What Yoshihide Suga wants from Joe Biden
Suga is a prickly character, with limited people skills and little experience in foreign affairs
Politics
Read about the latest political news, views and analysis
Saturday
Friday
The EU needs to stop playing politics with law
The Lugano convention – part of a tapestry of complicated international law agreements ensuring the courts of one country recognise the courts of another – has a dull name but it matters a great deal. Since the EU referendum, the convention has played a small role in the great internecine conflict between Britain and Brussels. Much energy has been wasted in this series of pointless bust-ups. And now, the EU is determined to use the Lugano convention – a playing field it claims to control – to ensure Britain pays a price for Brexit, by effectively blocking us from rejoining the convention. Why does this matter? Because without the convention,
A tale of two Afghanistan withdrawals
The media has mastered the art of the thinly sourced bombshell — soon followed by the subtle retraction
Thursday
Woke capitalism’s Texas showdown
The proposed voting reforms are ‘racist’ solely in the eyes of those who spot racism in throat-clearings and dog toys
Britain is in danger of repeating its post-war mistakes
In search of wisdom about how an officious government reluctantly relaxes its grip after an emergency, I stumbled on a 1948 newsreel clip of Harold Wilson when he was president of the Board of Trade. It’s a glimpse of long-forgotten and brain-boggling complexity in the rationing system. ‘We have taken some clothing off the ration altogether,’ he boasts, posing as a munificent liberator. ‘From shoes to bathing costumes, and from oilskins to body belts and children’s raincoats. Then we’ve reduced the points on such things as women’s coats and woollen garments generally and… on men’s suits.’ Does this remind you of anything? One day in November, George Eustice, the environment
Joe Biden’s party is over
Washington, DC The Democratic party is dying. That may be hard to believe since Democrats control both houses of Congress and won the last presidential election with a record 81 million votes. But the exiguous margins of their hold on the House and Senate, with fewer than 51 per cent of the seats in either chamber, tell another story, as does the desperation of their struggle to abolish the filibuster and federalise election law. Those policy aims are of a piece with dreams of ‘packing’ the Supreme Court with left-liberal justices — and packing the Senate too, by turning tiny Democratic bastions into new states. The left wing of the
Big Tech bans people who discuss election fraud. That’s a bad idea
In some cases, conversations about potential voter fraud can provide greater clarity
Wednesday
Do black lives really matter to Twitter celebrities?
The blue-checks seem desperate to fan the flames of racial hatred
Tuesday
The perpetual pandemic
Why politicians, pundits and ‘experts’ don’t want COVID to end
Who let the dogs out?
The politics of relocating pups
Crime and no punishment in Minneapolis
The Biden era is much like the Trump era — you just hear more cant from the leadership
Monday
Biden backs extending regulation of fentanyl ‘lookalikes’
The drug war remains a sensitive topic for the administration
Biden is wrong on Putin
Denying that your political enemy has a soul is nothing less than a regression to vulgar racism
Thursday
Three cheers for federalism!
We should defer to the states more often
The relentless campaign to smear Ron DeSantis
CBS picked on the Ron guy
Wednesday
Asa Hutchinson commits cable news seppuku
Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Arkansas anymore
The narcissism of Pramila Jayapal
The congresswoman sees herself as boldly defying the monstrous forces of oppression aligned against her
Major League Baseball has made a major mistake
Liberal activists and journalists think their Twitter accounts reflect the national mood
Tuesday
Does Pete Snyder really oppose gun control?
Snyder is currently polling second in the GOP primary for Virginia governor
Monday
Johnson is in trouble over vaccine passports – and it’s showing
The biggest question facing Boris Johnson is the future of his so-called vaccine passports. A few months ago, the idea was dismissed by No. 10 as ‘discriminatory’. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said: ‘We are not a papers-carrying country.’ But now, without debate or democratic scrutiny, vaccine passports are quickly heading from unthinkable to unstoppable. Today, No. 10 released more details — hence the questions Johnson is facing. But bizarrely, the Prime Minister was unable to admit to any of it, and pretended to be confused by what he was being asked. This matters. If he cannot acknowledge his flagship scheme, leaving such an indefensible gulf between what his government has just published and what he has just said, he may already be
