the best chance to save the one planet we have".

China's chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua said the deal was not perfect. But he added that "this does not prevent us from marching historical steps forward".

Nearly 200 countries took part in the negotiations to strike the first climate deal to commit all countries to cut emissions, which would come into being in 2020.

The chairman of the group representing some of the world's poorest countries called the deal historic, adding: "We are living in unprecedented times, which call for unprecedented measures.

"It is the best outcome we could have hoped for, not just for the Least Developed Countries, but for all citizens of the world."

Key points

The measures in the agreement included:

* To peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieve a balance between sources and sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century

* To keep global temperature increase "well below" 2C (3.6F) and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C

* To review progress every five years

* $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020, with a commitment to further finance in the future.

The speeches and the cliches at the adoption of the Paris Agreement flowed like good champagne - success after all has many fathers! The main emotion is relief. The influence of the COP president, Laurent Fabius, cannot be overstated. His long diplomatic career gave him a credibility seldom matched in this arena. He used his power well.

The deal that has been agreed, under Mr Fabius, is without parallel in terms of climate change or of the environment. It sets out a clear long term temperature limit for the planet and a clear way of getting there. There is money for poor countries to adapt, there is a strong review mechanism to increase ambition over time. This is key if the deal is to achieve the aim of keeping warming well below 2C.

More than anything though the deal signifies a new way for the world to achieve progress - without it costing the Earth. A long term perspective on the way we do sustainability is at the heart of this deal. If it delivers that, it truly will be world changing.

Ahead of the deal being struck, delegates were in a buoyant mood as they gathered in the hall waiting for the plenary session to resume.

Mr Fabius was applauded as he entered the hall ahead of the announcement.

Earlier, French President Francois Hollande called the proposals unprecedented, while UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on negotiators to "finish the job".

However, the celebratory mood has not been shared among all observers.

'Almost nothing binding'

Nick Dearden, director of campaign group Global Justice Now, said: "It's outrageous that the deal that's on the table is being spun as a success when it undermines the rights of the world's most vulnerable communities and has almost nothing binding to ensure a safe and liveable climate for future generations."

Some aspects of the agreement will be legally binding, such as submitting an emissions reduction target and the regular review of that goal.

However, the targets set by nations will not be binding under the deal struck in Paris.

Observers say the attempt to impose emissions targets on countries was one of the main reasons why the Copenhagen talks in 2009 failed.

At the time, nations including China, India and South Africa were unwilling to sign up to a condition that they felt could hamper economic growth and development.

The latest negotiations managed to avoid such an impasse by developing a system of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).

In these, which form the basis of the Paris agreement goal of keeping global temperature rise "well below" 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels, nations outline their plans on cutting their post-2020 emissions.

An assessment published during the two-week talks suggested that the emission reductions currently outlined in the INDCs submitted by countries would only limit global temperature rise by 2.7C.

Nick Mabey, chief executive of climate diplomacy organisation E3G, said the agreement was an ambitious one that would require serious political commitment to deliver.

"Paris means governments will go further and faster to tackle climate change than ever before," he said.

"The transition to a low carbon economy is now unstoppable, ensuring the end of the fossil fuel age."

COP 21 - the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties - will see more than 190 nations gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the threat of dangerous warming due to human activities.

More: BBC News special report (or follow the COP21 tag in the BBC News app)

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COP21 climate change summit reaches deal in Paris

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A deal to attempt to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than 2C has been agreed at the climate change summit in Paris after two weeks of intense negotiations. The pact is the first to commit all countries to cut carbon emissions. The agreement is partly legally binding and partly voluntary.

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It is difficult to foresee the order that may result from the chaos of the Copenhagen climate change conference (COP15), but as the dust settles, traces of a path forward are becoming visible.

The outcome - a decision to "take note of" an accord drawn up by a core group of heads of state on Friday evening - is far from the legally binding treaty which some had expected and for which many hoped.

However, this does not change the fact that the Copenhagen conference was a unique moment in history.

What Copenhagen changed:

With 110 world leaders present and a single issue on the agenda, there has never been a meeting like this. The countries that brokered the text, the US, China, India, South Africa, Brazil and the EU, also reflects a world in which the balance of power has significantly changed in the last 20 years.

At a fundamental level, the conference redefined the debate between countries in terms of awareness of climate science and support for action. There is no longer any question that climate change is central to the political thinking of every country on the planet.

Public awareness has also massively increased. The vast campaigns run around the world in the run-up to Copenhagen by governments, NGOs and business and the media coverage of the issue and the summit have made addressing climate change widely understood and discussed from the pubs of rural England to the bars of Beijing.

The other very important change is that green growth is now the prevailing economic model of our time. The idea that addressing climate change is bad for business was buried at Copenhagen. Countries from both developed and developing worlds have announced low-carbon economic plans and are moving forward.

What it did not change:

That combination of political will, economic direction and public pressure was not enough to overcome the concerns over sovereignty that many countries have in the context of international law. The final decision reflects the fact that many countries only want to be answerable to themselves. They will co-operate, but not under the threat of legal sanction.

There is no quantified aggregate target for emissions reduction such as the 50% by 2050 that was in early drafts - as it stands, targets are yet to be announced and they may be at the low end of what was promised, locking in ever greater emissions.

The reference to transparency in the text is significant as it will mean that for the first time actions by countries can be assessed globally, but there is no verification of the actions undertaken in the developing world unless they are paid for by the developed world.

Also, there is very little detail on any of the elements it does mention.

The accord does refer to the target of limiting global warming to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, as well as the need for quantified action by both developed and developing countries - but it's unclear how the target will be achieved.

The deal at COP15, as it stands, leaves the world on a pathway for temperature rises of 3C and above.

It remains to be seen whether committed targets on emissions, which are due to be made at the end of January, will make a difference. There will also be a review of progress in 2015 which may offer the opportunity to adjust any targets in light of the science.

Many hoped the COP15 would lead to legally mandated co-ordinated international action, but it appears that the outcome will be intergovernmental policy co-ordination with a focus on the implementation of national strategies. The move to green growth is no longer in doubt, but the details, actions and time frame remain unclear at best.

Will a new world order result from the chaos? The jury is out.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

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What did the Copenhagen climate summit achieve?

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It is difficult to foresee the order that may result from the chaos of the Copenhagen climate change conference (COP15), but as the dust settles, traces of a path forward are becoming visible.

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BBC News - Copenhagen: A summit like no other

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Robin Lustig says he’s reported from EU summits and Nato summits, Commonwealth summits and UN summits but never, ever, anything quite like the Copenhagen summit.

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The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement in Copenhagen tonight, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.

After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political agreement. The so-called Copenhagen accord "recognises" the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but does not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

American officials spun the deal as a "meaningful agreement", but even Obama said: "This progress is not enough."

"We have come a long way, but we have much further to go," he added.

Gordon Brown hailed the night as a success on five out of six measures.

In a press conference held after the talks broke up, Brown said the agreement was a "vital first step" and accepted there was a lot more work to do to get assurances it would become a legally binding agreement. He declined to call it a "historic" conference: "This is the first step we are taking towards a green and low carbon future for the world, steps we are taking together. But like all first steps, the steps are difficult and they are hard."

"I know what we really need is a legally binding treaty as quickly as possible."

The deal was brokered between China, South Africa, India, Brazil and the US, but late last night it was unclear whether it would be adopted by all 192 countries in the full plenary session. The deal aims to provide $30bn a year for poor countries to adapt to climate change from next year to 2012, and $100bn a year by 2020.

But it disappointed African and other vulnerable countries which had been holding out for deeper emission cuts to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5C this century. As widely expected, all references to 1.5C in past drafts were removed at the last minute, but more surprisingly, the earlier 2050 goal of reducing global CO ₂ emissions by 80% was also dropped.

The agreement also set up a forestry deal which is hoped would significantly reduce deforestation in return for cash. It lacked the kind of independent verification of emission reductions by developing countries that the US and others demanded.

Obama hinted that China was to blame for the lack of a substantial deal. In a press conference he condemned the insistence of some countries to look backwards to previous environmental agreements. He said developing countries should be "getting out of that mindset, and moving towards the position where everybody recognises that we all need to move together".

This was a not-so-veiled reference to the row over whether to ditch the Kyoto protocol and its legal distinction between developed and developing countries. Developing nations saw this as an attempt by the rich world to wriggle out of its responsibility for climate change. Many observers blamed the US for coming to the talks with an offer of just 4% emissions cuts on 1990 levels. The final text made no obligations on developing countries to make cuts.

Negotiators will now work on individual agreements such as forests, technology, and finance - but, without strong leadership, the chances are that it will take years to complete.

Obama cast his trip as a sign of renewed US global leadership: "The time has come for us to get off the sidelines and shape the future that we seek; that is why I came to Copenhagen."

But the US president also said he would not be staying for the final vote "because of weather constraints in Washington".

Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, said the deal had "the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It's nothing short of climate change scepticism in action. It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush."

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. Ed Miliband [UK climate change secretary] is among the very few that come out of this summit with any credit." It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen."

Lydia Baker of Save the Children said world leaders had "effectively signed a death warrant for many of the world's poorest children. Up to 250,000 children from poor communities could die before the next major meeting in Mexico at the end of next year."

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Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure

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The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement in Copenhagen tonight, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come. After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political agreement.

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Success or failure? The Kyoto Protocol’s troubled legacy - Foresight

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Twenty-five years of hope and political negotiations, of science, data and denial campaigns the Kyoto Protocol lives on.

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The Kyoto Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997. Owing to a complex ratification process, it entered into force on 16 February 2005. Currently, there are 192 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

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Documentary exploring the goals and actions of The Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.

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Has The Montreal Protocol Been Successful? | ClimaTalk

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The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) is an international treaty that came into effect in 1989 [1]. It aims to protect the ozone layer by regulating the production and consumption of certain chemicals [2]. The Montreal Protocol and (its precursor) the Vienna Convention For The Protection Of The Ozone Layer (1985) became the first treaties to achieve universal participation (meaning that every UN Member State participates in it). The Protocol is widely considered to have succeeded in fulfilling its aim of repairing the ozone layer, and consequently it is judged, by some to be one of the most successful examples of international cooperation in history [3].

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Stopping climate meltdown needs the political courage that saved the ozone layer | George Monbiot

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George Monbiot: Governments dither on the solution to global warming – but the Montreal protocol is a reminder of a time when they took their hands out of their pockets

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Stockholm: Birth of the green generation

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A-bomb testing, chemical pollution, whales: looking back to the first UN environmental summit 40 years ago.

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Canadian PM Mark Carney stressed the end of the rules-based international order and urged middle powers to act together to counter the great power rivalry.

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Advantage China: Trump’s tantrums push US allies closer to Beijing

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In the search for stability, some western nations are turning to a country that many in Washington see as an existential threat

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BBC World Service - United Nations - Available now

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This website saves small pieces of information (cookies) on your device to provide you with an improved user experience, and to allow us to analyse our website's traffic. You can disable the usage of cookies in your browser settings. If you continue to browse this website without changing your settings, you consent to the use of cookies and other similar technologies.

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Nearly everyone from Pope Leo XIV to House Republicans agrees: Climate change caused by human activity is an empirical reality, one that already poses risks to nearly the entire global population.

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ByEsme Stallard, Climate and science reporter, BBC News and Matt McGrath, Environment correspondent, BBC News

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COP30: Starmer warns ‘consensus is gone’ on fighting climate change

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World leaders address COP30 climate summit in Belém and take aim at Trump record on climate change.

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ByJustin Rowlatt, Climate Editor and Matt McGrath, Environment correspondent

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COP30: Five key takeaways from a deeply divisive climate summit

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What did we learn from a climate summit that ended in a deal with no new mention of fossil fuels?

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‘There is only one player’: why China is becoming a world leader in green energy

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As US reneges on climate breakdown pledges, China’s response to crisis will shape geopolitics and our future

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In the UK have Human Rights and Civil Liberties been eroded in recent years?

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The Politics Shed - The state: nation states and national sovereignty

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The Politics Shed - Key Liberal Thinkers

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Robert Keohane, After Hegemony (2005) Keohane has been characterized as a key figure in the development of a discipline of International Political Economy in the United States. Along with Joseph Nye, Keohane coined the concept of complex interdependence to capture the ways in which power had been

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Case study: Who owns the moon? How the lunar frontier could become the new Wild West The US’s NASA has put together a group of three dozen countries into ‘the Artemis Accords’ for cooperation and investment in lunar and space development. In part this is a cost-sharing exercise, in part it is to

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The Politics Shed - Significant Realist Thinkers

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Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (1979) Waltz was a defensive realist thinker. Bipolarity, where two major powers are competing for power, is more stable than multipolarity, where many rival powers are competing with each other . Two major powers can negotiate their way to stability

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Multipolarity is an international system in which there are three or more power centres. This means that no one power can claim hegemonic influence over the others. As a result of the changing balance of economic and military global power, the consequences of globalisation and advances in military

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Trump’s move to pull US from key UN climate treaty may be illegal, experts say

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President’s memo stating US ‘shall withdraw’ from UNFCCC marks first time any country has tried to exit the agreement

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World Report 2025, Human Rights Watch’s 35th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.