At some time in the future, historians will view the Jade Goody Affair with the same kind of bewilderment and revulsion that we reserve for the excesses of Victorian Britain. But of course Goody’s celebrity – absurd and mawkish and repellent as it was – demonstrates how little human nature changes and reminds us that
null – Watch more free videos
There was an interesting, if occasionally frustrating, profile of Valery Gergiev in last week’s New York Times magazine. Frustrating because the article was headlined “The Loyalist” (the cover line was “An Overture to Russian Nationalism”) that seemed to want to condemn Gergiev for being a) proud of being Russian and b) far too close to
Back in the days when the Edinbugh Evening News printed a “Saturday Pink” edition, it used to be said that there were two headlines on hand for whenever Scotland played England for the Calcutta Cup. Occasionally the sub-editors could scream “It’s Bannockburn!”; more often they were left to lament “It’s Flodden”. The latter, as always
Man responsible for Tories disastrous 2005 campaign now likely to have nothing to do with their 2010 effort. That’s the Lynton Crosby story, right? Surely this is excellent news for the Tories? What am I missing? Standard caveat: the influence of political consultants and strategists is, generally speaking, over-hyped. I think. But they are fun
Good to see that the North Korean Central News Agency is offering a different view of life inside the gulag that balances the imperlalist propaganda to which we are otherwise subjected. Among the top stories at their revamped website: Punishment of War Maniacs by Arms Urged U.S. Undisguised Scenario for Hegemony Flayed Minju Joson Snubs
There’s an “Artist Rooms” exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art that features some of Damien Hirst’s work. Cue much excitement. Especially from his target audience: two year olds. Specifically, my niece: My companion Florence (aged two and a half), was really into it all. She is famous for her total disregard for
Selkirkshire: looking north from Harehead hill in the late afternoon sunshine. There are, risky though it is to say this, tentative signs of spring arriving…
Timothy Garton Ash tries to explain the Anglo-American relationship in terms of another great partnership: Jeeves and Wooster. Here, in miniature, is a classic example of that whole British approach to our relationship with the US, which I call the Jeeves school of diplomacy. Impeccable manners; a discreet smile; always perfect loyalty in public; but
People protest during France’s second nationwide strike in two months, to demand a boost to wages and greater protection form the crisis, on March 19, 2009, in Marseille, southern France. Photo: GERARD JULIEN/AFP/Getty Images It’s springtime which means that even if there weren’t an econmic crisis our friends in France would be taking to the
A couple of revealing entries from Chris Mullin’s diaries that reveal the Prime Minister to be some ungodly (and unhealthy) combination of Uriah Heep and Lyndon Baines Johnson: Wednesday July 4th, 2001: Later, sitting on the terrace, I was joined by a member of the Blair inner circle*. Conversation soon turned to Gordon. I mentioned
It’s nearly April which means it’s nearly Armenia time too. That is, we are approaching the latest edition of Washington’s reluctance to call the Armenian genocide what it is and was: genocide. On the campaign trail, of course, everyone says how important this is; in power such concerns melt away. My friend Matt Welch points
Terrifying news. Terrifying that is for anyone reared in the free-wheeling yet genial and sensible world of British parliamentary style debate. It turns out that Larry Summers, erstwhile Saviour of the Universe, was a policy debater while he was an undergraduate. Noam Scheiber reveals all in his informative profile of Mr Summers: Personality aside, Summers
Tom Harris doesn’t much care for the Liberal Democrats: Having seen the damage done to the Labour Party through its association with the Liberals in the Scottish Parliament in previous years, there is, if anything, more hostility among MPs to the idea of power sharing than ever. On the other hand, if the Liberal Party
Things could be worse for RBS executives. They could be AIG executives receiving advice from Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa): “The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them is if they would follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m
Henrick Hertzberg writes: Most of Europe’s individual “states” have governments that are not just democratic but also energetic and powerful. Hence the “European socialism”—i.e., universal health care, greater economic equality, low crime rates, fast trains, good road signage, excellent broadband—that American conservatives are so scared of. But Europe’s federal government—the European Union—is like the post-independence
Eammon Forde doesn’t much care for St Patrick’s Day: It says everything about what it means to be Irish these days that the biggest parades take place hundreds of miles from Irish soil where a once-proud diaspora’s celebration of its past has been hijacked by anyone who has seen The Quiet Man and wants to
I’ve been reading Chris Mullin’s entertaining diaries and was interested to be reminded that David Cameron was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, chaired by Mullin. The Tory leader doesn’t feature often in the diaries, but here’s what Mullin has to say: November 15, 2001: “We have an impressive new Tory on the
Mark Steyn weighs in on the alleged (that is, non-existent) plot to “europeanise” America: “Europeanism is like Communism: the less time you’ve spent living it in practice the better disposed you are to it in theory.” If one considers Mr Steyn as an entertainer or a mischievous bomb-thrower (a sort of high-class Coulter if you
John F Burns is a great reporter, but did he really write this or did some sub-editor in New York alter his copy? The relative prosperity that peace has brought, the respite from the anguished cycle of killings and revenge, has built a constituency for the power-sharing government in Belfast. That arrangement, which has worked