Current Affairs

Ron Suskind, quoted at William Gibson’s blog offers a startling view of the current administration’s effect on the world.

Simon Hoggart‘s parliamentary sketch yesterday (which is not yet online) referred to a long-forgotten Lincolnshire MP from the 1830s and 40s. He was a perfect picture of the Tory grandee – opposing the railways, the expansion of education (because he had hated reading at Oxford) and the Great Exhibition (because

From Brussels, an example of the way the Italians think about the EU. The BBC reports that the Italian Prime Minister’s nominee for Justice Commissioner, Rocco Buttiglione, has been rejected in a non-binding vote by the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament. Mr Buttiglione had previously expressed the

Following the NYT’s profile of John Kerry, the New Yorker has a fascinating profile of President Bush.

Don’t like banging your head against that brick wall? Why not try banging it even harder? The BBC reports that the Metropolitan Police have backed a campaign to have the drinking age in Hampstead raised to 21. Their article (in their slightly frothy magazine section) quotes “psychologist Colin Drummond”

Jimmy Swaggart has threatened to kill any man who looks at him funny. Are you callin’ uz a poof?

Today the House of Commons votes on the banning of hunting with hounds – the fox hunting ban. The arguments on both sides have been rehearsed ad nauseam over the last few years, and the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance are currently (early evening) winding up a large rally in front of Parliament,

The European Environment Agency has produced a report on what the continent can expect from climate change over the next few years.

Oh God no – not again. The publication of Greg Dyke’s autobiography (serialised in the Observer) has reignited the ongoing war over who said what and meant what during the build-up to the Iraq war. For my part – not that it matters much – I remember the general opinion at the