A few nights ago, my missus and I were walking along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, minding our own business while trying not to think about Donald Trump — or Ted Cruz, or Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders. Presently we passed the Old Post Office Building, a venerable pile dating to 1899. It looks a bit
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/putinsendgameinsyria/media.mp3″ title=”Putin’s endgame in Syria”] Listen [/audioplayer] Russia’s bombing of the city of Aleppo this week sent a clear message: Vladimir Putin is now in charge of the endgame in Syria. Moscow’s plan — essentially, to restore its ally Bashar al-Assad to power — is quickly becoming a reality that the rest of the
The LGBT rights movement — so the story goes — has split the Christian churches in two. On one side are the progressives, who believe that Christianity should accept gay people and recognise gay marriage. Lined up against them are the conservatives, who hold fast to the belief that being gay is sinful. It’s not
At a party recently I started talking to a friendly, charming woman and we established early on that she was left-wing. We chatted about this and that and for some reason I asked her if she played golf. ‘Oh no,’ she replied. ‘As I’m left-wing, I am not allowed to play golf.’ I was taken aback. Here
So the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, thinks his country has a ‘profound interest… in a very strong United Kingdom staying in a strong EU’, and President Obama is planning to join in campaigning for the Remainders too. They say this not because they think it is good for us, but because it is
The term ‘superhead’ was first used during the Blair government in 1998: an eye-catching word for a new breed of Superman-style headmasters or headmistresses, fast-tracked star teachers who would be parachuted into failing inner-city state schools and paid six-figure salaries to ‘turn them around’. It reaped rewards and can generally be considered a Good Thing.
‘Anybody here got any student debt?’ asks Bernie Sanders halfway through his speech at a rally in a small university on Monday. He then starts conducting a fake auction. ‘What are some of the numbers you got? You? 35,000. You? 55,000? Who else? A young lady here… 100,000 dollars. You win! I don’t know what
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thenextrefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Laura Pitel and Migration Watch’s Alanna Thomas discuss the second migrant crisis”] Listen [/audioplayer]In Istanbul, signs of the Syrian influx are everywhere. Syrian mothers sit on pavements clutching babies wrapped in blankets; children from Homs, Syria’s most completely devastated city, push their way through packed tram carriages begging for coins. Arabic adverts offer
Last week Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, tabled proposals which the government hopes will form the basis of the UK’s renegotiated relationship with the European Union. Politically, the proposals may be just the job: a new commitment to enhance competitiveness, proposals to limit benefits to migrants, recognition that member states’ different aspirations for
Last week the indigenous white population of Cologne took to the streets once again to celebrate their annual ‘Crazy Days’ spring carnival. I stepped out of the hotel at ten o’clock on the morning of the designated ‘women’s day’, wondering how the women of Cologne had reacted to the events of New Year’s Eve, and
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thenextrefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Simon Barnes and the Sea Watch Foundation’s Dr Peter Evans discuss whales” startat=1400] Listen [/audioplayer]Last week a sperm whale was beached at Hunstanton in Norfolk and there was much horrified concern. A terrible sight, lying there like a small cottage on the immensity of the beach, 46 feet long and 30 tons, surrounded
I covered another stabbing the other day, a particularly nasty one this time. An 18-year-old was repeatedly knifed in the stomach and beaten over the head with a baseball bat. Witnesses told me he’d been outside his mum’s tower-block flat in Islington, north London, when he was rushed by a group of about ten or
Lately, people only have to look at me to splurge their deepest, darkest secret. Last May, they did a terrible thing. They voted Tory. Now they’re contemplating greater deviance: voting to leave the EU — if only, they say, the campaign was fronted by someone they could believe in. And who do they want? The answer
Take a quick look at the UK buy-to-let market and you might find it tough to understand exactly what it is that makes it so very popular. Dealing with tenants is difficult and boring. House prices have a horrible tendency to go down as well as up (Londoners — ask anyone living in the north
At the risk of sounding like Neville Chamberlain, how bizarre that we should be panic-selling our stock-market investments in reaction to the news of a slight economic slowdown in a faraway country to which we export little and whose direct investments in our own economy created fewer than 5,000 new jobs last year. Throughout the
Scrapping the cuts to tax credits. Ring-fencing health care, and spending a few billion on a high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham. Despite all the howls of outrage from the left about austerity, for a country that was meant to be broke, we have a government that still throws around a lot of cash.
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] Listen [/audioplayer]Eurosceptics could hardly have asked for more favourable conditions for a referendum. After barely surviving a financial crisis, the European Union has been overwhelmed by an immigration crisis — one made much worse by its failure to control its own borders. The European
The decline of the Church of England has been one of the most astonishing trends in modern Britain. The pews of churches in this country are emptying fast. Next week, a book was to be published about this collapse entitled That Was The Church That Was: How the Church of England Lost the English People.
The terrorist attacks of 13 November have had an enduring effect on people living in Paris and France’s other big cities. Hotel bookings and restaurant reservations are down, and some people will no longer go out in the evening. There have been several other minor terrorist outrages across the country since November, and tension —
The Royal Navy is known as the Senior Service because of its illustrious history; Francis Drake and all that. But the days when it ruled the waves have long gone. In 1945 it had almost 900 warships and a million men. By the time of the Falklands War it was down to 70 warships and
