digital

Monday

digital

Lula faces an uphill battle in Brazil

The Brazilian presidential election yesterday was billed as one of the most consequential in decades – not just for the country but for the future of the planet. Anyone paying attention to either the climate crisis or the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, could hardly quibble with that description. The good news is that the Amazon can expect a breather. After four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s often destructive policies, the right-wing incumbent is being replaced. His leftist challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva squeaked home with 50.9 per cent of the vote in a bitter contest that ended with the smallest winning margin since the end of the military dictatorship in the 1980s.

digital

What visitors to the Qatar World Cup can expect

In his first interview since being reappointed, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly laid down some clear diplomatic water between his party and Labour – confirming that, unlike Keir Starmer, he would attend this winter’s Qatar World Cup. The Foreign Secretary won’t be alone. The Football Association expects that some 10,000 England fans will make the journey to a World Cup widely regarded as the most controversial in history (though Prince William, the FA’s president, will reportedly not be among them). So what awaits them when they get there? If the headlines so far are anything to go by, they could be in for a rude awakening.

digital

In defence of booze

Once upon a time, well within living memory, a free-born Britisher could drink as much as he or she liked and smoke with a carefree abandon – all within working hours, and even without leaving their desk. You may remember elevenses – immortalised in those moments when M briefs Bond in the 007 films and the decanter comes out. That’s how people did a business meeting once, before Starbucks and 15 types of coffee. And then there was lunch. This could begin with a pint of beer or a steep gin and tonic, before some wine, and then perhaps a glass of port or brandy. Water? Kah! That’s for rinsing the glasses, not going in them. Nowadays, if you suggest having a glass of wine at a work lunch people will look at you like you’ve just offered their toddler a line of cocaine.

digital

Time to check out: hotel horrors on screen

From Fawlty Towers to Psycho, hotel horrors have long provided a rich seam of material for big screen and small. HBO’s The White Lotus, which returns to Sky Atlantic tonight for its second series, swept the board at last month’s Emmys, with ten wins in the limited series category for its sharp social satire set at an upmarket holiday resort. Visiting the establishments you’ve seen on screen isn’t always a good move. I was excited to check in to Rome’s Grand Hotel Plaza, which has been used as a location for movies including L’innocente (1976), Gangs of New York (2002), Ocean’s Twelve (2004), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) and John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017). But I soon discovered why my suite was so heavily discounted.

Sunday

digital

It’s not too late for footballers to boycott Qatar’s World Cup

If you go to Fifa’s website, you’ll find all sorts of things to make your heart sing and tears spring unbidden to your eyes. It’s not just about football, you see, and the making of obscene amounts of money from it. It’s about values. It’s about making football a beacon of good in this wicked world. There are pages of material about how ‘Fifa has been able to use the global popularity of football to spread positive social messages to wider society’. If you took all this at face value you’d have the impression that football is the means, rather than the end – as if the enrichment of Fifa’s high-ups, the commercial partnerships and the rapacious brand-policing were all just side-effects of its mission to make the world a better place.

digital

Sunday roundup: Gove backs Braverman

Michael Gove – Suella Braverman ‘is the right person’ to be Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s return to the government benches has become a lightning rod for criticism of Rishi Sunak’s new administration. She had been sacked only a few days prior to her reappointment, thanks to her sending an email containing sensitive information to the wrong person. Michael Gove, who has himself made a comeback as the Levelling Up Secretary, defended Braverman when challenged by Laura Kuenssberg, who was keen to share an inconvenient follow-up email: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgTltFKpxFE Braverman ‘did not ignore legal advice’ Sophy Ridge was also keen to raise the issue of immigration, especially relating to the Manston Processing Centre in Kent.

digital

Who’s afraid of ideology?

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is widely considered less dangerous than Liz Truss because he is less ideological. For many journalists, Liz Truss was the personification of ideology – and therefore vile. The Guardian’s Rafael Behr summed up the mood when he said: ‘Liz Truss’s Tories are higher than ever on ideology – and they’re refusing to sober up.’ He claimed that ‘ideology is a drug for Tory leaders’. Critics of the Conservative party regard the word ideology as a term of abuse to be hurled against the toxic Tories. Sunak is less despised because he is seen as ‘pragmatic’ rather than ideological. Yet the coupling of Truss with ideological zealotry actually serves as testimony to the political illiteracy of our commentariat.

Saturday

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Rishi raids ITV (again)

The revolving door in No/ 10 seems to turn even faster these days, given the news that Downing Street will shortly be greeting its fourth director of communications in eight months. Amber de Botton will be next to sip from what has become widely regarded as a poisoned chalice, following the departure of Adam Jones, Guto Harri and Jack Doyle since February. Let's hope she gets more time in the role. She at least comes with plenty of experience. De Botton is well-regarded among the lobby – judging from the Twitter reaction to her appointment – and will bring senior broadcast knowledge to the team, working closely with long standing Sunak aide Nerissa Chesterfield. This is not the first time de Botton has been connected with a No.

digital

Nicola Sturgeon’s euro muddle

The First Minister could not have been clearer. Asked about the possibility of Scotland joining the euro, she said Scotland 'would not qualify'. 'I don't think it is the right option for Scotland,' she added. The question was put to her earlier this month at a press conference where she presented her new paper on the economic case for Scotland exiting the UK. It was a significant statement, because new entrants to the European Union must commit to adopting the euro. 'All EU member states, except Denmark, are required to adopt the euro and join the euro area,' says the European Commission.  Unsurprisingly, senior officials in Brussels were not impressed.

digital

What’s wrong with being an apocalypse denier?

This week, on BBC radio, I made a confession: I am a denier. Not a climate-change denier – an apocalypse denier. I thought it was a clever point – to distinguish between my acceptance that climate change is happening and my scepticism that it will imminently bring about the fiery destruction of Earth. Apparently not. You should have heard the intakes of breath. Apparently even apocalypse denialism is unacceptable in polite society now. It was on Nicky Campbell’s show on 5 Live. I was up against a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil and the question was whether that movement’s art-splattering and road-blocking antics are justifiable. I made my point – that Just Stop Oil strikes me as an out-of-touch movement that is mad to agitate for less energy production during an energy crisis.

digital

It’s time to stop turning the clocks back

British households could save £400 a year if we left the clocks alone this weekend instead of putting them back an hour, according to Professor Aoife Foley, an energy expert at Queen’s University Belfast. The logic is simple. We use a lot more electricity in the evening than in the morning. That is why daylight savings time was introduced in Europe and North America during the First World War. Some countries later abandoned it only to bring it back during the Second World War and during the energy crisis of the 1970s. Every time the reason was the same: it saves precious energy. As Britain and Europe grapple with an energy crisis going into winter, it is surprising that so few people have suggested the easy fix of year-round British Summer Time (BST).

digital

Putin’s war is tearing Russian families apart

Renata is a young paediatrician from St Petersburg who, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, keeps crying at work. Her colleagues are baffled: why is she sobbing over Ukrainian deaths when she doesn’t have relatives there? She’s surrounded, she says, by ‘complete incomprehension’ from her fellow-doctors, ‘and I’m quietly going insane.’ Her mother Vinera, a school headteacher, advocates the war, believes the West has its eye on Russia’s ‘inexhaustible wealth’ and that it envies Russia’s people for their ‘spiritual’ values. Renata no longer goes home to visit Vinera: ‘I find her disgusting, she’s a hypocrite, I’m disgusted by her views.’ Galya is a violinist from Samara, locked in a failing marriage to Vladimir, a former state investigator.

digital

Canada’s forgotten capital: why Ottawa is worth a visit

Ziplining and beekeeping may not be your typical city break activities – but then again, Ottawa is not your typical city. Sandwiched between the more sought-after Toronto and Montreal, it’s also not typically at the top of travellers’ wish-lists. When I started planning my visit, the question I kept being asked was ‘why go there?’. But by the time I came back, I was asking ‘why don’t more people go there?’. With its history, architecture, museums, river walks and cycle paths, Ottawa offers the best bits of both a city break and countryside retreat. The Canadian capital is best described as a rural metropolis – imagine picking up the City of Westminster and putting it in the middle of the South Downs.

digital

Can Rishi really rescue the Tories?

There is a sweet spot for party leaders in which two key conditions are fulfilled. First, the leader’s party is ahead in the polls. Secondly, the leader is more popular than the party. At the end of his first week in office, Rishi Sunak can at least be content that the latter of these conditions has been met. Ultimately though it will be the former that determines the result of the next general election. On this score there is a huge amount of lost ground still to claw back, with the Conservatives trailing Labour by an average of more than 20 points.

digital

In defence of VAR

There isn’t much that unites the fractious, dysfunctional football family. But in the UK, at least, there is something most fans seem to agree on: VAR – Video Assistant Referee – is awful. The technology, introduced to limit errors and controversy, appears to be having the opposite effect. Critics speak of VAR as if it were a malevolent spirit tormenting players, supporters, and coaches alike. Its frequent manifestations usually involve lengthy pauses resulting in seemingly random judgements. Onlookers – particularly those watching in the stands – are often left perplexed and enraged. This week, in a classic VAR episode, Spurs were denied a thrilling, potentially lucrative, last second winner in their Champion’s League tie with Sporting Lisbon – thanks to VAR.

Friday

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Sunak should acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

When Liz Truss’s premiership came to an abrupt end, it appeared to spell doom for a historic policy shift raised in her leadership campaign. In a break from a widely held but diplomatically fruitless consensus, Truss stood on a platform of reviewing the location of the British embassy in Israel.  That legation is still based in Tel Aviv despite Israel proclaiming Jerusalem its capital in December 1949 and placing its parliament, government and Supreme Court there. Successive UK governments have deemed Jerusalem a ‘corpus separatum’ and withheld recognition, noting only Israel’s ‘de facto’ authority over the western portions. This is despite Israel exercising all the functions of a sovereign in Jerusalem.

digital

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover isn’t so bad

It’s finally happened. After months of legal wrangling, Twitter has fallen. All hail King Elon; the 'bird is freed'. The executives running the show have been defenestrated, including CEO Parag Agrawal and head of safety Vijaya Gadda. Around the virtual watering hole, skittish packs of activists watch nervously as the ground shakes; Donald Trump, the biggest of the Twitter big beasts is set to make his return. And isn’t the wailing glorious? Well yes, but. Basing your politics around things your opponents dislike is a trap that it’s easy to fall into. Conservatism is not a negative image of progressivism, but an alternative philosophical perspective with its own positive vision of what the world should look like.

digital

Farage gets his fortune (and freedom)

He's had his money worries in the past, but life seems to be pretty sweet for Nigel Farage right now. Less than eighteen months after announcing his retirement from frontline politics – claiming there was 'no money' in it – Farage's fortunes seem to be on the up. Newly published accounts for his company, Thorn In The Side Ltd, show he increased his total net assets by almost half a million pounds in a year, rising by more than £480,000 from just over £666,000 up until May 2021 to more than £1.1 million until May 2022. Now installed as the face of GB News, the former Ukip leader has developed a lucrative sideline in Cameo gigs.

digital

Sunak is right to stay away from COP27

Rishi Sunak deserves one of those ‘climate champion’ badges they hand out at primary schools. Why? Because he is not going to fly to the COP27 summit in Egypt – thereby saving 1.65 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to the World Land Trust’s carbon calculator. So what if Ed Miliband thinks it is a failure of leadership? There is no point in any UK Prime Minister travelling to any more of these summits when the world’s largest carbon emitters have made it perfectly plain that they have no intention of copying Britain’s example. They will not be putting themselves under legal commitment to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050 or any other hard date. Xi Jinping, whose country is responsible for a third of the world’s emissions, won’t be going.

digital

Are Sunak and Hunt planning a windfall tax grab?

When Rishi Sunak entered No. 10 on Tuesday, he paid lip service to the aims of his predecessor. Liz Truss ‘was not wrong to want to improve growth in this country’, he said outside Downing Street. But ‘mistakes were made’ which is why he was installed as Prime Minister: to fix the economic fiasco that has overwhelmed Britain over these past few weeks. This morning’s news about looming growth forecasts brings both statements to the fore. Just over a week ago, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt thought he had to find upwards of £30 billion worth of spending cuts and tax hikes to fill the black hole in the public finances. But Treasury officials have told the BBC that Sunak and Hunt together may be looking for something closer to £50 billion to get the public finances back in order.