Politics

It is tempting to view Vladimir Putin as a Cold War relic: a former KGB officer who hasn’t got over the fall of the Soviet Union, which he called the ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.’ But, as I say in the Times today, what is happening on Ukraine’s border isn’t a throwback to the Cold War. Rather, it is a preview of Europe’s future. Since Nato’s creation, European security has rested on America’s involvement. But Europe is now a secondary concern for the US; Asia and competition with China is the most important challenge facing Washington now. The horribly messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan was justified on the basis that it would

As yesterday’s attack showed, there’s no love lost between Boris Johnson and John Major. Mr S has previously chronicled the many times Major has criticised his successor, with whom he so publicly disagreed over Brexit. The enmity between the two men stretches back to the early 1990s when Johnson was the Telegraph’s main man in Brussels and subsequently the paper’s chief political commentator in Westminster.  The-then journalist had great fun lampooning Europhile excesses at the time of the Maastricht debate, something which naturally didn’t make him popular with the pro-EEC Major as he tried to ram the treaty through Parliament. As Johnson later recalled:  I was just chucking these rocks over the garden

Sadiq Khan forced Cressida Dick out of her job as Metropolitan Police chief. Both made that very clear this evening, with Dick saying ‘the mayor no longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership to continue’, while Khan said he was ‘not satisfied with the Commissioner’s response’ to his ultimatum for changing the Met’s culture of misogyny, racism, homophobia and bullying. The Met is clearly an institutional basket case The Mayor of London has played a political blinder on this. Unlike Home Secretary Priti Patel, who has the ultimate authority on the appointment — and exit — of the Commissioner, he has been quick to respond to last week’s report which revealed

What a U-turn. Despite insisting this morning that she had ‘no intention’ of quitting as Metropolitan Police chief, Cressida Dick has this evening been forced out of her role running Britain’s biggest force. Sadiq Khan was the decisive factor which prompted this change in Dick’s fortunes after the London mayor said he no longer had confidence in her leadership. In a statement Khan told the press: Last week, I made clear to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner the scale of the change I believe is urgently required to rebuild the trust and confidence of Londoners in the Met and to root out the racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying, discrimination and misogyny that still exists. I

It’s a difficult time for libraries. Budget cutbacks, online competitors and rival forms of media all point to a grim future for bibliophiles. Still, at least one trend is creating new jobs: the ever-increasing demand for PC-approved books means woke curators are very much in vogue. And now it seems that even the crown jewel of British university book rooms, Oxford’s Bodleian library, is trying to get in on the act with its latest right-on recruitment advert. For Mr S has been sent a copy of the newest ‘job opportunity’ the Bod are putting out for a ‘project manager for race and inclusion.’ An ‘outstanding candidate’ is sought to ‘embed