Two weeks ago, I wrote about the figures showing that UK child poverty had failed to increase as expected. Contrary to what is widely assumed, the gap between those on high and low incomes actually narrowed a little under the coalition. I warned against crying “wolf” about rising inequality before there was evidence to back it up. Well... “wolf!”
Sport – even this self-confessed nut concedes – is hardly everything. True, had you been anywhere near the Camden Head in north London around tea-time on Friday, you would have been choking through air turned blue as one of Scotland’s exports vigorously, vainly, exhorted a rather more successful one to stick it to the Swiss master.
On the face of it, nothing could be more absurd, or riper for superannuation, than the Sunday trading laws, those hidebound proscriptions from a vanished age – or so the argument runs – that prevent a shop with more than 3,000 square feet of space from opening its doors for more than six hours on the Sabbath. And nothing, surely, could be more symbolic of the Chancellor’s plans to, as he rather coyly put it, “ensure a truly national recovery”, here in our high-octane consumer-driven, 24/7 society... Читать дальше...
It is time to start thinking about Europe rather than Greece. At some stage the Greek rescue story will be settled – it may be settled quite soon – and more normal life there will resume. But the outcome, whatever it is, cannot be stable. The main reason is that Greece’s debts are too great to be “sustainable”, which is a polite way of saying that they cannot be repaid. They will continue to overhang not just European politics but also the entire eurozone economy. But those debts cannot be written off because that is against eurozone rules. Читать дальше...
In case you hadn’t noticed, he’s back. Vainer, more bombastic and more preposterous than ever, Donald Trump is running for president again. And the Republican Party to which (for now at least) he belongs, is scared out of its wits.
David Cameron is a naturally placid type, not overly keen on picking fights with people. The chillaxing Prime Minister tends to avoid confrontation when he can, often pulling out of policies where he thinks a prolonged fight is on the cards. So, why on earth has he decided to reopen one of the bitterest battles of the last parliament, on planning reform?
In recent days, British holidaymakers have been arriving home on hastily arranged flights from Tunisia. The UK Government suddenly told British tourists to leave last week, claiming that a further terrorist attack is “highly likely” after 38 people died in Sousse at the end of June. Thirty of the victims were British.
Since my decision last week to retire from showbusiness in order to concentrate on my pet pig’s career, the phone has been ringing off the hook. Every call has been for Wilbur’s services in varied areas of the entertainment world.
New research shows that 39 per cent of overweight teens believe they are “the right weight”. Here’s proof that, despite all the belittling and badgering of body-fascist media, some young people have managed to cling on to a sense of self-worth, and isn’t that cause for celebration? Not according to Professor Jane Wardle of University College London and one of the authors of the paper: “We need to find effective ways of helping too-heavy teenagers slim down and maintain a healthier weight,” she cautioned. Читать дальше...
Lip-readers were in great demand during George Osborne’s Summer Budget statement on 8 July as everyone wanted to know whether Iain Duncan Smith said “fan-tas-tic” or “fucking get in” when he double fist-pumped the air with delight at the announcement on the living wage. But I was more interested in what David Cameron said to Osborne as the Chancellor sat down following his one hour, six-minute speech.
The financial life support that has sustained Greece’s membership of the eurozone is now failing. It has transferred not just money. It has transfused political, social and economic poison into the country’s bloodstream. If the crisis is to be resolved – rather than merely postponed – some common sense is badly needed, about both the minimum action required to enable Greece to recover and about who or what injected the poison.
Here we go again. This week our elected representatives will spend valuable legislative time talking about and voting on possible changes to the law on fox hunting. As we report today, it seems likely that the outcome will be to leave the ban on hunting unchanged.
Canadian comic Katherine Ryan reminds me that I gave a poor review to her debut Edinburgh Fringe show in 2011. I thought it was a bit of a mess, which she generously acknowledges as fair comment. Then in typically deadpan style she says: “Neither of us knew I was going to be a comedian, right?”
This is from an arts feature last Saturday about Dustin Hoffman (above): “He has since had four children with his current wife, who he married in October 1980.”
A lorry driver’s daughter from Mansfield will next week realise a dream as she takes the stage where the Three Tenors – Jose Carreras, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo – debuted together a quarter of a century ago.
Sky is offering its Sky Fibre broadband – which normally costs £10 a month – free for 12 months. The offer is available to anyone switching to Sky Fibre when they take Sky line rental. The company says the one-year contract means there is no obligation beyond the free period.
Q: I took out a with-profits pension annuity with Equitable Life. In 2003-004 I received monthly payments of £124.71. My annuity was transferred to Prudential in 2007, since when my income has fallen each year. In 2015-16 it is £69.22 per month. MB, Leominster
The comedy sketch show is dead, killed by the ubiquity of YouTube viral videos, its critics say. But the BBC plans to have the last laugh with the launch of a new series which promises to make rising star Javone Prince a household name.
Garbine Muguruza seems like a nice enough person but she has a lot to learn and not a lot of time.
I'm writing this week's column from an apartment in Corsica. I have a pool at my toes, a palm tree to my left, the sea directly ahead flanked by green mountains, and a constant surround-sound choir of squawking birds and buzzing insects. I'm in heaven. Which is exactly the boyfriend's point – if you can't get on in paradise, then what hope have you got as a couple?
In the 15 months since I began this column, a lot has happened in the world of the now nearly-five-year-old. I've watched on, bleary-eyed, as her life has rolled past like a magnificent if occasionally rather pungent steam train – the "F's" mysteriously thawing into "TH's", and the dirty protests over the arrival of the new baby giving way to the concerns over her marital status which briefly occupied her 40th month ("I don't even have a husband!!!!").
President Putin's people are cracking down on yoga. In order, they say, to "prevent the spread of new religious cults and movements", two municipal spaces filled with bendy, glassy-eyed, sun-saluting farters have been cleared out already. I say "glassy-eyed" because having hung about yogis for many years, there is an undeniable "nobody quite at home" aspect to any person who spends a vast percentage of life upside down, contemplating a gentle sort of nothingness.
If Mo Farah had not already shelled out thousands for a PR firm, yesterday he’d have done well to hire one.