World
Ukraine's plight paints a bleak vision of Europe's future
It is tempting to view Vladimir Putin as a Cold War relic: a former KGB officer who hasn’t got over the…
How long can Japan keep foreigners locked out?
A colleague has posted on the ‘Return to Japan’ Facebook page that his hotel quarantine at Tokyo’s Narita airport is…
Is this the reason America has had such a disastrous pandemic?
If Francis Fukuyama was wrong about the end of history, he was right about one thing. Back in the scary…
Boris buys himself a reprieve
After a difficult few weeks, Boris Johnson has made it to parliamentary recess. Given few expect a no confidence vote to…
What Mitch McConnell knows about January 6
For a party that claims it wants to move on, the Republicans are doing a remarkable job of turning the…
Does the Bodleian really need a race adviser?
It’s a difficult time for libraries. Budget cutbacks, online competitors and rival forms of media all point to a grim…
How democratic are the French elections?
There are just 59 days to go until voters turn out for the first round of the French presidential election…
How high could interest rates go?
The last time that US inflation hit 7.5 per cent, Ronald Reagan was a recently-elected president. And he, older readers…
Is scrapping self-isolation safe?
Is now the right time to lift all Covid restrictions, as the Prime Minister suggested he might do from 24…
Women-only carriages are a bonkers idea
Here we go again. Another suggestion, this time by the SNP transport minister, Jenny Gilruth, to introduce women-only carriages on…
Boris vs the Blob: the real reason John Major can't stand the PM
The embattled denizens of Downing Street must be quaking in their loafers as another incoming missile streaks in. This one…
In praise of Deborah Lipstadt
The United States Senate is not a body commonly associated with alacrity but its sluggishness in considering the nomination of…
Teach kids to code? They're better off learning languages
A leading artificial intelligence professor has said that children should learn to write software. According to professor Michael Bronstein of…
‘Harder than heroin’: America’s silent benzo epidemic
“Imagine taking a pill that makes you instantly feel relaxed, and then imagine that when you stop taking it, you…
A working-class liberty movement
We begin today in the Canadian Parliament, which has its own version of prime minister’s questions. And while it isn’t…
PMQs: Boris looks chipper for a man on the brink
And still they try. MPs are desperate to get the Prime Minister to quit, live on TV, during PMQs. As…
Carry on Carrie: why I've changed my mind about our 'first lady'
Who exactly is the Prime Minister’s wife? To some, she’s Carrie Antoinette, the extravagant demander of gold wallpaper who spent…
Why is the BBC saying Boris’s Savile claims are false?
Is Boris Johnson’s claim that Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile ‘false’? The BBC certainly thinks so. During the…
PMQs: Boris's anger over new partygate picture
The takeaway moment from today’s PMQs came not in the main exchanges between Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer but…
Can Macron really lecture Putin about democracy?
A penny for the thoughts of Vladimir Putin on Monday as he stared at Emmanuel Macron from the end of…
Adele is right to take a pop at gender neutral awards
Adele’s triumph at the Brits last night is splashed all over the internet. She won best song, best album, and best…
Lock them up? Not in Sturgeon's Scotland
One of the great disappointments of devolution has been the failure of the Scottish parliament to pursue novel ways of…
Sacrificing the Uighurs to the Olympics
It’s hard to say what was most distressing about the opening days of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The lament of…
Will Starmer apologise for his slur against Boris?
Well I don’t know about you, but I definitely heard a nasty slur flung from one leader to another during…
China breaks new records in the Surveillance Olympics
Never before have the participants in a major sporting event been so closely monitored as in this Winter Olympics in…
