Olaf Scholz will be in Beijing this weekend, making the first visit of a western leader to China since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. What might at any other time be regarded as a routine piece of diplomatic outreach is instead a matter of deep concern. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has just cemented his
Home Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, spoke in the Commons of an ‘invasion on our southern coast’ by migrants in small boats. ‘Let’s stop pretending that they are all refugees in distress,’ she said. ‘The whole country knows that is not true.’ She was reacting to a crisis at a migrant processing centre in Manston,
Rio de Janeiro When I first began writing about politics in 2005, my Brazilian husband, David Miranda, was not remotely interested in the subject. When politicians or journalists would visit us in Rio and invite us to dinner, he would always try to get out of it: ‘I’m not going; you’ll talk about nothing but
Did Boris Johnson lie to the House about partygate? The Privileges Committee decided to investigate, but refused to take Mr Johnson’s ‘intention’ into account. However, Lord Pannick QC (now KC) has since claimed that ignoring ‘intention’ would be ‘unlawful’ in determining whether there had been a violation. The Committee disagrees. Could the ancients help? Argument
Talking gobblers Has Elon Musk picked up a turkey in Twitter? – Musk paid $54.2 per share. The share price reached $41.57 on its first day of trading in 2013. It slumped to $14.62 in April 2016 and peaked at $77.06 in February 2021. In the first quarter of 2022, it claimed 229 million active
Catalogue of disasters Sir: Matthew Parris, in his article ‘The real cause of all the chaos’ (29 October), asks of our last three prime ministers: ‘What big thing did any of these unfortunate souls do wrong?’ In a spirit of helpfulness: Mrs May: net zero by 2050, derisory defence spending. Mr Johnson: hospital clearances, lockdown, vaccine
