Greece
Charles Moore’s notes: Does Chuck Blazer exist?
We in the West all hate Sepp Blatter, so we pay too little attention to the manner in which the…
Portrait of the week
Home A Bill to enable a referendum on whether voters wanted Britain to ‘remain’ in the European Union figured in…
Which behaved worse: callous Thomas Cook or cynical Barclays?
Which is worse, morally and reputationally — to be Thomas Cook, shamed by its refusal to show proper human concern,…
Portrait of the week
Home The country went to the polls. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, prepared by going around with his sleeves rolled…
Why Yanis Varoufakis is my politician of the year
After the heat of battle: the accolades, the recriminations, the telling of history by the victors. It’s six months early…
Portrait of the week
Home The prospect of a parliamentary alliance between Labour and the Scottish National Party injected an element of fear into…
Portrait of the week
Home Tony Blair, the former prime minister, opposed a referendum on membership of the EU. In a speech at Sedgefield…
A Greek default is coming – as soon as next month
Bored with the election? Switch over to the Greek debt drama. In this week’s cliffhanger, silver-tongued finance minister Yanis Varoufakis…
Here’s what a real reform of business rates would look like
Of all the measures talked up ahead of the Budget, the reannouncement of a ‘radical’ review of the business rates…
Where Alcibiades once walked, amateur tax spies are trying to entrap poor pistachio-sellers
Athens I am walking on a wide pedestrian road beneath the Acropolis within 200 meters of the remaining Themistoclean wall…
Grim, generous, decaying and hip: the paradoxical charms of Athens
My first visit to Athens as a student gave me a set of impressions that the present crisis has only…
Old age is not for sissies
The secret of eternal youth, according to Alice Roosevelt Longworth, is arrested development, and the penny dropped last week. The…
Paul Mason’s diary: My Greek TV drama
It’ll be a Skype interview, says the producer from Greek television, and not live. In TV-speak that usually means not…
Let Greece leave the eurozone
To listen to Greek government ministers addressing the outside world during their breaks from negotiations with eurozone leaders this week,…
Bet on a swift Grexit
‘Will Greece exit the eurozone in 2015?’ Paddy Power was pricing ‘yes’ at 3-to-1 on Tuesday, with 5-to-2 on another…
The future was looking bleak for a poor little Greek Boy who had turned 30, but then I met Arnaud de Borchgrave
I hate to start with a cliché, but Count Arnaud de Borchgrave d’Altena, who died in Washington DC last week,…
Taki’s recipe for the survival of the Greek nation
The good news is that a Greek suppository is about to relieve the EU’s economic constipation. The bad is that…
Portrait of the week
Home Party leaders mercilessly launched 100 days of campaigning before the general election on 7 May. David Cameron, the Conservative…
Nigel Farage’s diary: How I survived Dry January
Dry January is tougher than it sounds. Well, for me anyway. It’s now been some 28 days since I’ve had…
Syriza could have learned from Aristophanes. Instead it's headed for Greek tragedy
The German chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed her desire for Greece to remain part of the European ‘story’. Since Greeks…
What’s good about austerity (whatever the Greeks think)
The only question I remember from my Oxford moral philosophy paper was ‘What is integrity and is it a virtue?’…
Europe’s crisis is Cameron’s opportunity
For Angela Merkel, it’s a crisis. For David Cameron, it’s an opportunity
Why the Greek election could decide Britain's next government
Before the eurozone crisis, Greek elections didn’t receive much attention in Westminster. At the moment, however, the polls from Athens…
The eurozone is strong enough to kick out Greece if Syriza wins
Ever since European Central Bank president Mario Draghi declared himself ready, in July 2012, ‘to do whatever it takes to…
Europe will reconcile with Russia, and soon. It can’t afford not to
The West will have to drop sanctions on Russia – or face another global economic crash
