Ukraine

In the months before Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Volodymyr Zelensky was fighting for his political life. The former comedian was elected in 2019 on a pledge to end the war in Donbas by an electorate exasperated with its political class. Zelensky initially set out to negotiate with Vladimir Putin – but achieved nothing. He appeared naive and out of his depth. However, Zelensky’s transformation into a wartime leader captured the world’s imagination and rallied his allies. Yet some of those allies are beginning to ask whether, if this war is really about the free world versus autocracy, as Zelensky claims, Ukraine should hold a general election next year. Many

In 2014, Rolf Harris was convicted of sexual offences against girls. I wrote in this space that this would have represented more of a cultural change in the treatment of celebrities if he had been unmasked at the height of his fame. Current stars, I suggested, are much more rarely denounced: ‘I would not dream of suggesting that Russell Brand is a sex criminal, but we know, from his own account, that he has slept with a great many women.’ He had even, on his infamous Radio 2 show, boasted of sleeping with Andrew Sachs’s grand-daughter, yet ‘the BBC broadcast this as comedy’. ‘If the celebrity wheel of fortune ever went

Home More than 100 schools were told to close buildings before the new term because they contained the wrong kind of concrete. The Health and Safety Executive said that reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) ‘is liable to collapse with little or no notice’. In total, 156 schools are affected, of which 104 require urgent attention and 52 have already received repair works. But in Scotland, where 35 council-run schools had been found to contain Raac, none had to close. In July, NHS Scotland had also identified 254 buildings that ‘have two or more characteristics which are consistent with the presence of Raac’, vulnerable to ‘catastrophic failure without warning’, but a

Home Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, told police that they must investigate every theft and follow all reasonable leads to catch criminals; the Police Federation of England and Wales said forces were already ‘stretched beyond human limits’. Home Office figures showed that only 3.9 per cent of residential burglaries resulted in someone being charged, and for thefts from the person it was 0.9 per cent. Hartwig Fischer resigned as the director of the British Museum and Jonathan Williams stepped aside as his deputy when it became clear that information about 1,500 or so missing objects had been wrongly dismissed; police continued investigations. Two men were arrested on suspicion of arson

We now have a reluctant apology from Dame Alison Rose, followed by her even more reluctant resignation. Her departure is a major achievement, but the reluctance is a symptom of the problem. How could she possibly have thought she could stay after she was caught breaking a client’s confidentiality and spreading untruths about him (untruths which the BBC checked with her before publishing)? How could her chairman, Sir Howard Davies, have possibly thought that she could? And still we have nothing from Coutts, the bank that tried to trash Nigel Farage in the first place. Coutts is a B Corp, meaning a corporation which signs up to the commandments of

Now that Wimbledon is over, a few thoughts about youthful brains showing traces of horse tranquillisers, angel dust and cannabis, the ingredients that spell ‘moron’. I mean those sporting idiots who booed Victoria Azarenka after she lost the tiebreak 11 to 9 in the third set to the charming Ukrainian Elina Svitolina. Here’s Vica – a woman, a mother, a wonderful player and, through no fault of her own, a Belarusian – being booed for going along with the decision of Ukrainian players not to shake hands with Russian or Belarusian opponents. When a Ukrainian player refused to shake hands during the French Open last month, the public booed her,

Home The government pondered whether to accept pay-review bodies’ recommendations on rises in public sector salaries. ‘Delivering sound money is our number one focus,’ Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in his Mansion House speech. ‘That means taking responsible decisions on public finances, including public sector pay.’ Regular pay in the March to May period was 7.3 per cent higher than a year earlier, although it rose less than inflation. Unemployment rose from 3.8 per cent to 4 per cent; vacancies fell by 85,000 to 1,034,000. The average two-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 6.7 per cent. Jeremy Hunt confirmed that he was refused a bank account with Monzo last year on the