Politics

Americans increasingly suspect that the entire social order is a sort of elaborate swindle. Billions of their taxpayer dollars were found to have gone to mysterious “learing centers” with no students. Federal agencies have paid $2.8 trillion in such mistaken transfers since 2003, according to government figures. There is serious discussion about whether a clique of pedophiles was ensconced at the highest levels of society. When asked, “Do you think the system is rigged in America?” 70 percent of citizens reply “Yes.” They are waiting for someone to tell them what has gone wrong and who is to blame. So naturally, America’s populist movement has decided that what the moment

Peros Banhos on the Chagos archipelago looks like your basic tropical island paradise: turquoise waters and golden sands, waves lapping on a palm-fringed beach. But step off the strip of sand into the wall of green behind, and you’re enveloped by mosquitoes. The old well you were counting on for water is a shallow puddle. And the silver fish between your feet dart past a net, despite not having seen one in 50 years. The jungle has grown over the old British colonial buildings, and the jungle is a harsh place. Four Chagos Islanders have been here more than a week, along with the man who brought them, Adam Holloway

Every Friday, it seems, words spills from Washington that Donald Trump has ordered an imminent strike against Iran. He likes to initiate dramatic military action in the weekend early hours, when markets are closed and the media-consuming public can wake up to big news.  So far, despite the presence of significant US military assets in the region, Trump has resisted the urge to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran – preferring instead to pursue a diplomatic settlement with the regime in Tehran.   This weekend could be different. This morning, the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, sent an email to his staff saying those who wanted to leave “should

A good quiz question in the year 2050 will go something like this: “True or false, the ‘green’ in the ‘Green Party’ originally referred to the environment.” By this point, the etymological origins of Britain’s sectional Islamic party will be as obscure as the relationship between British Conservatives and 17th century Irish bandits. A key milestone, our mid-century quiz regular will inform his teammates, was the 2026 Gorton and Denton by-election in which the Greens stood neck and neck in a three-way race with Labour and Reform before voting opened. If decades of generous immigration policies have created constituencies where people vote along religious lines, there is nothing to stop someone