According to my phone, I’m in Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport. Except I’m not. The Israel Defence Forces have scrambled the GPS of everyone within about an hour’s drive of the Israel-Lebanon border. The same navigation system that tells my iPhone its location is the same navigation system that Hezbollah could use to identify targets in
When I was a small child, my mother left me in the charge of an elderly neighbour so that she could write. My grandmother lived far away in Scotland and no formal childcare existed. Still, my mother wanted to write. In bald economic terms, you could say that she was trying to rejoin the workforce
At rallies, Joe Biden often speaks after his wife. ‘My name is Joe Biden and I’m Jill’s husband,’ he begins. It’s a line he has used for years – a faux humble joke about how much more impressive she is. These days, however, it sounds more like an admission of the real pecking order. In
It won’t be much comfort to Rishi Sunak, but he’s not the only world leader being put to the electoral sword. Joe Biden will be lucky to survive the summer as the Democrats’ presidential nominee after his disastrous debate performance. Almost every opinion poll says he’s losing to Donald Trump. In France, Emmanuel Macron bet
The electoral turmoil in France threatens its status as a world power. Friendly nations are despairing; rivals and enemies are gloating, even circling. France is the world’s seventh-largest economic power, a prominent Nato member, a member of the UN Security Council and the EU’s leader on foreign and defence issues. It has the fifth largest
Palomino, Colombia I’m in a truly wonderful place: the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It’s got more bird species than most of Europe, exquisite cotton-top tamarin monkeys that hop through jungles, and one of the world’s highest coastal mountain ranges. There are empty beaches, shimmering lakes, colonial townscapes and a recent folk memory of terrible gangsters.
On 1 September 2021, six months before his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was speaking at the All-Russian Children’s Centre, known as ‘Ocean’, near the harbour city of Vladivostok. He turned to a topic that obviously haunted him during his long Covid-19 isolation. He told his audience of children that Russia’s population could have
I arrive at Lviv station just before 9 a.m. As the clock strikes, the conductor announces a minute’s silence: a daily commemoration for those who have fallen in the war. But it’s observed only by the railway staff, who stand up to bow their heads. The passengers just carry on. After all, isn’t part of the
Young people are supposed to drink a ton, have a lot of sex, hang out with their friends at every opportunity and vote for the left. Today’s young don’t live up to the stereotype. According to polls, they are one of the most responsible generations on record. Across the West, the share of young adults
Nigel Farage is about to turn British politics upside-down for a third time. His Ukip insurgency forced the Tories to offer the 2016 referendum on the EU and changed history. When his Brexit party pushed Tories into fifth place in our last-ever European parliament elections in 2019, his victory established him as the most effective
The builder who has been working on my house in Burgundy will be voting for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally on Sunday in the first round of the French parliamentary election. So will the electrician. I haven’t asked the plumber, but I suspect I know where his vote will go, given that his assistant is
Nigel Farage says that Britain is ready for a ‘revolt’, and he’s not the only candidate in this election committed to an uprising. The biggest threat to Keir Starmer is coming not from the Tories or the Lib Dems… but from left-wing insurgents. In Bristol Central, Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow culture secretary, could lose to the
Volodymyr Zelensky’s Global Peace Summit in Switzerland was meant to demonstrate the world’s support for Kyiv and underscore Russia’s isolation. It did the opposite. Russia wasn’t invited. China didn’t send a delegation. Other major countries that might influence the Kremlin – including Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UAE – refused to sign
At the age of 66 I feel like a first-time voter. As a member of the House of Lords, I was not allowed to vote in the last three general elections. But I retired from the House in 2021, so democracy here I come. I shall scan the ballot paper with interest: who is standing
So much of life is a search for answers. How to get ahead, how to earn more money, how to be happy. But deep down, is there a part of us that likes not knowing an answer? Do we sometimes want to be baffled? It’s a question that’s come to fascinate me as I’ve embarked
Thanks to an underage relative who’d stolen my driving licence, I recently found myself ID-less at the local Co-op. I know the woman at the checkout reasonably well, so I said hi, enquired about her day and then asked if I could have my usual vape anyway. She had the decency to look shifty and
In downtown Düsseldorf, a district known as ‘the longest bar in the world’, hordes of happy England fans belted out ‘God Save the King’. The Three Lions beat Serbia in nearby Gelsenkirchen and supporters were still celebrating in the days after. Last time Germany hosted the Uefa European Football Championship (aka the Euros) in 1988,
Never mind Labour’s promise not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT – the party will soon be jacking up taxes for everyone. That sums up the Conservatives’ attack line for this election campaign. But in focusing almost wholly on tax, the Tories are missing what threatens to become the real theme of a
‘One of the things that’s coming up over and over again is Islamophobia,’ says Keir Starmer in a campaign video, talking to Sadiq Khan. ‘We need to say over and over again that Islamophobia is intolerable… and I think there’s more we can do in government. There’s certainly stuff online that needs tackling much more
‘Women are more religious because they are socialised to be obedient and passive.’ ‘In Latin America, men often spend 20-40 per cent of the household’s income on alcohol, as well as further spending on tobacco, gambling and prostitutes.’ ‘The Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986 is an example of state-initiated corporate crime.’ All examples taken
