Features

Susan Hall: Sadiq Khan is a misogynist

‘I love a fight. I was going to say debate, but it’s more of a fight to be honest.’ Susan Hall is looking forward to taking on Sadiq Khan at the London mayoral hustings. When we meet for her first interview after securing the Conservative nomination, it is five days after the Uxbridge by-election. Hall

Ian Williams

Where has Xi Jinping’s foreign minister gone?

This is the week that James Cleverly planned to be in Beijing to ‘engage, robustly and also constructively’ with China’s communist leaders. But the Foreign Secretary put his trip on hold because the man he planned to engage went missing. Since 25 June foreign minister Qin Gang has vanished without trace, leaving Cleverly twiddling his

Svitlana Morenets

Inside Ukraine’s drone army

Kyiv ‘We will end this war with drones,’ says Mykhailo Fedorov, deputy prime minister of Ukraine. We meet at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, which he runs in Kyiv. It has become crucial to the counter-offensive. To reclaim occupied land, Ukrainian troops need to remove miles of landmines, and can do so only if kept

Melanie McDonagh

Why does the Beano want to cancel itself?

Let’s hear it for the Beano, 85 years old this week. Lucky readers can get a commemorative issue featuring Charles and Camilla, Dua Lipa and Lewis Hamilton. It’s also a chance for those who haven’t read it for decades to register how much it has changed. Lately, the Bash Street Kids welcomed five classmates: Harsha,

Stress Test: some cricket fans can’t cope with the Ashes

The current Ashes series is proving a once-in-a-generation classic, one of those contests that cricket fans spend decades dreaming about. How are some of those fans reacting? They’re refusing to watch. I’m talking about the ‘I just can’t stand the tension’ brigade. The ones who, when the run chase gets down to 30 with three

Road rage: the great motorist rebellion has begun

Since Boris Johnson quit as an MP last month, Labour has been confident about winning the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election. Yet not so confident that Danny Beales, the party’s candidate, felt he could get through the campaign without lambasting Sadiq Khan’s plans to expand London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) to cover the capital.

Freddy Gray

What’s gone wrong for Ron DeSantis?

It’s widely acknowledged that, as governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis has been a success. As a presidential candidate, however, he has been a disaster – at least, so far. Last weekend, amid reports that his bid for the White House was floundering, DeSantis sacked a dozen of his staff and scaled back his travel plans.

Ian Williams

Tory floundering over China is a gift to Labour

Earlier this month, a Chinese spy reportedly tried to enter a private House of Commons meeting with Hong Kong dissidents. The alleged spy claimed to be a lost tourist, and there was a brief stand-off before he quickly left. The area was far from those usually visited by tourists, and some Hongkongers, fearing for their

What Britain can learn from Romania

Romania gets a bad rap here, associated as it often is with organised crime. In recent years around half a million Romanians have settled in the UK, making them the fourth largest group of foreign-born residents. But the irony is that as Romanians head to Britain in search of a higher standard of living, we

The bliss of Phuket’s Millionaire’s Mile

Many of my friends, stranded by the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes, have temporarily given up their film projects and settled down to write that hopeless novel which they could never finish before. Those film projects were more alluring – more necessary – than the lingering novels because they at least held out the prospect

Barbie’s world: the normalisation of cosmetic surgery

If Barbie were a real woman, she wouldn’t be able to walk. Her enormous head would loll forward on her spindly neck, her tiny ankles would buckle under her elongated legs, and she would be forced to move about on all fours. In the upcoming Barbie film, Margot Robbie nails her character’s toothy smile and

Poland’s battle with the EU over migrant quotas

Another day, another spat between Warsaw and Brussels. This time, Poland has declined to participate in the European Union’s latest plan to relocate migrants and asylum seekers within the bloc, with countries who refuse being expected to pay €20,000 per refugee. Hungary has also voted against the pact, while Malta, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria have quietly

Will mounting casualties change the debate in Ukraine?

At a small army field clinic outside Bakhmut, I watched as the body of a dead soldier was carried in. Two more soldiers followed, this time seriously injured – and this was what troops described as a ‘quiet day’. Ukraine doesn’t talk about its military deaths much and refuses to reveal any figures. There’s little

The changing face of the BBC Proms

There are two faces of the BBC Proms. The faces are somewhat at odds with each other. The one that everyone knows, whether they have an interest in music or not, is the Last Night of the Proms. It’s a concert consisting of a series of small musical items, or ‘lollipops’ as Sir Thomas Beecham

Damian Thompson

Has the Vatican abandoned beauty?

The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the Cambridge-shire market town of Ely is one of the supreme achievements of European Gothic architecture. Its octagonal tower lifts the eye to a sumptuously restored wooden lantern from which Christ looks down in majesty. Who on Earth thinks faith can be awakened by seeing

Watch out Wimbledon: padel is taking over

For the past 15 years, I’ve had an entirely healthy compulsion – my wife, I suspect, would disagree – to play tennis at least twice a week. I assumed this habit was so ingrained that nothing short of a calamitous injury could ever keep me from my fix. Spain is where the craze took hold.