Britain’s imperial past distorts the debate about our place in the world, but not in the way that is commonly assumed. It is often asserted that claims about this country’s international importance are a form of nostalgia. It would be more accurate to say that Britain tends to underestimate its power because it is no
When, on a test of general knowledge, the highly educated score far worse than chimpanzees, university degrees may be overrated (definitely). But something more interesting may also be going on. According to the newly released Factfulness by Hans Rosling, we would-be smart people would improve our results on multiple-choice questions about the current state of
I was back at the tip on Sunday. I cannot help it. What art galleries or rock concerts or online porn are to some, Derby-shire County Council’s dump at Rowsley is to me. I can’t keep away. Any excuse will do, and on Sunday it was a bit of cardboard and a broken fan heater.
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), which celebrates its 20th anniversary this week, is not a peace, but a truce. This does not mean that it has no value. Most people in Northern Ireland wish to abide by its terms; it has helped them get on with normal life. But it does mean that difference, rather than being
A decade ago I commissioned an article about Vladimir Putin’s business cronies. Among other lines of enquiry, it sought to finger ‘a coterie of wealthy and politically influential industrialists, many believed to be former or current secret service officials’ who allegedly had shareholdings in Russian companies which, if we or anyone else had been able
