The Week

Leading article

The underlying message of Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement

Rachel Reeves may not be the most mellifluous writer ever to inhabit 11 Downing Street. At the weekend, she informed readers of the Mail on Sunday that she would ‘make no apology for keeping an iron grip on the country’s finances’ but was happy to spend money on training more ‘brickies, sparkies and chippies’. The

Portrait of the week

Diary

Steve Witkoff is wrong to see peace in Putin’s eyes

Kyiv ‘It doesn’t surprise me that they’re abolishing the Ministry of Education,’ my old friend Dima told me. ‘Judging by what Steve Witkoff said on the Fox channel, neither history nor geography are taught in America.’ Team Trump’s energetic but purposefully misdirected attempts to push the negotiation processes forward have left Ukrainians in shock. Each

Ancient and modern

How to live morally (according to the Romans)

‘Make America Great Again!’ cries Donald Trump. ‘Do Britain Down Again!’ (DOBRIDA!) screech our academic historical institutions. That was not the Roman way. In ad 31, Valerius Maximus completed his nine books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings of the Roman world. They were enormously popular and became a sort of handbook of Roman moral standards

Barometer

How many teenagers kill?

That ship has sailed The BBC children’s television programme Blue Peter will no longer be broadcast live. Why did it go by that name? – Blue Peter is the nickname of the international maritime signal flag for the letter ‘P’, consisting of white square inside a blue square. When displayed on its own it means

Letters

Letters: The futility of net zero

Not zero Sir: I was delighted to see your leading article about the impossibility of net zero (‘Carbon candour’, 22 March). We need now to expose its futility. The UK’s efforts will make no difference at all to global temperature. Whether it is naturally occurring or produced through coal burning, there is not the slightest