Society

It was one of the more memorable moments of the referendum campaign. In the midst of a fevered debate between Remainers and Leavers – and with the Treasury and its allies rolling out ever more lurid predictions by the day – Stuart Rose, the former Marks & Spencer chairman who was in charge of the Remain campaign, made the point that leaving the EU might lead to higher wages. And that would, of course, be a very bad thing, at least from the perspective of a multi-millionaire businessman who had made his career as an employer of mainly relatively low-paid retail workers. The Remain campaign wasn’t the best run organisation

Oh dear. Davos isn’t what it used to be if this year’s guest list is anything to go by. The annual gathering of the global elite in Switzerland is getting underway yet a number of world leaders – including Donald Trump – have decided to give it a miss. Still, at least the People are being represented. Mr S was amused to hear an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. As the campaign for a second referendum – or so-called People’s Vote – steps up,  People’s Vote chairman Roland Rudd – brother of Amber Rudd – appeared on the airwaves to give an interview on the issue. Only as

What will Vladimir Putin do next? Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, discussions about Russia in the west have been preoccupied by two questions: which other countries does Russia have territorial ambitions in? And what is Putin’s plan for when his presidential term expires in 2024? The answer to both of these questions could lie in an often overlooked country: Belarus When Putin’s presidency officially ends, the Russian constitution prevents him from seeking another term in office. Putin could, of course, change the rulebook. He did this before by switching roles with prime minister Dmitry Medvedev in 2011. But a repeat of this looks unlikely: the head of Russia’s Constitutional Court has strongly

The government is publishing its draft domestic abuse bill today, over a year and a half after it announced plans to do so in the Queen’s Speech. Like so many pieces of domestic policy, this legislation has suffered greatly from the lack of government bandwidth for anything else other than Brexit, and it has been delayed repeatedly.  The bill itself is something campaigners are very keen on: it will include the first ever statutory definition of domestic abuse, set up a domestic abuse commissioner, and prevent alleged perpetrators of abuse from being able to cross-examine victims in the courts. The first and last changes show that ministers understand what domestic

One of the most tiresome tropes of the anti-Brexit backlash is the well-trodden line that older voters have somehow ‘stolen the future’ of the country’s youth. And that all of us are sitting at home, angry that our “future” is being stolen. I see it differently. Dominic Grieve’s generation may see the borders of the Europe Union as the end of their own horizons, but a good many members of my generation have never understood this Little Europe mentality. We think global, and no one ever speaks for those of us who see Brexit as part of going global. When David Cameron called the referendum, I was 13 years old

The call to supply a parable rewritten in the style of a well-known author drew a lively and entertaining entry. Like Milton, many of you seemed taken with the Parable of the Talents. Here is Sylvia Fairley channelling Mark Haddon: ‘He gave five talents to one, that’s 14,983 shekels, and two to the next, 5,993 shekels. Those are prime numbers. I like prime numbers…’ I thought Kafka might loom large but he cropped up only once in a sea of Austens, Hemingways, Trollopes and Wodehouses. Strong performers, in a keenly contested week, were Joseph Harrison, David Silverman, W.H. Thomas, Philip Machin, Hamish Wilson, David Mackie, Jan Snook and Hannah Burden-Teh.