The Week
Diary
It has been a summer of tears, both of joy and sorrow. The latter first: how could stones not weep…
Portrait of the week
Home Big Ben ceased sounding for a planned period of four years, thanks to a decision by the Speaker and…
Australian letters
Foreign head of state Sir: Neil Brown does a Tony Abbott and conflates republicanism with every socialist cause he can…
America’s identity crisis
Long before student activists started talking about pulling down statues of Cecil Rhodes, a cultural war was being waged in…
Diary
To the Business School at the University of Edinburgh to be interviewed on the theme of ‘Great Political Disasters’. Main…
Portrait of the week
Home Regulated rail fares will rise by 3.6 per cent in January, bringing the price of annual tickets from Oxford,…
Corbyn’s fallen idols
Jeremy Corbyn finally broke his silence on Venezuela this week, but in the manner of a man who has his…
Letters
Pastel atrocity Sir: I note that Professor Flint (‘Constitutional Notes’, 5 August) neglects to mention what is surely the strongest…
Diary
No sympathy from me for the Brits stuck in the European heatwave. I’ve never understood people who go abroad for…
Portrait of the week
Home British negotiators are prepared to pay up to £36 billion to the EU to settle the so-called divorce bill…
Barometer
Out with a whimper Usain Bolt managed only a bronze in his last appearance in the 100 metres at the…
Trump and his empire
All the news emerging from the White House seems to suggest that the USA is in that state so beloved…
Crunch time
For anyone considering a career in economic forecasting, the Bank of England’s inflation report for August 2007 ought to be…
Letters
No reason for subsidies Sir: For believers in free enterprise like me, it was hugely disappointing to read that Sir…
Diary
Diana Spencer has been dead for 20 years. I was a journalist on the Evening Standard in those days and…
Portrait of the week
Home Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appeared to wrest control of plans for Brexit from cabinet rivals, while…
Beauty and the beasts
Doctors have analysed how the mucus of a certain type of slug gives it protection against its being levered off…
Playing chicken
Besides being important in themselves, the trade talks between Britain and the United States which began this week are symbolic…
Portrait of the week
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, invited the media to take a photograph of her beginning a holiday with her…
Diary
As pictures go, it could be career death. An amazing young talent caught in a compromising position with two older…
Barometer
But me no butts Boris Johnson, being taught a Maori head-to-head greeting, joked that it might be ‘misinterpreted in a…
Health and personal choice
Public health specialist Sir Michael Marmot has blamed ‘the cuts’ for the rise in dementia among the elderly, resulting in…
Letters
Bugs bite back Sir: Matthew Parris is quite right to say that we Leavers would prefer independence in reduced circumstances…
Let May govern
It used to be said that loyalty was the Conservatives’ secret weapon. While other parties might descend into internecine warfare,…
Australian letters
Stats 101 Sir: Jeremy Sammut’s discussion (July 15) of Tim Soutphommasane’s argument that “equality of opportunity is a myth in…
