‘Great Britain has lost an Empire and not yet found a role’. Fifty-five years on, Dean Acheson’s remark has not lost its sting. British statecraft is, even now, an attempt to lay claim to a place in the post-imperial world. The events of the past few months — Brexit, the election of the most unlikely
The Algerian government’s official tourist guide describes ‘the walled town of Beni Isguen — normally closed to foreigners — where the women, clad entirely in white, reveal only one eye to the outside world’. Rod Dreher’s Easter call to devout Christians to separate themselves as a community from what he believes to be the degeneracy
Let me take this opportunity to join with our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary in commending President Trump’s swift and decisive military action against the Syrian government as being ‘appropriate’ — one of my favourite words and one which I like to use every day, regardless of whether it is appropriate to do so. The
The baby, unbothered by diesel fumes, enjoys an outing down the main road through London N1. Each passing bus is marked by a fat and pointing finger: ‘There!’ On the way to our local park last Thursday, we had just begun to cross the road, pointing up at the green ‘walk’ man, when a scooter
Each Easter, I think of David Jones (1895-1974). He was a distinguished painter and, I would (though unqualified) say, a great poet. There is a new, thorough biography of him by Thomas Dilworth (Cape). A sympathetic review in the Guardian wrestles with why he is not better known: ‘The centrality of religion to Jones’s work
What troubled places banks have become, I thought as I listened to two news stories, one concerning a formal reprimand for Barclays chief executive Jes Staley after he tried to uncover the identity of a ‘whistleblower’, the other trailing new revelations about the Libor scandal. But both, I’m afraid, were so badly explained that the
