While the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has no formal role in devising the bloc’s immigration policy, his words this week have turned much of the Brexit debate on its head. In an interview on French television, he said that France should suspend non-EU immigration for three to five years — with the
Home A new complexion of British politics was revealed by the capture of Hartlepool by Jill Mortimer for the Conservatives in a by-election, with 15,529 to the Labour candidate’s 8,589. Since its formation in 1974, the constituency had been Labour. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said his party had ‘lost the trust of working
What would happen to the Republicans after Donald Trump? That has been one of the pundits’ favourite themes in the past few months. Maybe the GOP could run against Joe Biden’s massive spending and borrowing splurge, some pondered; or go after some low-hanging woke excesses on the left; or exploit the huge influx of illegal
‘Georgics’ are an ancient form of poetry about agriculture and the land. The term derives from Greek gê ‘land’ + ergon ‘work’ (cf. farmer George) and emphasises the necessity of working hard to counteract deprivation, build a nation and forge a civilised world. Virgil’s Georgics (29 bc) in four books are a supreme example of
At Redwall Abbey Does fiction provide any guide as to the ultimate fate of Labour’s Red Wall? — Redwall Abbey was the setting for a series of children’s novels written by Brian Jacques between 1986 and his death in 2011. It revolved around the peace-loving creatures of Mossflower Wood who were forced to fight invading
China has peaked Sir: Niall Ferguson makes some good points about the nature of Xi Jinping’s imperial aspirations but misses two important parts of the picture (‘The China model’, 8 May). First, the Chinese Academy of Science predicts that China’s population will peak at 1.4 billion in 2029, drop to 1.36 billion by 2050, and
