‘As oil crashes, is it time to short solar stocks?’ Gosh, I wish I’d read that headline a year ago. The solar stock it tipped for doom in January 2015 has since plummeted from $19 to $2.65. Yes, hindsight can be a wonderful thing. But what if there were an area of the markets which
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/donaldtrumpsrise-racismattheoscarsandcameronscentre-rightsecret/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the PM’s centre-right secret” startat=628] Listen [/audioplayer]There are times when Westminster’s obsession with US politics is embarrassing for even the strongest believer in the Anglo-American relationship. Monday was one of those days: MPs debated banning Donald Trump, the reality TV star turned presidential hopeful, from entering Britain.
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/donaldtrumpsrise-racismattheoscarsandcameronscentre-rightsecret/media.mp3″ title=”Rod Liddle and Tim Robey discuss whether the Oscars are racist” startat=1039] Listen [/audioplayer]In 2017 it will be exactly 50 years since a dapper Sidney Poitier announced to Rod Steiger, in the excellent film In The Heat of the Night: ‘They call me Mr Tibbs!’ Rod Steiger, playing a somewhat right-of-centre sheriff of
Corbynterpretation [n]: The inevitable process of debate, after Jeremy Corbyn is interviewed, over what he actually meant. Does the Labour leader believe the killing of Osama bin Laden was a tragedy, or not believe this? Would he like Britain to negotiate with Daesh or would he be opposed to that happening? Would he, or would
Lobengula was the second king of the Matabele people in what is now Zimbabwe. He was also the last. Cecil John Rhodes smashed his authority, and broke his tribe. The Matabele (a breakaway people from the Zulu kingdom to the south) had been making their way north, and by the time Rhodes arrived on the
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/projectfear/media.mp3″ title=”Rod Liddle and Kaite Welsh discuss David Bowie’s legacy” startat=678] Listen [/audioplayer]I was desperately worried that you hadn’t read or heard enough platitudinous drivel about David Bowie — and therefore felt compelled to weigh in with my own observations. In all honesty I haven’t heard so much repetitive, imbecilic guff since Mandela shuffled
Wild Lone is one of the most violent books I’ve ever read. It was published just before the last war and it doesn’t pull its punches: mothers are slaughtered with their babies; brothers and sisters are eaten alive; callous parents look on indifferently as their sick children die slowly beneath them; the few survivors almost
One evening last autumn, four experts in the field of artificial intelligence arrived in Westminster with an urgent message for our government. There’s a robot revolution on the way, they said, and unless we prepare for it we’re in trouble. The briefing was a quiet affair — I was one of only a few journalists
It has been over a month since Parliament voted to bomb Isis in Syria, yet in that time there have been fewer raids than there are Lib Dem MPs. A flurry of three attacks took place immediately following the vote on 1 December, but since then there has been only one — by an unmanned Reaper
There have been few more pathetic displays of political impotence than the tweets sent by shadow cabinet members paying tribute to Michael Dugher after his sacking by Jeremy Corbyn. Dugher, a classic northern Labour fixer, had taken on the role of shadow cabinet shop steward. He spoke out against Momentum, the Corbynite pressure group, warned
The Saudis have got the new year off to a busy start, haven’t they? The authorities executed 47 people, including a rather grim-looking Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr — leading Shia cleric and children’s party balloon sculptor (giraffes a speciality). OK, I made that last bit up. He was just a heavily bearded religious agitator and probably
Apparently, according to a variety of relatively reliable sources that include the man himself, the Labour MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk, is in the habit of accepting money from a paparazzi agency in exchange for advising them how they might best snap pap pictures of the Labour MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk. Is this not
Since no one has bothered to ask what my must-read book of last year was I’m going to tell you here: it’s Matt Ridley’s Evolution of Everything. I don’t think it has appeared on nearly so many recommended lists as his previous bestsellers Genome and The Rational Optimist, nor has it been so widely reviewed.
Why are liberals morons? I’m sure that this question has rattled around your mind before, perhaps when watching one of those fair and balanced debates between three ill-dressed but very liberal women that Newsnight puts on every evening, hosted by Kirsty Wark. You hear them tiptoeing through the -nether regions of some important political issue,
What a pleasure it was to see two socialist parties triumph in the most recent elections. First, Labour increased its share of the vote in Oldham — and then, last weekend, the Front National became France’s most popular party, securing almost 30 per cent in the first round of the country’s regional elections. Labour’s win
By this time next year Britain will, if the government has its way, have voted on whether or not this country should stay in the European Union. This referendum has the potential to reshape British politics. It will not only determine whether we remain in the EU, but it will also play a huge role
Things I am going to ban when, by popular acclaim, I am elected your Dictator For Life in 2016. 1. Onions where the brown skin doesn’t come off easily. You know the ones: where the papery outer layer clings so tightly that you have to pick it off laboriously with a sharp knife
One of the strangest and, in a weird way, best things to have happened to me in the past year was the emergence of a firm conviction among a quite large collection of internet weirdos that I spent my youth fighting for an elite unit of the Israeli army. It started after a boozy pre-Christmas
When I was 21, I lived with a cult for a year. It was a commune really, a tight-knit group of Christians, but I’ll call it a cult because it was in Texas and for special occasions we all wore white. There were other cult markers, too: we had a charismatic leader; the younger kids
‘Fine old Christmas,’ wrote George Eliot, ‘with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts of warmth and colour with all the heightening contrast of frost and snow.’ Thus opens the second chapter of Book II of The Mill on