All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
I grew up in the 1980s but in many ways it was more like the 1880s. We lived with my grandmother on the Northumbrian coast and the routine of our days echoed the routines of her youth, perhaps her mother’s and grandmother’s, too. We were like an elephant family in an African game park, following
The Amazon reviews for David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity don’t alert you to the fact that this is a book on theoretical physics. They sound more like a weepy divorcé’s YouTube comments below a Mark Knopfler guitar solo. “I didn’t so much read it,’ says one. “It read me.’ ‘I was honestly sad when
There is no better time to read a Sherlock Holmes story than a winter evening. As the rain lashes against the windows and the fog descends, we can imagine ourselves sitting companionably with the great detective and the good doctor around the Baker Street hearth, waiting for the step of a visitor upon the stair.
Americans are sick of being a punchline for Harry’s frantic attempts to stay relevant
He claimed that most gay men hate women because they hated their overbearing mothers
He oversaw the celebration of an accord between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the newly rebranded ‘Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace’
Erika led a charge for a return to traditional values – while Halle likened the menopause to Covid
Their audience isn’t actually the military, but what remains of the anti-Trump ‘Resistance’
His administration remains fixated with Herbert Hoover economics
Intelligence about the activities of Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese Islamists will rapidly implicate Qatar and Turkey as the Brotherhood’s key international sponsors
A major paper predicting the economy will shrink by 62 percent has been withdrawn
Believing that time and destiny are on his side, Putin is sticking to his maximalist war aims
At this point, YouTube might as well set up a 24-hour livestream from inside the White House, like the sorts of stunts that were popular at the dawn of the personal video era
Alex Vitale wrote ‘the problem is policing itself’
South Africa’s corruption and human rights abuses are deplorable
As Moscow and Washington prepare for talks on the latest version of Donald Trump’s peace plan, leaked recordings of a conversation with US envoy Steve Witkoff have thrown a spotlight on to senior diplomat Yuri Ushakov. It seems he, not Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, is the prime mover behind Russia’s negotiating position. The stature of Lavrov, once
“Tom Stoppard is dead.” For anyone who cares for the theater, the English language, and especially for those of us who knew him, these words are as unthinkable as they are hard to bear. How can such a force of nature, such a generosity of spirit, such a voice of sanity, have fallen silent? And
The killing of Lebanese Hezbollah military chief Haytham Ali Tababtabai by Israel this week reflects how much the balance of power between Jerusalem and the Iran-backed Shia Islamist group has shifted since the year-long war between the two in 2023 and 2024. Yet, paradoxically, Tabatabai’s killing also shows that nothing has been finally settled between
It’s an awkward time in the upper echelons of the Canadian cultural establishment. It’s come to light that influential indigenous author and former broadcaster Thomas King, isn’t actually indigenous at all. It matters, because King has spent much of his 82 years claiming to speak on behalf of the indigenous peoples of North America, and
The President’s top aide resigned after mounting pressure at home and abroad
Yesterday’s release of immigration figures by Britain’s Office of National Statistics didn’t make for particularly pleasant reading. While net migration had fallen to around 200,000 in the 12 months to June, much of this was down to an unusually high exodus of people, with 693,000 leaving the country over the same period. Many of those
The imbroglio over the Ukraine peace deal has revealed some interesting tensions within the Trump administration
Whatever happened to Britain, or the UK, or England, or whatever they’re calling it? We can’t even agree on what it’s called. But what happened to England, the England that, if you’re over 50, you grew up learning about, the England that controlled the world, the England that ran the largest empire in human history at the
Tucker Carlson has a favorite stage persona: the last sane man in the world, now at the end of his tether
How will Americans respond when the idea of ‘mass deportations’ ceases to be an abstraction, and instead comes knocking on the door?
During last week’s excruciating Oval Office make-nice between an insultingly buddy-buddy American President and a fraudulently obsequious New York City mayor-elect, the contest was over which pol was the more patronizing. At one point Trump graciously granted his petitioner permission to call him a “fascist” while clearly implying the guy’s OTT campaign rhetoric had been
“Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” With this stern admonition, the Church has long been a fervent defender of marriage. But as religion has faded as a social force, so too has marriage. Does it much matter if people choose to shack up together instead of tying the knot? What
His response had the rhetorical footprints of Stephen Miller
Proponents of regime change are throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks
Judge Currie’s order is an astonishing power-grab by the judicial branch
Everything turns on security guarantees, which are so far undefined
More than any conflict in history, the Russia-Ukraine war has been about electricity
As an American who respects the constitutional role and historical continuity of the British crown, I view the recent congressional request to interview Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with disgust. In early November, several of the most progressive Democratic members of the US Congress sent a letter asking him to participate in a “transcribed interview” regarding his past
For years, there was a broad consensus in Israel that there was no benefit to reintroducing the death penalty. But now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is reportedly considering supporting a bill which would bring back capital punishment for convicted terrorists. The bill, which has passed its first reading in the Knesset, would introduce the death
