France votes locally

Municipal election results in France show surprising strength for the mainstream parties.

The Liberal postmortem

Publication of the Liberal Party's review of its 2025 federal election loss raises questions about just how deep its problems run.

Keir Starmer's Labour Party loses badly in a by-election, and the far right's supposed surge comes to very little.

The Netherlands gets a new government, but media coverage risks giving a misleading impression of its position.

Bangladesh's new prime minister will govern with a big majority but a difficult geopolitical situation.

Conservative incumbents do unexpectedly well in both Thailand and Japan.

If the Coalition parties wanted to get serious about standing up to Trumpism, they could usefully take a lesson from Portugal.

Re-formation of the federal Coalition has done nothing to improve its prospects of fending off One Nation.

It's a big week for Asian democracy with elections in Thailand, Japan and Bangladesh.

A leader like Sussan Ley who's threatened by her own right wing can't possibly take the fight to One Nation. Perhaps a leader from the right could.