Newsroom University of Manchester

The House of Commons has voted to hold a series of indicative votes on Brexit. But what does that mean and will it solve the problem? What are indicative votes? Indicative votes are votes in which MPs are able to give their opinion on an issue ...

  At the heart of the current US trade war with China is tariffs on imports like steel, sorghum and silicon chips. But, with the growing role of data and digital technology in the world economy, a new arena of digital trade conflict is on the card...

It’s been a turbulent few weeks in the Palace of Westminster and while Britons may all be bored silly by the sight of MPs arguing about what they think the people actually want, the drama shows no sign of stopping. What’s happened so far Since ...

Violent crime among young people has reached a worrying high in parts of the UK over recent years. There’s been a year-on-year increase in knife offences committed by young people since March 2014. In 2017/18 alone, there were more than 100 knife-rel...

One of the largest meat processors in the UK, supplying supermarkets across the country with beef, pork, and lamb, has launched a plant-based meat alternative. ABP is the first UK meat producer to do so and its decision marks a significant shift for ...

A cross-parliamentary group of MPs has struck again, landing another major blow against the government ahead of the vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal on January 15. The manoeuvre changes the parliamentary timetable to give the prime minister just thr...

This is an article from Head to Head, a series in which academics from different disciplines chew over current debates.  Rob Bellamy: 2018 has been a year of unprecedented weather extremes around the world. From the hottest temperatures ever recor...

Not for the first time in the Brexit process, confusion reigned in the UK parliament on December 17, when opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, proposed a vote of no confidence in the prime minister, Theresa May, only to later appear to backtrack. The pr...

What happens when the president of the world’s leading superpower makes inflammatory comments about immigrants and wins an election based largely on a racist and nationalist platform? As we’ve seen over the past two years, his followers feel embolden...

Theresa May has faced widespread criticism following comments to the Confederation of British Industry that EU nationals have jumped “the queue” to migrate to the UK ahead of non-EU nationals during the UK’s membership of the bloc. ...

Politics students at the University of Reading were reportedly told to “take care” when reading an essay by the late political theorist, Norman Geras. The Observer newspaper reported the students were warned about the essay – which was on their readi...

As I write these lines, I tell myself there is no reason to fear. Far-right politics are on the rise globally – yet the universities in Brazil that were recently raided in a clear attack on freedom of expression seem a long way from the UK. This has ...

At the cutting edge of modern science, DNA sequencing promises to transform many aspects of human life. It’s already playing a significant role in law enforcement, as well as medical and historical research. But there’s a growing inequality in its im...

American lawmakers recently created the International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) to finance infrastructure projects in low-income countries. The IDFC’s primary aim is to counter China’s growing influence, and it signals a dramatic new cha...

Why would anybody want to get infected with HIV? That is what most people ask when they first hear about “bug chasing”. In fact, a number of gay men, at least online, appear to clamour for HIV. They are known as “bug chasers” because they are literal...

Where exactly does our news come from? And are those who unearth it getting fair credit? As media consumers, these are questions we should be asking on a regular basis. Take the case of “Colonel Chepiga”. The BBC reported on September 27 that “Rus...

Dr David Binks, Reader in Laser Physics, explains the science behind this year's historic Nobel Prize for Physics ...

At the UN General Assembly in 2017 Theresa May described the “special responsibilities” that the UK holds within the United Nations. She was referring to the permanent seat that the UK has on the UN Security Council, as well as its capacity to contri...

Egypt is the latest country to build a new capital city from scratch, with ambitions to move parliament away from Cairo as early as summer 2019. With nearly 24m people living in Greater Metropolitan Cairo, the current Egyptian capital suffers from se...

Science fiction may seem resolutely modern, but the genre could actually be considered hundreds of years old. ...

Despite widespread belief that men should be as involved as women in all aspects of childcare, they are both still largely playing traditional gender roles when looking after children, according to a new report from Business In The Community (BITC). ...

The UK has an endemic low-pay culture. A new report backed by business leaders and the Archbishop of Canterbury says Britain’s economic model is “broken” and produces widespread inequality. Around 8m people in poverty now live in working households. ...

Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain is a popular place to climb, both as part of the Three Peaks Challenge and for walkers in search of the sublime Lake District scenery. But it wasn’t always this way. ...

Like most bad dramas, keeping up with every development in the Brexit saga is difficult. Nevertheless you may have seen recent reports in the media, including in The Conversation, that “austerity caused Brexit”. But we doubt that a clear answer can c...

  The nuclear industry provides about 15% of the UK’s electricity, makes a vital contribution to the country’s carbon cutting ambitions and is a remarkably safe form of energy with no major accidents since the Windscale Fire in 1957. But despite a...

A black Bond? It’s an apparently unproblematic and straightforward question, right? Well, not quite. When suggested quite quizzically by a colleague, it sparked a series of reactionary positions in the staff room, especially from the 007 traditionali...

Less than three years ago, after Malcolm Turnbull had wrested the prime ministership from Tony Abbott, I wrote an article entitled “Carbon coups: from Hawke to Abbott, climate policy is never far away when leaders come a cropper”. Less than two we...

Around the world it seems far-right groups can infiltrate the mainstream regardless of a given country’s political present or past. The question is, then, how do they do it? The far-right movement Golden Dawn, based in Greece, is a prime example o...

Apparently, I am BAME. This places me as a contender for The Guardian’s BAME awards or the Jhalak prize, both aimed at BAME writers like myself. Ah, BAME – this acronym, which means black, asian and minority ethnic, joins many other appellations offe...

The afterglow of France winning the 2018 World Cup tournament on July 15 should be gone by now. But the arguments over France’s 23-man squad, with as many as 15 players with African roots, rage on. The victory has ignited social commentaries on race,...