The recent United Nations climate summit in Dubai ended up becoming a carnival of gloom. Speakers competed to paint the bleakest outlook for the world. But while it’s right to focus on the challenges that lie ahead, the doomsday narrative risks obscuring all the progress we have made. ‘Records are now being broken so often
January The government stopped a Gender Recognition Bill passed by the Scottish parliament becoming law. Isla Bryson, now a transgender woman, was convicted of having raped two women; the 31-year-old was sent to a women’s prison, then transferred to one for men. A Met Police officer, David Carrick, aged 48, pleaded guilty to 24 charges
In Chekhov’s The Seagull Dr Dorn is asked which is his favourite foreign city. Genoa, he replies: in the evening the streets are full of strolling people and you became part of the crowd, body and soul. ‘You start to think there really might be a universal spirit,’ he says. I remembered Dr Dorn when
At this time of year the Romans, too, enjoyed a celebration, called the Saturnalia. It was a time of licence, the one day when slaves were free to eat, drink and be merry, and be served by their owners. One wonders what part such role-reversal played in Vedius Pollio’s villa on the Bay of Naples
Brief Labour 22 January 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Labour government, something the party might want to celebrate, even see as a good omen. Except that Ramsay MacDonald’s minority administration lasted only nine months. – If Rishi Sunak wanted to be mischievous, he could choose 31 October as election day – the
The leasehold scam Sir: In June 2018, Rishi Sunak told me in a Bethnal Green living room that leasehold is ‘a scam’ (‘Flat broke’, 9 December). At party conference, Sunak portrayed himself as a truth-teller who would take on the vested interests who have held back this country for so long. I am therefore baffled
