The game of survival
Apparently Fifa emperor Sepp Blatter received a ten-minute standing ovation from his 400 staff when he addressed them after his…
Pliny the Younger on Fifa
In any huge enterprise (like Fifa), where does the rot begin? Pliny the Younger mused on this question in a…
The northern powerhouses of ancient Turkey
Government claims that it will ‘free’ northern cities to turn themselves into ‘powerhouses’. Since most of them are held by…
The Roman trade unions
With Len McCluskey, general secretary of the union Unite, keen to ensure ‘his’ members choose the next Labour leader, and…
Cicero’s advice for election-losers
The great Robert Harris has defended the pollsters who got the elections so wrong by quoting Cicero on the electorate’s…
Coalitions of the willing
Whatever the result of the election, it has become clearer by the day that our ‘democracy’ is run by politicians…
Start-up culture in Ancient Greece
Honduras wants to establish start-up cities to experiment with alternative economic, regulatory, and legal systems. Could this concept help stop…
Plutarch and Aristotle vs Lynton Crosby
Attack Ed Miliband and sing up the long-term economic plan: that is the now obviously useless scheme devised by the…
Demosthenes vs Michael Fallon
Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon’s claim that Ed Miliband, having practised on his brother, would also stab his…
Voting for heroes
To judge from elections, the purpose of politics is to win power by promising to make people better off. Plato,…
Caesar, Pompey and the SNP
Alex Salmond, the ex-first minister who proved incapable of making Scotland independent, has assured the world that he and his…
Rome’s 99 per cent
In the UK the richest 1 per cent — 300,000 — of the working population control 23 per cent of…
Allah, Zeus and the Church of England
A ‘prominent liberal cleric’ in London has held an Islamic prayer service in his church, St John’s Waterloo. ‘We all…
Greeks vs Greens
The Green party’s manifesto appears to make saving the planet only a small element in its otherwise painfully unoriginal agenda.…
Hyperides vs Jack Straw
In responding as they did to the Daily Telegraph ‘sting’, Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind may well have done…
