“My philosophy, Mr President, is that all foreigners are out to screw us and it’s our job to screw them first.” With these words, the US Treasury Secretary convinced the President to deliver a colossal shock to the global economy. …
The EU thrives on fear
Mild feelings of panic were induced across the European Union last week, as citizens were urged to prepare for impending disaster. Stock your cupboards! Draft emergency plans! No, it’s not the opening of a mediocre dystopian novel — it’s the …
Columbia’s compromise with Trump
Before his election victory last year, Donald Trump’s plans for education were striking in their vagueness. Rather than publishing detailed policies, he promised to make universities “patriotic” and “sane” after years of liberal excess. Since his return to the White …
The ugly side of cosmetic surgery
On 24 April last year, Anne Towlson went to Turkey. A 58-year-old mother, she’d booked into the Green Park Hospital in Istanbul for a pre-planned tummy tuck and liposuction procedure. But then, she made a “last-minute decision” to have “bingo …
Cuomo’s Covid misrule killed my parents
On 25 March, 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic, a single piece of paper, a directive signed by Andrew Cuomo, then the governor of New York, brought about thousands of deaths in nursing homes and similar care facilities. …
Can Carna cope with immigration?
In 1905, the Irish language activist Patrick Pearse, not yet a revolutionary, bought land in Connemara, in Ireland’s Irish-speaking far West, where he built a thatched cottage in traditional Irish style. Poor and remote, the wind-lashed bogs and rocky hillsides …
The flaws in Musk’s Mars mission
In his speech to Congress last month, President Donald Trump promised to “lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond”. His claim is not serious, as Trump is far too busy …
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ will fail
President Trump has dubbed 2 April, when his new tariffs go into effect, “Liberation Day”. While many investors, financial analysts, and consumers are in panic mode, Trump’s pitch to the industrial working class remains blunt: over the last half century, …
England’s villages are no joke
In the latest edition of News & Views, the local pamphlet delivered to all houses in the little constellation of villages on the Lincolnshire-Nottinghamshire border where I am from, the editor praises the “snowdrops, daffodils and crocuses” which have sprung …
Germany isn’t ready to fight
“Germany is back,” Friedrich Merz victoriously declared, fresh off securing a historic deal to boost military spending. Once, such a statement might have sent shudders across Europe. Now, it brings cautious relief. With the postwar order in disarray, London, Paris …
Europe needs a battle plan
Europe is appalled. Donald Trump has delivered a wake-up call that it cannot ignore. We have long been in denial about the state of our relationship with America, knowing about our dependency, but have done nothing to correct it. This …
Why Wales is going to the dogs
Eight minutes ’til race one. The Valley Stadium is packed, a sense of nervous anticipation lingering in the air. It’s St David’s Day, and a huge crowd has flocked to Wales’s last greyhound track, in the small Valleys town of …
Will Australia fall for Trumpism?
Where America goes, the rest of the world follows. Donald Trump has inspired copycats on just about every continent, politicians who frame their reforms as a crusade against a liberal establishment neglecting the country’s left-behind. As Australia’s 3 May federal …
The creepiness of Amanda Knox
Amanda Knox starts off her new memoir, Free: My Search for Meaning, with a barbed anecdote: her mother told her once when she was a child that she would have “an extraordinary life”. And she has, though not in …
Who is preventing peace in Ukraine?
Odesa’s historic city centre remains under daily Russian bombardment. Each night, we wake to news of yet another drone or missile attack. But so far the air defences, like Ukraine, hold out. And the yellow and blue flags fly defiantly …
