World

During the massive, impressive Women’s March in London on Saturday, in which thousands of noisy women, men and children stuck it to Trump, the organisers tweeted the following: ‘We are the people.’ Wait — it’s okay to say ‘the people’ again? Since Trump’s victory in November, and even more so after the Brexit Revolt in June, anyone who used the phrase ‘the people’ risked being branded a useful idiot of hard-right demagoguery. ‘Do you know who else spoke of “the people”?’, left-liberals would inquire, accusingly. ‘THE NAZIS.’ Brexiteers and Trumpeters ‘roar that they represent “the people”,’ said Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer, as part of ‘their endeavour to silence any

One of the advantages for Theresa May in being the first foreign leader to visit the Trump White House is that other European government are eager for information about what he actually plans to do. Both Handelsblatt and Spiegel have good pieces detailing the German government’s concerns about its lack of contact with, and information about, the new administration. Spiegel reports that an offer from Angela Merkel’s team for her to travel to the US at short notice to meet the new president has not yet received a reply. While the German Ambassador to the US’s last meeting with Jared Ksuhner, Trump’s son in law and—by general agreement—the most powerful

Among the words and phrases I’d be quite happy to never hear of again in 2017 is ‘Alt-Right’, up there with ‘remoaner’ and ‘liberal elite’. It’s partly the extraordinary amount of media attention given to an absolutely tiny fringe of a fringe of a fringe; partly that it’s one of those phrases that can mean whatever the user wants it to mean, from paleoconservatism with memes, to neo-Nazism; but also that there are plenty of American conservative intellectuals making logically coherent and often very original critiques of multiculturalism, race and democracy which an open-minded progressive might read – instead the media are interested in Richard Spencer because he holds rallies

We all love Michelle Obama. Of course we do. For the last eight years she has been ‘mom in chief’ of America – and the world. She has personified grace, courtesy, warmth, humour and, not incidentally, shown us what a good marriage looks like. Tirelessly supportive of her husband, but successful in her own right, she has become a symbol of what a modern woman can be. She rose from a working-class background to attend Princeton and Harvard. She overcame racism and sexism to become a hugely successful lawyer. As First Lady, she was endlessly elegant and engaged, working to promote healthy eating, educational opportunity and women’s rights. It has