Dominic Cummings may have left Whitehall but his spirit lives on. Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, has repurposed Cummings’s call for ‘weirdos and misfits’ as a plea for ‘innovators and disruptors’. Downing Street this month launched an ‘AI Ideas’ competition in pursuit of bright sparks. A hackathon will follow. In No.
Next Wednesday Rachel Reeves will stand up in the House of Commons to deliver what she is calling her ‘spring forecast’. As so often with political language, everyone in Westminster knows it is no such thing, just as there was nothing ‘mini’ about Kwasi Kwarteng’s Budget of September 2022. The ‘spring forecast’ will be an
Washington D.C. For Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, it’s a case of today Ukraine, tomorrow the world. In their much-hyped telephone call this week, the Russian leader didn’t appear to give much away: a step towards a sort-of ceasefire, a prisoner swap and a few other bits and bobs. But Putin knows that Trump wants
The theory of evolution is dominated by the utilitarian logic of natural selection: adapt or die, survival of the fittest. But consider that ‘fit’ has two meanings these days: ‘healthy’ but also ‘hot’. There is another evolutionary mechanism that scientists have taken a longer time to appreciate – seduction by the hottest, rather than survival
Even if you’ve never heard of Michael Mann, you will have felt his baleful influence on your energy bills. He is the inventor of the hockey stick chart, which shows a sharp increase in late 20th century global temperatures, like the blade of an ice hockey stick. It put rocket boosters on the climate change
Last Sunday the Vatican released the first photograph of Pope Francis since his ordeal began. He was wearing a stole around his neck, indicating that he had concelebrated mass in the chapel of the Gemelli hospital. Admittedly, all he had to do was raise his hand and whisper a few words of consecration, but it
In the famous ‘Rainbow Portrait’ of Elizabeth I her gown is embroidered with eyes and ears, a reference to her efficient surveillance of the threats to the emerging nation state that was Tudor England. ‘Five Eyes’ is the modern equivalent of the concept but applied to the general security of the Anglosphere: the UK, the
Professional Englishmen and women – doctors, accountants and even journalists – could once afford to drink first-growth claret like Château Latour on a regular basis. In 1972, when the Daily Telegraph’s Guide to the Pleasures of Wine was published, Pomerol was still an obscure corner of Bordeaux, known for offering ‘very good value’. Those days
Next week marks the 400th anniversary of the accession to the throne of Charles I. This moment began what was described in England’s greatest work of history, 1066 and All That, as the ‘Central Period of English History… consisting in the utterly memorable Struggle between the Cavaliers (Wrong but Wromantic) and the Roundheads (Right and
For several years, a debate has raged (mainly on Twitter, now X) over whether animal fats are actually better for you than industrially processed ‘seed oils’. The debate has become more mainstream thanks to the efforts of the new US Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jnr, who wants to Make America Healthy Again. His strategy
