World
Oxford’s grand new building reveals the university’s misplaced priorities
The Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in Oxford is well and truly open; there was an Open Day this weekend.…
The targeting of Trump tells its own tale
“I can’t imagine that there’s any profession that is more dangerous,” Donald Trump told reporters just hours after the shooting incident…
Britain has a Prime Minister problem
I wrote not all that long ago about this disconcerting situation we’re in where the only news story the Prime…
Net zero and the myth of German efficiency
Losing one energy source may be misfortune. Losing two is carelessness. And losing three is alarming if you’re the world’s…
Book publishers must fight back against AI
AI writing is God-awful. It appears intelligent at first glance, empty at second. It possesses the insufferable buoyancy of a…
Sunday shows round-up: shots fired at the White House correspondent’s dinner
Shots fired at White House correspondents’ dinner On Saturday night, shots were fired as an armed suspect charged security at…
The true cost of Chernobyl isn’t what you think
On the morning of the 28 April 1986, a worker at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden set off…
Why the ban on Palestine Action should be upheld
Next week, the Court of Appeal will hear Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s appeal against a High Court decision that the…
Immigration has turned the Netherlands into a tinderbox
To many Dutch voters, it came as no great surprise. This week, the Senate rejected a package of immigration laws…
London is becoming the home of climate litigation
The British high court is currently preparing to hear a case that will be conducted in accordance with Filipino law.…
What I heard inside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
The evening had started pleasantly enough. The most alarming thing about the party I was attending in the Hilton Hotel…
Shots fired at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Donald and Melania Trump entered the hall at 8:16 to cheers and applause. “Hail to the Chief” was followed by…
Trump believes Britain has betrayed the SAS
The Special Air Service (SAS), Special Boat Service (SBS) and other elements of UK Special Forces are held in the…
Ukraine won’t give up at the behest of Donald Trump
Four years after President Putin bragged that he would “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine, it still stands free. Talking to locals, expats,…
What Prince Harry has in common with Boris Johnson
It has, on balance, been one of Prince Harry’s busier fortnights in recent times. As if to upstage his father’s…
Friedrich Merz has become the new Angela Merkel
Germany’s conservatives voted for decisiveness after the dreary Scholz years. Instead, they got another moderator-in-chief – one very much like…
Desmond Morris was a master of provocative truths
When the recently deceased zoologist Desmond Morris chose the title for his 1967 book – The Naked Ape – that…
Russia’s university recruitment drive is an act of desperation
Despite the Kremlin’s insistence that its war machine remains robust, recruitment figures into the Russian army tell a different story.…
Were Neanderthals capable of complex speech?
In The Inheritors, Willliam Golding’s second novel, Neanderthals utter only a few short words and think entirely with images. A…
Artificial Intelligence will bore us to death before it kills us
Now that MI5 has been called in to protect us from rogue AI systems and Anthropic has opted not to…
The Palantir manifesto doesn’t go far enough
Tech companies like Palantir now find themselves in a bind. Wanting government contracts, they have a reason to stay politically…
It’s over for Keir Starmer
Politics has calmed down again after a week of rare frenzy, even by the standards of the past decade. Next…
The contempt Trump feels for his NATO allies is mutual
The war in Iran has revealed plenty about America’s ability to inflict damage on its enemies, Tehran’s capacity to resist…
The evil of the Brighton beach gang rape
Brighton beach, swelled by sun-seekers on hot summer days, becomes one big after party after dark. Revellers from the seafront…
Why Trump is threatening the Falklands
There are still those who argue that President Trump’s aggressive, impulsive and inconsistent foreign policy is radical and disruptive, and…
