Clover Stroud

Jealous of the gypsies

From our UK edition

There’s nothing new about this summer’s outbreak of gypsy-bashing, writes Clover Stroud, who puts it down to our secret wish to enjoy the same freedoms they do It has not been a good summer for gypsies. In France, President Sarkozy has begun his purge: nearly a thousand Roma have been flown back to Bucharest, hundreds of their camps have been dismantled by police and one poor gypsy was shot dead during a car chase in Saint-Aignan. The caustic wind of gypsy hatred wafted across the Channel to Britain as well.

Inside Russia

From our UK edition

Churchill described Russia as a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’. Churchill described Russia as a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’. He was referring to the Soviet Union, all eight million square miles of it. Slightly reduced, the Russian Federation now stretches to just over six and a half million square miles, but her enigmatic allure remains strong, and if anything has been intensified by the Litvinenko poisoning and a refreezing of post-Cold War relations.