David Cameron's flying visit to Lebanon was nothing more than an exercise in being seen
Well, PR Dave took quite a trip – all the way to Lebanon. He even discovered some refugees in the Bekaa Valley.
Well, PR Dave took quite a trip – all the way to Lebanon. He even discovered some refugees in the Bekaa Valley.
If members of the British political establishment want to know why it is so unpopular, they have only to study their reactions to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership election victory.
When I read Helen Mirren’s off-the-cuff words, “It annoys me to see men with an arm slung around their girlfriend’s shoulders – it’s like ownership”, I felt a real pang of protectiveness towards her. I like Helen Mirren a lot. She is glowingly statuesque, ever-candid and occasionally, vaguely feral. In fact, everything I love in a fellow female.
Leadership and loyalty is one of the great Shakespearean themes. To whom, or to what, is a leader loyal? Do his or her personal convictions matter most? Must a leader be loyal to close friends and allies? Is there a wider loyalty to the party and the country that can conflict with a leader’s other deeply held principles?
In April 1984, the academic journal Science published a paper with one of those titles which make people all around the world sit up and take notice. It said: “View through a window may influence recovery from surgery”.
Questions of what exactly makes up a “charity” have vexed politicians over the ages. Typically, the source of the irritation has something to do with tax, and the trouble goes back to 1601, when the government of Queen Elizabeth laid out the Charitable Uses Act. This legislation – pioneering at the time – defined charity in the broadest of terms: anything from the “advancement of religion”, to “other purposes benefiting the community”. And the church has not got any narrower in the four centuries since. Читать дальше...
Tony Abbott, Australia’s least successful Prime Minister since the execrable Billy Hughes, has left the office the way he came in: in a night of long knives, media doorsteps and half-whispered deals. He will be missed by coal magnates, his lame-duck cigar-smoking treasurer and cadaverous newspaper moguls alike. That’s four Prime Ministers in two and a half years, Australia. Apparently this one didn’t even serve long enough to get a Prime Minister’s pension.
Soppy liberal that I am, I spent Saturday in a state of euphoric celebration after Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader within the biggest mandate in the history of the party. It’s now Monday, and I’m celebrating again (this time at my desk, very quietly) because one of the first acts performed by Corbyn as leader has been to create the position of Minister for Mental Health.
There are few uplifting chapters in the recent history of Africa's elephants. Almost 35,000 have been killed by poachers every year since 2010. Where they once roamed in their hundreds of thousands, now isolated herds dot the planes, many too traumatised to reproduce.
Ten of the best dog-friendly hotels in the UK
The first time I saw John McDonnell in action was more than 30 years ago. He was deputy leader of Ken Livingstone’s newly-elected Greater London Council and we were both at a public meeting organised to back Livingstone’s fight to retain cheap fares for transport in London.
Over the summer, I was been struck by the gap between Jeremy Corbyn's actual words and how they were being widely reported, as if there was a fear of what he might do. At the very least, this means it's wise not to make too many assumptions about how Labour – or politics as a whole - will look under his leadership. As an approved candidate and long-time member of the Liberal Democrats, there are a few assumptions I feel I have to challenge.
From helping women with their household duties to getting rid of those 'visually awful' wind farms
The late John McGrath’s hugely important fusion of Highland ceilidh and old-fashioned Scots musical theatre for his 7:84 company hasn’t been performed in 24 years, and yet it still remains alive and contemporary. As a play it has everything, and it throws it at you in generous handfuls; laughter, farce, drama, live song and dance, finely researched political intent.
Romantic bel canto, the English Civil War and the Troubles might seem an unlikely recipe for operatic success. But the pitting of Roundhead against Cavalier in Bellini’s final masterpiece, I puritani, holds compelling modern-day sectarian parallels for director, Annilese Miskimmon.
Last year, Rebecca’s husband Nick was hit by a car and seriously injured. Here, in one of a series of columns, she writes about the aftermath of his accident
I’ve never dreamed of getting married. The idea of a big white wedding makes my toes curl. My dad marching me down the aisle like livestock on its way to the slaughterhouse in order to hand me off at the altar to my new owner? No thanks. The first time I aired this view – which was in the pub, after being asked by a complete stranger why I’d reached the spinsterish age of 25 without someone taking me down the aisle – I was patted patronisingly on the shoulders and assured that “all of that will change” in good time. Читать дальше...
With the opening game taking place on Friday, this week will be all about Rugby World Cup fever. Well, that’s the plan of those working for rugby’s governing bodies and the handful of brands that have invested millions in promoting the event in recent weeks.
Today is the launch of Sexual Health Week, an annual awareness event that sexual health charity FPA has run since 1997.
Many people have been asking David Cameron what he plans to do about the refugee crisis over the last few weeks. But what about his role in helping create the crisis in the first place?
Chineke is an Igbo word meaning ‘the spirit of creation’, and as it comes from one of Chi-chi Nwanoku’s ancestral languages, she’s taken it for the name of the orchestra she’s just founded. And – not before time - the Chineke! Orchestra does represent a hugely significant moment in our cultural life, it being Europe’s first-ever symphony orchestra made up entirely of BME – Black and Minority Ethnic – professional musicians.
One of the great joys of live comedy is the feeling that as an audience you are seeing a one-off.
Sarah Millican scribbles her jokes in a notebook, dislikes topical material, feels more comfortable on stage than off and, crucially, has an 11 o’clock rule.
Criticising Piers Morgan is like shooting massive tuna in a bucket. There is the ego, for a start. Then there is the fawning interview style. But we won't kick him for either of these. He's been hammered enough. He even acknowledges the narcissism in television adverts.
"So this is an amazing thing no one has really noticed: Jeremy Corbyn is the only privately educated leadership candidate." When I tweeted this observation last week I wasn’t making any value judgements about the new Labour leader. I was simply tweeting a bit of political trivia that surprised me. But that didn’t seem to matter to the Corbynites who angrily replied.