Britain

We in the Middle East have been watching Britain with increased fascination. No, not because of the drama involving Meghan and Harry. But because of how the United Kingdom speaks to us across so many issues.  Its renewed independence with Brexit, the unstinting loyalty of Her Majesty the Queen to duty and country, the miraculous vaccine innovation and delivery success, David Attenborough’s warning to the UN on climate change, JK Rowling’s defence of women.  Despite pioneering change in the modern world, Britain has conserved its long tradition of the rule of law. Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Dominic Raab, and Priti Patel – all children or grandchildren of migrants to Britain

As non-apology apologies go, it was right up there with the best of them. Speaking to MEPs today, the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen accepted that some ‘mistakes had been made’ in the procurement of vaccines against Covid-19.  Apparently the Commission had been a little too late authorising some of the shots, it had been a tad too optimistic about production, and not everything had gone according to plan. But, heck, these things happen, she went on to argue. And perhaps most crucially of all, the alternative would have been far, far worse.  ‘I can’t even imagine if a few big players had rushed to it

Hold on to your hats. In recent years, the New York Times has rarely if ever missed an opportunity to bash Brexit Britain. Whether it’s spreading false claims over ‘mix and match vaccines’, identifying Britons as mutton-munchers or simply linking the UK’s decision to leave the EU with bad Covid etiquette.  So Mr S must admit he nearly choked on his cornflakes on seeing the latest front page of America’s self-styled paper of record. Not only was the subject the UK, but the report was a positive one – with the headline: ‘In vaccines, UK has a pandemic win at last’.  While the report still managed to find apparent downsides to a fast vaccination programme

It’s been just over a year since the British people finally squashed a hard-left push for power under the dismal but unyieldingly dangerous leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. On 12 December 2019 we dodged a collective bullet. But Corbynism lasted almost half a decade; it reshaped the national conversation. As we enter 2021 it’s worth considering what it has taught us about our politics and what its legacy might be for Britain. First off, Corbynism provided something much-needed: a reminder that the left does not have a monopoly on virtue, or even on that vague but actually pretty important political quality – niceness. The dangers of an unfettered right are a

From the very beginning, the whole question of British and European integration has turned fundamentally on the question of sovereignty, as Ursula von der Leyen accepted this afternoon. Those who favoured membership then and now dismiss sovereignty as a meaningless or outdated notion in a world of interconnection. The events of the last four years, and perhaps even more the last few days, should have made them think again. The question of fishing had the merit of making sovereignty concrete and understandable, which is why it became suddenly so crucial. You may decide to give or lend certain rights or powers to others, but who makes that decision? Who has

The announcement that Brexit negotiations are set to continue will no doubt alarm Brexiteers who fear compromise, sell-out and fudge. In fairness to Brussels however, they set out their stall early on and stuck to the script. The EU is unwilling – as they see it – to let Britain have its cake and eat it, by having large access to the EU’s market while not being a member or leaving the club and not ‘paying a price’. This might explain what could otherwise be seen as an unduly recalcitrant attitude. It also explains why any deal which the EU agrees to is likely to be on its terms. The

There’s a group called Palestine Action whose raison d’être is to throw red paint over the British offices of Elbit, an Israeli high-tech arms company, in an orchestrated attempt to hound it out of the country. Five members of the ‘direct-action network’, which has links to Extinction Rebellion, armed themselves with paint pots and climbed onto the roof of the Elbit offices in Staffordshire in September. Activists also targeted sites in London, where they not only hurled paint over buildings, but also over several Jewish people, who had gathered to stage a peaceful counter-demonstration. Quite why the protesters choose to target an Israeli arms manufacturer rather than, say, a British