The Week
Diary
The week leading up to publication is a strange time for any author. You subject yourself to doing everything from…
Barometer
Years of war Imaginative souls have tried to compared the situation in Ukraine with that which preceded the first world…
Cicero on Putin
Last September Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against a ‘unipolar’ world, saying that the national revival of Russia was in…
Who speaks for Europe?
For the first time in many years, the eyes of the world are on Crimea. As Russian troops violated Ukrainian…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said Russia was to blame for ‘violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another…
Barometer
The best places to open a brothel The Commons all-party group on prostitution has called for a Scandinavian-style law where…
Diary
Last October, in these very pages, I wrote with what is now annoying prescience, ‘Like almost everyone else in the…
Harriet Harman vs Socrates
Since apologising has recently been all the rage, refusing to apologise, as Harriet Harman has done over the NCCL’s connection…
Letters
Long Labor Sir: The insightfully worded editorial ‘The Sins of Craig Thomson’ (22 February) has historical echoes. The original ‘Blind…
Bribing Kiev
The last time Viktor Yanukovych was removed from power in Ukraine, following a corrupt election nearly a decade ago, it…
Portrait of the week
Home Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo detainee who won substantial compensation after suing the British government, was arrested in Birmingham…
Diary
São Paolo It was back in 2001 that my good friend Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym ‘Bric’,…
Barometer
Palace coups The people of Ukraine enjoyed a peek inside President Yanukovych’s palace, complete with petting zoo and collection of…
Yanukovych vs Caligula
Tyrants never learn, do they? From Caligula through Gadaffi to the ex-Ukrainian prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, they rule not to…
Letters
Oh, the horror! Sir: I think the enthusiasm of Dean Bertram for genre horror and sci-fi films (‘Terror Australis,’ 15…
How to save elephants
The Duke of Cambridge deserves credit for bringing his influence to bear on the growing tragedy of the elephant, whose…
Portrait of the week
Home It would be ‘extremely difficult, if not impossible’ for an independent Scotland to join the European Union, José Manuel…
Diary
My surgery has been calling in all those over 75 for a special session with their doctor — a sort…
Hadrian on the Somerset floods
Since the Somerset Levels are a flood plain, nature will flood it. Romans had no problems with that. Much of…
Letters
Caution over wind Sir: While the broadcast media have assailed their audiences with simplistic yet blanket coverage of the floods…
A time to spend
There is nothing inevitable about the by now familiar sight of residents being towed away from flooded homes, of shops…
Portrait of the week
Home Floods grew worse in the West Country. The village of Moorland, Somerset, was abandoned. Then the Thames flooded, from…
Diary
There’s no reason why you should have heard of me. No reason why you would have watched a Channel 4…
Barometer
A kamikaze pilot at 80 The Japanese city of Minami-Kyushu was attacked for wanting to add the letters of 1,036…
Rome’s student politics
Foreign students getting on to courses under false pretences, overstaying their welcome and so on are nothing new. Ask the Romans.…
