Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng arrive in Downing Street having been on a long political journey together. Both elected in 2010, they have co-written books setting out their shared economic agenda; they have co-founded party groups during their time in parliament; and now they will govern together. The future direction of the country, and the
I have done absolutely nothing this past year except pound away at a book. For complicated logistical reasons that are far too boring to go into, I discovered last summer – rather in the manner of a Bank of England economist blindsided by the inflation rate – that I had badly miscalculated how long I
Immigration policy is a mess. For at least the past decade, it has been characterised by unrealistic targets and broken promises. Every government has promised to reduce dramatically the number of foreigners who arrive here in search of work, or justice, or hope. Every government has failed. The numbers keep going up. David Cameron promised
Britain’s film and TV industries want to help save the world. That’s hardly news. But one organisation is ensuring the industry focuses its efforts on environmental sustainability: Albert, which also goes by the name of Bafta Albert. You might have seen the logo – a black footprint – at the end of many TV programmes,
There is a joke in Taipei that if China invades Taiwan, the best place to shelter will be in microchip factories, because they are the only places the People’s Liberation Army can’t afford to destroy. The country that controls advanced chips controls the future of technology – and Taiwan’s chip fabrication foundries (‘fabs’) are the
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ The surveyor shook his head. It would take me longer to boil the kettle than for him to do a valuation of my 400 sq ft, one-bedroom flat. I paced awkwardly around. A minute later, he gave me the thumbs-up. Valuation complete, he left. I boiled the kettle
La Paz One summer a few years ago, I joined a group of miners in Potosí, Bolivia, to toast the Andean Mother Earth. I had just moved to La Paz, the country’s political capital, to try my hand as a journalist. As we chatted, a cup of warm beer and shots of spirits were handed
Some detectorists will tell you that the holy grail of metal detecting is a hoard of Roman coins or Anglo-Saxon jewellery. Others will point out – borrowing a line from the TV series Detectorists – that actually the holy grail of metal detecting is the Holy Grail. Since I took up metal detecting, last summer,
