All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The invitation to submit a disgustingly flattering poem in heroic couplets in praise of a contemporary person of power saw you at your bootlicking best: Donald Trump, Anthony Scaramucci, Xi Jinping, Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin were all on the receiving end of some serious sucking-up. Bill Greenwell’s tribute to Justin Trudeau caught my eye:
Towns on Ukraine’s ceasefire line are marking three years since some were retaken by government forces from pro-Russian separatists. But there is little cause for celebration: houses in Marinka, Krasnogorovka and Avdiivka bear the scars of war. Some of these scars are recent, including a large house with nine apartments that was destroyed in shelling in late July. The
As a tot growing up in a provincial proletarian Communist household in the 1960s, I’d been led to believe that socialism was colour-blind. But when I moved to That London in the 1970s, I quickly became aware that the non-working-class Left operated what was best described as Paint-Chart Politics – the further from white, the
I can’t work up much indignation at the collapse of London’s Garden Bridge project, which has been strangled by the refusal of mayor Sadiq Khan to guarantee its continuing operational and maintenance costs — assuming its trustees, led by former banker and minister Lord Davies of Abersoch, would have succeeded in raising the £150 million
To the Business School at the University of Edinburgh to be interviewed on the theme of ‘Great Political Disasters’. Main criteria for inclusion: decisions, often taken for short-term reasons, whose unforeseen consequences have echoed down the ages. Everyone will have their own little list, but mine included the Balfour declaration, Partition, Suez, Wilson’s failure to
Football’s back, I’m afraid, and, in the imperishable words of David Mitchell, every kick in every game matters to someone, somewhere. Still, it’s the Premier League’s 25th anniversary, so a good time to take stock. There’s no doubt that with Sky’s help the PL has sexed up the English game and moved it once and
Long before student activists started talking about pulling down statues of Cecil Rhodes, a cultural war was being waged in America over monuments honouring General Robert E. Lee and other leaders of the Confederacy. In 2001 there was a petition to remove some of these statues from the University of Texas on the grounds that
As Brexit continues to dominate the headlines there is, understandably, a great deal of anxiety surrounding the UK’s future prosperity, and our ability to protect and grow Britain’s reputation as a major business centre. What is agreed almost across the board is that we must ensure we make post-Brexit Britain an attractive business environment. The
Another attempt to bring animal rights activism off social media and into the real world has faltered. Nothing changes, does it? But before we move on past another small march in Westminster, it might be an idea to stop and take stock of the irregularities. There are lessons to be learned for politicians, for the media
Ding dong Steve Bannon is gone – and all the liberal world order is cock-a-hoop. As Democrat congressman Tim Ryan said, ‘Good. He had no business being there to begin with.’ Or as Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. put it, ‘Steve Bannon should have never been a White House official.’ Maybe it is a good thing that
The statement from the White House makes little attempt to disguise what happened. ‘White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.’ This is pretty much the same form of words used when Anthony Scaramucci
Why was Spain targeted by terrorists? asked the Guardian on Friday, a question that is also being posed by other media outlets. After all, Spain has not participated in the Allied bombing campaign in Syria, which according to the Daily Telegraph ‘was seen as lowering the risk that the country would be targeted by Islamic State’.
Before Trump or Farage, before Wilders or Marine Le Pen, there was Pauline. Pauline Hanson was the original rabble-rouser who disrupted the pieties of liberal multiculturalism. Along came this copper-topped fish ’n’ chip shop owner with her screechy, strangled sentences and her gut prejudices about immigrants, welfare wasters and Aborigines. Unexpectedly elected to Parliament in
It’s official: people who talk about the problem of Pakistani men abusing white working-class girls have no place in polite society. Raise so much as a peep of concern about Muslim grooming gangs and you’ll be expelled from the realm of the decent. You’ll be shushed, exiled, encouraged to clean out your polluted mind. That
Although Theresa May has returned from her summer holidays to find her job safe, it’s only a temporary fix to the Conservative party’s woes. MPs plan to keep May as Prime Minister until the end of the Brexit negotiations – by which point they hope to be able to have a Tory leadership contest which
I sometimes wonder whether news like this from last week… and news like this from this week… … will ever get joined up. Perhaps it will. Perhaps it won’t. Meantime I see that the lights were turned off on the Eiffel Tower again last night, this time to pay tribute to the dead in Barcelona.
In the early hours of this morning, as police in Barcelona continued to piece together the terrible events on Las Ramblas yesterday afternoon, another vehicle attack occurred in the seaside town of Cambrils, a popular tourist destination about 75 miles south of the Catalonian capital. Five men, some wearing fake explosive belts, drove into crowds and injured
14 people have been killed and more than 100 injured after a van ploughed into pedestrians on Las Ramblas in a suspected jihadist attack Five suspected terrorists were shot dead by police in Cambrils, a coastal resort near to Barcelona, after a second vehicle attack was foiled It is believed the incident in Cambrils – in
It has been ten years since the start of the global financial crisis, and much has been written about whether the crisis of 2007 has changed the financial system… whether lessons have been learned, and so on. Frankly, lessons haven’t been learned and if the UK doesn’t play its cards right, there could be another
No one receiving their A-level results this morning can fail to be aware that the first of the coalition government’s more rigorous exams were sat this summer. Whatever their individual results, students – and parents – should be pleased with a new system which is more reliable and a better preparation for university. They should make sure to
There are some foreign words so expressive that you long to absorb them into your own language, to add breadth, colour and depth. ‘Asshat’ (or ‘ass-hat’) for instance. This fine north-Americanism denotes a person who has their head so far up their own ass [Eng: arse] that they are literally wearing their ass as a
In the wake of the referendum and a series of messy leadership battles, Ukip is a party without a plan. But a lack of direction isn’t the only thing troubling the Kippers. The party’s interim leader Steve Crowther has issued a press release calling the former EU President Martin Schulz a ‘complete idiot’. The strong
On this week’s episode, we’re looking at whether the ‘sex trade’ is a form of sanitised modern slavery. We also ask whether the Tory leadership battle is a phoney war and if university education is going downhill. In this week’s magazine Julie Bindel looks at the sex trade, decrying what she sees as an attempt to suffocate the
Stereotypes die hard. Consider the summer game, for instance. It is axiomatic to complain that cricket is a desperately conservative game, run by fuddy-duddies, inimitably hostile to reform or change or modernity. If anything the pad is on the other leg; there are times when cricket’s rush to attract new audiences leaves one suspecting that
For this week’s podcast, in celebration of Robert Lowell’s centenary year, I’m joined by the critic and writer Jonathan Raban — who not only knew this titan among American poets of the last century, but lived in his basement, and found himself contributing to literary history when Lowell took to consulting him, on the hoof,
With the German elections now barely a month away, the Bundesrepublik remains beset by worries about terrorism and immigration. Yet, just like the river in the song, the German economic juggernaut just keeps rolling along. The latest GDP figures are even better than expected – 0.6 per cent growth in the second quarter – the
‘Here we go again’, says the Sun, which criticises the ‘chorus of doom-mongers’ who pop up whenever the government proposes a ‘sensible, serious suggestion for moving towards Brexit’. On Tuesday, this reaction was sparked by details setting out plans for a customs union after Brexit. Now, a fresh wave of cynicism has greeted the idea
Since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, resignations from the shadow cabinet have been ten-a-penny. The latest Labour MP to quit hasn’t done so over Brexit or Corbyn though – and the reason for her departure doesn’t bode well for the state of debate within the top ranks of the party. Sarah Champion has stepped down
There is a strain of wickedness so contagious that it infects every pore of the places it touches. It can be found in the failed human beings who snatch at glory by the mass slaughter of children; they have changed forever the towns of Dunblane, Newton and Columbine. New York and Paris have emerged from
A brief trawl of the Foreign Office’s travel advice for Brits thinking of paying a visit to Sudan will tell you that’s it’s not the best idea – with cholera, the threat of terrorism and clashes between government forces and rebel groups on the menu. What’s more, the British Embassy no longer registers UK nationals in Sudan
Avoiding a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is the government’s top aim in Brexit talks. Brussels wants much the same: the EU Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt has insisted that there should be no return to a fixed border. This is an aspiration shared by the EU, which makes the issue one
With the Retail Price Index figures released yesterday, commuters are up in arms at the news that rail prices are set to rise by up to 3.6% as of January. It’s not all fares that will be affected; only those that are regulated by the government – and the price increase won’t happen until the
Dry your eyes, Joanna Lumley, and try to move on. For the Garden Bridge was doomed from the start. Sure, it had all the hallmarks of an absolutely fabulous idea dreamt up by Patsy and friends in the early hours of Sunday morning after a humdinger of an evening on cocktails and Bolly. But by
Putting your savings in a fixed rate bond guarantees your rate of return – but you do have to be prepared to lock up your cash for a set amount of time. Here are this week’s best buy two-year fixed rate bonds. Data provided by Moneyfacts.