The Week

Leading article

Why wasn’t the Foreign Office prepared for Sudan?

The fiasco in Khartoum is being widely interpreted as a tragic failure of intelligence. James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, is facing questions about how and why the government was caught unawares as Sudan descended into bloody chaos. There are bodies on the streets of Khartoum, foreigners have fled the city, and those who remain are

Portrait of the week

Portrait of the week: Biden, bullying and Barry Humphries

Home ‘China is carrying out the biggest military build-up in peacetime history,’ warned James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, in his Mansion House speech, but said ‘no significant global problem’ could be ‘solved without China’. The government borrowed £139.2 billion last year, £13 billion less than expected, bringing public debt to 99.6 per cent of GDP.

Diary

Don’t cancel Diane Abbott

Browsing my local Oxfam, my eye was drawn to a faded hardcover with the title The Merry Wives of Westminster. As some readers may know, my Twitter handle is @WestminsterWAG, so I bought it for the princely sum of £2.99. It wasn’t until I got home and started reading it that I realised who the

Ancient and modern

Twitter, Starmer and the madness of the mob

Elon Musk’s Twitter motto is Vox populi, vox Dei (‘The voice of the people, the voice of God’). This obviously appeals to the lawyer in Sir Keir Starmer since Twitter (being the voice of God) cannot be sued and therefore gives him scope to sail close to the wind. There is much he can learn

Barometer

Who still smokes?

By George Keir Starmer was mocked for showing footage of Glasgow in a video he made to celebrate St George’s Day. But the legend of St George (who is, after all, also the patron saint of Georgia and Ethiopia) did not leave Scotland untouched.  – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Stirling all have churches dedicated

Letters

Letters: what’s wrong with adoption?

The sins of the world Sir: Matthew Parris (‘Cross purposes’, 22 April) claims that Paul invented the Church’s teaching about redemption on the cross and that Christ was silent on the topic. This is simply not true. An obvious example is found in the gospel of Mark, chapter 10, verse 45: ‘For even the Son