World

It’s too late now, but I didn’t feel Charlotte Hogg made enough of her defence that until recently she didn’t even know what her brother did at Barclays. His own colleagues probably didn’t know either: operating somewhere below the board and executive committee where strategic decisions are really made, a ‘director of corporate strategy’ in an institution perpetually riven by power struggles is at best the equivalent of a powerless squire in Game of Thrones. I speak from experience: for a few months long ago, I held the title of ‘head of international corporate finance’ in Barclays’ investment bank, but as far as I could ascertain it carried no authority

The irresistible force meets the immovable object in Washington tomorrow, as Donald Trump finally comes face to face with Angela Merkel. It seems highly unlikely that they’ll emerge from this meeting holding hands. Not only do these two world leaders disagree about (almost) everything, their personalities could hardly be less compatible. Mrs May may simper that ‘opposites attract’ but Merkel, not May, is Trump’s polar opposite. There’s little prospect of any personal chemistry at the White House this time around. But does this antipathy matter? Of course not. If anything, it’s a plus. In truth, the value of cordial relations between US presidents and foreign premiers is almost entirely confined

Another eye-catcher, not least for the gratuitous picture opportunities it offered, was the sale of Agent Provocateur to a group led by Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley. But the terms of this one are ‘preposterous’, or so said the lingerie brand’s founder, Joe Corré. Well, yes — if for a horrible moment you imagine portly Ashley wearing the Provocateur product, in the way that he likes to be seen wearing the Newcastle United strip he also sells. Ashley’s name is enough to taint any deal these days, whatever he’s wearing, but in fact the villain of this one appears to be the seller, 3i, rather than the buyer, Four Marketing,

Oh dear. They say never work with animals or children, but what about when your own children get in the way of your job? This is what happened on BBC news when an American man by the name of Robert Kelly appeared ‘down the line’ to discuss the unfolding situation in South Korea. Alas things took a turn for the worse when his children made their way into the study — leaving the BBC presenter perplexed. Mr S suspects a door lock would be useful in future…

There’s a lot happening today. It’s International Women’s Day, Discover What Your Name Means Day, and we’re right in the middle of National Pie Week. Oh, and it’s the Spring Budget. Mindful of at least two of these events, Theresa May has revealed a new £5 million fund to help mothers return to work after a long career break. Making the announcement on Mumsnet, the Prime Minister said: ‘Returnships are open to both men and women but we should acknowledge that, more often than not, it is women who give up their careers to devote themselves to motherhood, only to find the route back into employment closed off, the doors

Chief Constable Simon Bailey, who heads Operation Hydrant, the police investigation of ‘non-recent’ child abuse cases, now says that paedophiles who view images of child abuse should not be prosecuted, because police cannot cope with the numbers involved. Mr Bailey is wedded to the doctrine that someone who says he is an abuse victim must automatically be believed. The result, said Sir Richard Henriques in his scathing report on Operation Midland, is that the criminal justice system totters: ‘Chief Constable Bailey’s argument ignores the consequences of false terminology.’ Another consequence is that the child abuse statistics, unchecked, explode. Mr Bailey will not admit his error and so, in order to

Am I the only one who was hoping Donald Trump would skip the State of the Union address? The annual harangue to Congress, vernal solstice on America’s civic calendar, is provided for in Article II of our Constitution, which requires the president ‘from time to time’ to ‘give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union’. That briefly meant a presidential speech, until the gloriously terse Thomas Jefferson dismissed it as too monarchical and began submitting a written update instead. This tradition, admirably low-key, persisted for more than a century until Woodrow Wilson revived the verbal address in 1913, one of the many reasons to curse his presidency.

What calamity could possibly be worse than waking up to find that the small, rarefied town near your weekend cottage has lost its bookshop, leaving you nowhere to go browsing for the latest tome by George Monbiot or Naomi Klein before going home for tea and crumpets? Answer: when a new bookshop opens up, purporting to be an independent bookshop when it is actually a branch of Waterstones in disguise. That is the terrible fate which has just been suffered by residents of Southwold, Suffolk, and Rye, East Sussex, whose High Streets are now adorned with shop fronts in a fetching shade of blue. Only in the small print does

The most dangerous place in Washington DC, the old joke goes, is between a politician and a television camera. It’s a wonder there are any such places left, so intimate have the third and fourth estates become. Periodically, American journalism gets itself into a funk over its proximity to power and the consequences for integrity and neutrality. The lamentations are sincere but short-lived and before long the quarrelling lovers are reconciled and slip into old habits. ‘I hate myself for loving you,’ sang Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, lashing at the morbid affections of co-dependency. Iraq was supposed to be The Line. The press corps concluded in retrospect that it

Last month, at Policy Exchange, I met a charming, quiet American general called H.R. McMaster. In conversation, I was struck by his zeal for Nato and his concern wherever the alliance is now weakest, as in Turkey. In his speech to the thinktank, he said clearly that Russia and China are attempting to ‘collapse’ the post-1945 and post-Cold War ‘political, economic and security order’, with unconventional forces hiding behind conventional ones, subversion, disinformation, propaganda, economic actions and ‘proxies’ such as organised crime networks. The situation had echoes of 1914, and the risk of a great-power war was the highest for 70 years. He emphasised that, ‘despite public comments by our