The world of environmental science begins to resemble the Catholic Church before the Reformation. Anyone who challenges its grim orthodoxies can expect the latter-day equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. Two years ago, the former Greenpeace activist Bjorn Lomborg published a book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, in which he comprehensively deconstructed the doctrines to which he had
The appointment of Rebekah Wade as the editor of the Sun has given rise to much baseless speculation. It has been suggested that she may swing the paper behind the euro. We are told she may ditch Page Three girls, to whom she is said to have a feminist aversion. She is, says my esteemed
Almost everyone assumes, whether they are pro or anti, that Britain will go to war against Iraq. President Bush seems set on invasion whatever Hans Blix and his team of inspectors do or do not find. Tony Blair would appear certain to follow: the Foreign Office believes that at least a token presence is necessary
Seldom does the European Union miss an opportunity to pursue its protectionist agenda. No sooner had the first slugs of crude oil from the sunken Estonian oil tanker, the Prestige, arrived on the Spanish coast than France, Spain, Portugal and Italy moved to banish single-hulled oil-tankers of more than 15 years’ vintage from European waters:
Anyone who has ever had breakfast, lunch, dinner or any other meeting with Gordon Brown will know that he gives very little away. Some ministers are known for their bluntness and occasional indiscretions; others may sometimes drink a glass or two more wine than they should, and say things they should perhaps not have. The
One of Richard Desmond’s heroes is Rupert Murdoch, who was profiled in glowing terms in the most recent Sunday Express. The proprietor of the Express group regards the Australian-born adventurer as an outsider like himself. In fact, Desmond is far more of an outsider than Murdoch. His fortune is based on his pornographic magazines and
Christmas shoppers are being urged to boycott the clothes store Gap on the basis that it exploits workers in the Third World. A report in the Guardian quotes a Bangladeshi who says she has her ears pulled when she makes mistakes, and a wretch from Lesotho who complains that his factory is so dusty that
Ordinary life must go on, the government persuaded us while administering its warning two weeks ago of a possible terrorist attack: if we allow the threat of bombings to disrupt our normal activities, then we give the terrorists what they want. Fine words, indeed, except that they seem to apply only on British soil. If
There is one person in the world whom I would love to meet. Or maybe two. I am thinking of the propagandist who writes the monthly front-page ‘brief’ in the Times extolling the paper’s circulation performance. His (or her?) counterpart on the Daily Telegraph would be interesting, too, though this person has fallen rather silent
One of my wife’s ancestors was consumed by cannibals in the South Seas in the mid-18th century. I don’t think the government of Tonga, or wherever the meal took place, would be terribly impressed if a lawsuit arrived on its desk demanding reparations. If you are descended from a black American slave, on the other
The Burrell affair illustrates how much the press has changed over the past 20 or 30 years, and how powerful it has become. Not very long ago the majority of newspapers would have given the Queen the benefit of the doubt in such a matter. As it was, only the Daily Telegraph jumped unhesitatingly to
Female models, responsible for draping themselves over new cars and appearing in their underwear in advertisements to promote this year’s British International Motor Show in Birmingham, would describe as ‘out-of-date’ and ‘pathetic’ the government’s stereotyping of women into becoming politicians. It follows the case of Miss Estelle Morris who was browbeaten into becoming secretary of
The survivors from the Melnikova Street Theatre are unlikely to be in a fit state to read the International Chemical Weapons Convention. But they may well be wondering exactly where Russia’s poisoning of more than 100 innocent citizens fits within this much-vaunted treaty, which came into force four years ago. In fact, the treaty couldn’t
My colleague Stuart Reid has been urging me to write about the Times for weeks. ‘There’s a buzz on the streets,’ he says. ‘Oh, yeah?’ ‘Yes, people are saying that the Times is improving under its new editor.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yes, that is the word. The Times is getting better. Not much, but a little. It’s
Is the Daily Mirror for sale? It is, according to a well-placed City source. He says it is being offered around to ‘the buy-out boys’. My instinct is that he is right, and that Trinity Mirror wants to offload its troubled national daily, as well as its other national titles. Until 1999 Trinity Mirror was
So, the United Nations weapons inspectors are ready to go in, and this time they are not going to be put off their scent by feeble excuses. They will not be satisfied until every single weapon has been destroyed. Every slipper, every cane, every outstretched bare hand must go: the UN committee on the rights
Prince Charles’s leaked letter to Tony Blair has not done him any good. The Mail on Sunday, whose first edition broke the story on Sunday, seemed to think that the letter did him great credit. One can certainly see what he was getting at. But to compare farmers with gays or immigrant communities, and to
It has come down, it seems, to two related but separate issues: there is a ‘should’ issue, and a ‘would’ issue. Should the Americans attack Iraq? Would they win a quick and relatively bloodless victory if they did – the ‘less’ in ‘bloodless’ being concerned with their forces’ blood rather than Iraq’s…. The ‘should’ question
Newspapers, as we know, love truth. They castigate evasive politicians and track down dodgy businessmen. They deliver ringing lectures in their editorial columns when ministers do not come clean. And yet this love of truth has one blind spot. When newspapers – and I would say in particular broadsheet newspapers – come to present their
The very name of Soham induces a strange mixture of disgust, boredom and pity. I return to it with reluctance. But we have to consider the conduct of the media, and in particular the criticisms made about the press by the Cambridgeshire coroner, David Morris, and by the Cambridgeshire police. I’m certainly not going to