Ukraine
Republican congressmen are loyal enough to storm committee meetings for Trump
Who knew that House Republicans would embrace civil disobedience? About two dozen legislators led by Republican firebrand Matt Gaetz stormed…
John Bolton, avenger
President Trump may be pulling out of Syria, but it’s bombs away in Washington. John Bolton’s likening Rudy Giuliani to…
What Pelosi really wants from impeachment
The most important thing to know about Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is this: it is not about removing President Trump now; it…
Whistleblowers give Trump a taxing time
Oops. Donald Trump has another nettlesome whistleblower on his hands that he’s going to have to try and drown out. …
Donald Trump’s blunderful presidency
There’s a story about Donald Trump during the 2016 election campaign that, apocryphal or not, explains why he’s now facing…
Brace yourselves for the impeachment frenzy
We’re told over and over by fairweather Constitutional scholars that impeachment is a ‘political process.’ Which is to say: it’s not…
Impeachment is a bad bet for everyone
Is Donald Trump going to be impeached? Nancy Pelosi is not giving herself much room to maneuver: once a Democratic-led…
Impeachment shows the Democrats are addicted to chaos
Democrats have long criticized Donald Trump’s addiction to Twitter, his limited rolling-news attention span and the narcissism of his reality…
Kiev won’t chicken out over Trump’s desired Biden probe
For several years Donald Trump has depicted himself as a kind of Roger Thornhill, the advertising executive in Alfred Hitchcock’s…
Dau is the strangest and most unsettling piece of art to come out of Russia in years
Dau is not so much a film as a document of a mass human experiment. The result is dark, brilliant…
Does Putin intend to go to war with Ukraine?
On Europe’s eastern borderlands, trouble is brewing. Two headstrong leaders — Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko —…
Britten’s War Requiem almost sounded like a masterpiece – but it’s isn’t, is it?
‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ We’ve heard a lot, lately, of the knell that tolls through the…
When trendy ideas capture the ruling elite, democracy can go hang
If social media manipulation has influenced elections, and dark money has influenced our elected representatives, then we are already on…
How to rig an election
Andrés Sepúlveda sleeps behind bombproof doors in a maximum-security prison in central Bogota, Colombia. When travelling to judicial hearings or…
Ethnic cleansing and the horrors of Buczacz
I thought I knew the history of the years 1914 to 1945: the first world war and the terrible casualties…
Huge audiences, gongs galore and Broadway awaits Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie opened at the Sheffield Crucible in February for a standard three-week run. The show is based…
A decade of famine and purges: the murderous 1930s under Stalin
He stood five feet seven in his boots — the same height as Napoleon and an inch shorter than Hitler.…
Navigating a new world
In the 1890s, when British-owned ships carried 70 per cent of all seaborne trade, legislators worried about the proportion of…
The hunger
In 1933 my aunt Lenina Bibikova was eight years old. She lived in Kharkov, Ukraine. Every morning a polished black…
Trump’s eastern front
Kiev There is no lavatory paper to be found in government buildings in Kiev. Plan ahead, locals advise, if you…
The joy of the Proms
Summer nights, hot and humid, mean just one thing — it’s Proms season again. Sore feet, sweaty armpits, queuing outside…
Why Nato is more important than the EU for Britain
The Leave campaign was right to pour scorn on David Cameron’s warning this week that Brexit could threaten Europe’s military…
Andrey Kurkov’s The Bickford Fuse is a satirical masterpiece
Whimsy, satire and deadpan humour: welcome to the world of Andrey Kurkov. If you know Kurkov’s work, The Bickford Fuse…
Whoever invented the referendum deserves a kicking
My favourite quote of the year so far comes from the author Fay Weldon. ‘If this were an all-woman society,’…
Farty, smelly and in love with Putin? You must be middle-aged
There are things that happen when you grow older — bad things, harbingers of death and decay. Past the age of…
