Ukraine

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, rang Jean-Claude Juncker to congratulate him on being nominated by EU heads of government as president of the European Commission. Mr Cameron had insisted the question should go to a vote at an EU summit, where 26 voted for Mr Juncker and two against: he and Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary. Mr Cameron announced a review into why, in the face of resistance to antibiotics, few anti-microbial drugs have been introduced in recent years. Sir Elton John came out in favour of gay marriage for clergy: ‘If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, responded to the triumph of the UK Independence Party in the European elections (which left the Conservatives in third place for the first time ever in a national poll) by having dinner with other European leaders in Brussels, which he said had ‘got too big, too bossy, too interfering’. Ukip secured 4,352,051 votes, increasing the number of its seats by 11 to 24; Labour took 20, an increase of seven; the Conservatives 19, a reduction of seven. The Liberal Democrats plummeted, narrowly capturing one seat (down from 11). Even the Greens did better, increasing their seats from two to three. Nigel Farage, the leader

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said on television that he was ‘bullish’ about negotiating change for Britain in the European Union, but that there would be a referendum on membership by the end of 2017 ‘whether or not I have successfully negotiated’. In a telephone poll by Lord Ashcroft the Conservatives were found to be ahead for the first time since 2012, on 34 per cent, with Labour at 32, Ukip 15 and the Liberal Democrats 9. An ICM poll said much the same. In the first quarter since visa restrictions were lifted, 140,000 Romanians and Bulgarians were employed in Britain, not counting dependants. Unemployment fell by 133,000 to

As rebels, terrorists, fascists, foreign forces, activists, separatists, militants, militias, nationalist groups, Neo-Nazis, Right Sector forces — take your pick — spread civil war across the increasingly lawless cities of eastern Ukraine, a pro-Russian commander helpfully commented ,‘We have God in our hearts, and they have cockroaches in their brains’. In 431 bc the so-called ‘Peloponnesian war’ broke out between Athens and Sparta. In 427 bc, pro-Spartan oligarchs attempted to drive pro-Athenian democrats out of Corcyra (Corfu), as a result of which civil war spread rapidly from city to city. It was described with horror by the contemporary historian Thucydides, who imagined war as ‘a schoolmaster in brutality’, with both sides taking lessons

Home The British economy grew by 0.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2014, disappointing hotheads who’d expected 1 per cent. It was 3.1 per cent bigger than a year earlier, but 0.6 per cent smaller than in 2008. Pfizer, the American pharmaceutical company, said it wanted to take over AstraZeneca, with a £60 billion bid that would make it the biggest ever foreign takeover of a British-based company. The Labour party said it was leaving the Co-op Bank and taking its £1.2 million overdraft elsewhere. UK Financial Investments, which manages the Treasury’s 81 per cent stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland, blocked a plan for 200 per cent bonuses. A film version of Dad’s

Possibly because his oratory is no match for his much-displayed pectoral muscles, the speeches of Vladimir Putin are seldom reported at length in the West. But as a means of understanding the manoeuvres in eastern Ukraine this week, there is no better starting point than the speech he made to the Duma when the Russian parliament annexed Crimea. Lest anyone thinks his words have been enriched by an over-imaginative reporter, the translation is provided by the Kremlin itself. Speaking of the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, he asserted, ‘Russia realised that it was not simply robbed, it was plundered… Millions of people went to bed in one country