Society

The word ‘colony’ meets with a sharp intake of breath these days, but ‘province’ raises no eyebrows. How very odd. The ancient Greeks invented the western notion of the colony. But ‘colony’ is the term the Romans applied to it and is of Latin derivation, from colo, ‘I cultivate, inhabit’ and so colonia. The ancient Greek term was apoikia, lit. ‘a home apart, away’, or perhaps a ‘home from home’. Greeks established these apoikiai widely around the Mediterranean, mainly from the 8th to 6th centuries BC, clustering along the coasts of Turkey, northern Greece, all around the Black Sea, southern Italy, the eastern Adriatic, Sicily, parts of southern France and

Two new measures, aimed at toughening the justice system, came into force last month. The first, known as Tony’s Law, enables the courts to impose a life sentence on anyone who causes or allows the death of a child or vulnerable adult in their care, while the maximum term for cruelty that leads to serious physical harm has been raised from ten to 14 years. The law’s title is a tribute to Tony Hudgell, a remarkably determined eight-year-old boy who, when he was a baby, was so badly abused by his parents, Jody Simpson and Tony Smith, that both his legs had to be amputated. Angry that these torturers were

Home The Conservatives began the process of finding a new leader, which involves balloting MPs and then sending two names for party members to choose between. Eight candidates initially qualified for the process set out by the 1922 Committee, by gaining nominations from 20 MPs: Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat and Nadhim Zahawi. Grant Shapps, Rehman Chishti and Sajid Javid withdrew before the off. Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, a fancied contender, had decided not to stand, as had Steve Baker, who was not widely fancied. Michael Gove (whom Downing Street had denounced a week earlier as a ‘snake’ when the