Current Affairs

and prosper all our plans for 2006.

John Lewis has reported a sharp increase in sales in December. Since organisations like the National Association Against Tolls (as well as the Evening Standard) are always claiming that the congestion charge is responsible for recent falls in Oxford Street trading, presumably they’ll now say its continued existence is

The House passes a stern anti-immigrant bill, and it’s hasta la vista, melting pot. The New York Times reports.

BBC News reports on a new war starting in north east Africa.

Ross McKibbin has a choleric article in this week’s London Review of Books, complaining about the right deviation that is the current Government. Most of it is unremarkable stuff – government too friendly with business, right-wing government, Cameron even worse, etc. The only part that really made me sit up

Slate’s Andrew Santella reminds us of the years when parts of colonial America did in fact ban Christmas celebrations.

Rehna Azim writes in the Guardian about the tabloid furore over ‘banning Christmas’. Summary: just say Merry Christmas and get over it.

Fred Clark, the slacktivist, has an excellent post on the monarchical tendencies of the Bush administration. A poster in the comments, called Scott, remarks: If enough of your “fellow citizens” are OK with King George the Fourth (The Third being the one we originally rebelled against), then hasn’t society

The Fabian Society has published a new pamphlet about Britishness. A couple of articles from it are online at the link above. One interesting view is that the history of the Empire should be taught more in schools, as an aid to understanding Britain’s multicultural heritage. The BBC reports.

Salon (subscription or click-through advert required, sorry) has an interesting article by former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal. In the first discussion of David Cameron I’ve seen in the US press, he compares the messages that Cameron is giving out to the compassionate conservatism upbeat of one Gov. George W