World

It should be easy to admire the BBC’s handling of the Savile scandal. Two of its journalists, Liz MacKean and Meirion Jones, broke the story. Panorama then ran a devastating account of the corporation’s failings which is still worth watching online. This morning the Today programme properly led with the leak of Dame Janet Smith’s report on the multiple rapes Savile committed on BBC premises, which again showed an admirable capacity for self-criticism. Unfortunately, that is all it did. Organisations and individuals are defined not just by their mistakes but how they react to their mistakes. Do they deny and bluster? Or do they confront their flaws and try to

On Monday MPs gathered in Westminster Hall to debate whether or not Donald Trump should be allowed to visit Britain, after over 500,000 Brits signed a petition calling for Trump to be banned from the UK. Ahead of the debate, the SNP’s Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh argued that Trump ought to be banned as otherwise ‘what we’re saying is, if you’re a prospective presidential candidate, it’s alright to say what you want’. So what did the man of the moment make of the debate which saw MPs call him a, others took the opportunity to call the Presidential hopeful a ‘fool’ and ‘buffoon’? It turns out that despite being insulted by several politicians,

Should Donald Trump be banned from visiting the UK? The candidate for the Republican presidential nomination hasn’t actually booked a trip here, but MPs are debating two petitions – one calling for him to be banned, and the other calling for him not to be banned – for three hours in Westminster Hall this afternoon. Paul Flynn, who is opening the debate, discussed the matter with the SNP’s Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh on the Today programme this morning. Flynn doesn’t like Trump, but doesn’t think you should ban him, while Ahmed-Sheikh thinks the American politician’s views have ‘consequences’ and that therefore he should be banned. She told the programme: ‘If we wish to be

Like most trade unionists in the 1970s and 80s I worked with a fair few communists. Men like Dickie Lawlor, Jock Cowan and Maurice Styles, postal workers for whom all events were viewed through the prism of ‘scientific socialism’. Communism gave them a philosophy by which to live their lives, and they were respected as men of principle even by those who abhorred their politics. Marx may have disparaged religion as the opiate of the people (and, in an even more memorable phrase, the sigh of the oppressed), but it was difficult to avoid the term ‘religious zeal’ when describing the way men like Dickie, Jock and Maurice approached their

The new year has not started well for France. On the last day of 2015 – the most traumatic year for the French in decades because of the twin attacks in Paris – president Francois Hollande warned the nation in his traditional New Year’s Eve address: ‘France is not done with terrorism… these tragic events will remain for ever etched in our memories, they shall never disappear. But despite the tragedy, France has not given in. Despite the tears, the country has remained upright.’ Hollande’s warning was borne out within 24 hours. On the first day of 2016 a lone motorist – inspired by Islamic State – drove at a

On Tuesday, Isis’s strategy in Turkey changed. Nabil Fadli, a 28-year-old Saudi national linked to Isis, blew himself up in the heart of Sultanahmet, a tourist district of Istanbul. 11 tourists were killed, including ten Germans. In some ways, it was familiar: this was Isis’s fourth successful attack on Turkish soil since June. Previous bombs, however, had targeted pro-Kurdish and leftist groups: one, last July, targeted Suruç in the Kurdish south-east; in October, another took over 100 lives in at a peace rally in Ankara. The perpetrators of both these attacks were traced back to an Isis cell in the Turkish city of Adıyaman, and the government was criticised for failing

Having taken the piss out of Guardian columnists for their laughably painful paroxysms over the appalling attacks upon women at Cologne railway station, credit where it’s due. The paper at least broke this story about the Swedish police being accused of covering up sex attacks by refugees at a music festival. I dare say that Deborah Orr and Gaby Hinsliff et al will still have some fatuous explanation. Some circuitous route which exculpates the adherents of a primitive, brutal and deeply misogynist creed and perhaps blames western colonialism instead. Well, sure, ok; stick to your guns you babes, no matter how much evidence stacks up to suggest that you are deluded idiots. I

Last year proved to be a testing year for the Miliband clan as Ed Miliband fought to be the next Prime Minister. While his wife Justine Thornton — an environmental barrister — found out firsthand how vicious the campaign can get when Sarah Vine compared her to ‘Mr Spock’ in a column for the Daily Mail, her husband went on to suffer the ultimate blow with a catastrophic defeat at the polls. Now there is happy news for the family: Justine has been appointed Queen’s Counsel. She is one of three barristers at 39 Essex Chambers to be awarded the honour: I am absolutely delighted to be appointed Queen's Counselhttps://t.co/fELq2V81kf — Justine Thornton