Features

The whole of China is in an eerie state of shutdown

 Shanghai ‘Do you want me to scan your temperature?’ asks the receptionist, brandishing an infrared thermometer. Arriving at my hotel in Shanghai, I have a hacking, chesty cough. I picked the wrong week to contract this year’s bout of normal, perfectly healthy winter flu. In China, there is now only one illness. Like Christmas in

The agony of Brexit – for us Germans

In the early hours of 13 December, I called my newspaper in Berlin and suggested we run a piece about what might happen on Brexit day, 31 January 2020. For a second the line went strangely quiet. ‘Hello? Last night’s result means Brexit,’ I said to my colleague. ‘It’s really happening.’ I imagined the news

The latest fad: eating your way to better mental health

Which fad diet have you chosen to follow this year? One that helps you lose weight, or one that cures your mental health problems? Chances are that if you’re really following food trends, you’ll be discarding the piles of ‘clean eating’ recipe books in your kitchen in favour of a whole new swath of literature

Ten years on, the Arab Spring has only benefited the Islamists

A decade after the Arab Spring, good news anywhere is hard to find. In contrast to Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty has increased in the Arab region. Both internal economic growth and direct foreign investment have declined. Unemployment, especially among the young, has grown. Education standards are falling. There is less press

Inhuman resources: when did job-hunting become such an ordeal?

A two-line email popped into my inbox: ‘I regret to inform you that your application for the post of communications officer has not been successful on this occasion.’ Two decades as a national journalist, plus experience as a ministerial and corporate press adviser, and yet again, I’d failed even to secure an interview — this

Jonathan Miller

Le bromance: Macron has fallen under Boris’s spell

Montpellier When Emmanuel Macron was elected just over two and a half years ago, his ambitions stretched a long way. He described the presidential role as being like Jupiter, and believed that the momentum that took him to the Elysée would excite forces far beyond France’s borders. He hoped to deliver a ‘European renaissance’ that

Can Leo Varadkar defy the odds to win another term as Taoiseach?

Back in October, Boris Johnson and the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar met for ‘last-ditch’ Brexit talks at a hotel on the Wirral. After nine years in power and having lost control of parliament, the Tories were in disarray. Few thought Johnson could win concessions on the Irish backstop — that perennial stumbling block, the key to

The people’s decade: how will history come to define the 2010s?

The 1960s were swinging. The 1970s were stagflationary. In the 1980s we made loadsamoney and greed was good. The 1990s were dot.commy. And the 2000s were the boom and bust decade. Characterising ten-year periods in this casual way is something journalists love to do. It’s deplorably unscientific and yet pleasingly decentralised. A consensus simply emerged

Is slimming down the monarchy the only way to save it?

The crisis that has engulfed the royal family, sparked by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bombshell announcement that they are jumping ship, is about far more than just their personal future. If that wasn’t the case, it wouldn’t be so important. Families fall out, scandals come and go and the monarchy marches on. But

In defence of pocket money

Our grandchildren are penniless. They have pretty much everything their hearts desire and they have parents with wallets full of plastic, but they lack the satisfying chink of coins in a jam jar. I was alerted to this state of affairs when one of our tribe turned nine and I asked his mother how much

Freddy Gray

Is there method – or madness – behind Trump’s actions in Iraq?

Leaders are often accused of escalating a conflict abroad in order to distract from headaches at home. On Tuesday, before Iran’s missiles were fired, Donald Trump seemed to be doing the opposite. He and his media surrogates started their now all-too-familiar yabbering about impeachment and the Democrats. It felt as if they were trying to

Britain after Brexit: it’s time to decide on our place in the world

‘Global Britain’: a phrase that provokes mockery and even indignation. As an alternative to EU membership many consider it impossible and worse, undesirable. Are we capable of true independence, or is this an illusion? Does ‘global Britain’, as its bitterest critics accuse, draw on imperial nostalgia and nationalistic arrogance? Or is it a rational response

Fight fire with fire: controlled burning could have protected Australia

 Sydney By modern standards, my grandfather would probably be considered an environmental criminal. To clear land for his farmhouse in north-eastern Victoria — and for his milking sheds, pig pens, chicken sheds, blacksmith shop and other outbuildings — he cleared hundreds of trees. And he cleared thousands more for his wheat fields, cattle paddocks and