The latest competition invited you to take your lead from Meik Wiking — CEO at the Happiness Research Institute and author of The Little Book of Hygge and The Little Book of Lykke — and provide an extract from your own Little Book of…. When I set this challenge, I had in mind the words
Even loyal Cabinet Minister admit that the Tories can’t go on like this for another 18 months. As I say in The Sun this morning, Theresa May needs to show that the situation is going to improve. I think there are three things that May needs to do. First, she needs to show that she
As a Spaniard living in Britain, it has been strange to read the coverage of Catalonia in recent days – most of the commentary being pro-separation. There has been no sense as to why most people in Spain feel so strongly about keeping the country together. Britain has been a democracy for generations: Spain has
However much we try — and lots of us don’t — we fall for the power of the photo-image. So the news, as reported in Britain, was simple: Spanish police brutal; Catalan democracy assailed. I am not in a position to know the real facts about the violence, so I simply note that the estimates
In October 1936, on the anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World, a ceremony was held at Salamanca University, in the heart of the nationalist Spain, to celebrate the ‘Day of the Race’. The Bishop of Salamanca, who had recently offered up his episcopal palace to be Franco’s headquarters, stood in the great hall
Should it make a difference to investors if a company is owned by its founder? You might argue that a founder-owner would have a deeper interest in the long-term success of his or her corporate creation. Or perhaps having the owner hanging around the management board would inhibit risk taking. But here’s the strange thing:
The Supreme Court is changing. Three new Justices are taking office, including Lady Black, who is only the second woman to serve on the UK’s highest court. The first, Lady Hale, was this week officially sworn in as President of the Supreme Court, making her the UK’s most senior judge. Lady Hale was appointed a
‘We are all going to live longer, so why not invest in it?’ seems to be the premise of Jim Mellon and Al Chalabi’s new book, Juvenescence – Investing in the Age of Longevity. Mellon and Chalabi forecast that within the next 20 years, the average life expectancy in the developed world will rise to
Britain’s railways provide a striking example of how a half-baked privatisation goes wrong. The Centre for Policy Studies today introduces a new word to the political and economic lexicon: Railopoly; noun, the exclusive possession or control of train services by a single company (public or private) which faces no competition or threat of. The private
The Tory party is in a furious mood following Theresa May’s conference speech. MPs are swearing, ranting, and muttering dire threats about the object of their anger. Helpfully for the Prime Minister, though, the bulk of the anger has little to do with her and everything to do with the two men MPs suspect are
Grant Shapps isn’t the most popular man in the Tory party at the moment, but at least he has a friend to keep him company this evening. By sheer coincidence, Andrew Mitchell has long been booked to speak at the Welwyn Hatfield MP’s Conservative Association annual dinner tonight. But Mitchell is very keen not to
Grass-fed beef just came off the North London dinner party menu. A report by the Food Climate Research Network at the University of Oxford dismissed claims by Prince Charles and others that grazing animals on permanent pasture can reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The old argument was that the carbon dioxide absorbed by growing grass outweighed the
There are many ways to make a conference speech memorable and Theresa May managed most of them. A prankster with a P45, a constant cough and a set that fell to bits as she spoke, the speech was a riot of metaphors in waiting. It may yet be pointed to as a decisive moment in
The German Embassy threw a lavish party in London’s Belgrave Square last night to toast the Bundesrepublik’s Day of German Unity, but although the Bier and Sekt flowed freely, and the Ambassador’s Residence was awash with chatter, disunity rather than unity was the main topic of the day. Germany’s Tag der Deutschen Einheit marks the
Want to feel like a kid again? Now, if you’re of a certain age, inclination and fortune, you can. Last week, Nintendo launched its SNES Classic Mini, a modernised and miniaturised version of a console that it first released over 25 years ago. It comes loaded with 20 games from back then, including Super Mario
Our guest on today’s Holy Smoke podcast is A.N. Wilson, author of a hugely admired biography of Queen Victoria and – as you’ll hear – the most mischievous intellectual in the land. Cristina Odone and I started out by asking about Victoria’s vigorous (and possibly whisky-fuelled) persecution of Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England: the
By the simple expedients of being cheerful and attacking Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson scored a deserved hit at the Tory conference on Tuesday. It is right not to be shy about questioning Mr Corbyn’s record. But while it is true that Mr Corbyn has never wavered, over 40 years, in his extreme socialist views, it
Grant Shapps’ attempt to topple Theresa May is not going quite to plan. Tory MPs are busy tweeting their support for the Prime Minister. While others are turning their fire on Shapps himself. Nadine Dorries said the plot was ‘pathetic’ – and Baroness Warsi was even more outspoken on the subject of Shapps’ bungled bid
It’s taken me a while, but I think I’ve got my head around this now. Grant Shapps is proposing that the Conservative Party should hold a protracted contest to select a new chief, and thus render itself and the Government of Britain leaderless for several weeks, at a time when the UK economy and public
Grant Shapps’ bid to stir up a rebellion against Theresa May has almost certainly failed. Instead, his decision to publicly call on the PM to go has shown that even after the Tories’ lacklustre conference May still retains a wide degree of support among the party’s MPs. Here is the full list of Conservative MPs,