1 February 2021 My wife and I had our first shots of a Covid-19 vaccine this weekend (Astra-Zeneca, since you ask), and none of our children are old enough to be particularly vulnerable. I therefore no longer have a dog in this fight, and can write with godlike impartiality about who else should get the …
28 December 2020 Blaming the victims is never a good look. As Britain finally leaves the European Union, 1,651 days after the Brexit referendum of 2016, we should try to remember that 48% of the turkeys didn’t vote for Christmas. Brexit was not exactly a national act of self-harm; it was really an attack by …
9 December 2020 In Brussels this week, the English-speaking journalists are all speculating about which way British prime minister Boris Johnson will jump. He’s there now, dithering over whether to cave in to the European Union’s terms for a post-Brexit free trade deal. Most people reckon it’s his last face-saving show of defiance before he …
7 November 2020 “We are putting a final end to the fossil era,” said Denmark’s’s climate minister, Dan Jorgensen, last week. What he meant was that the European Union’s biggest oil and gas producer is officially getting out of the petrochemical business after 80 years. There’s still more oil under the North Sea off Denmark’s …
19 October 2020 The British pantomime is a traditional Christmas entertainment in which stock characters face imaginary dangers and audience participation is encouraged (“He’s behind you!”), but the play never frightens the children and it always has a happy ending. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson could be a pantomime character: he blusters and rages, he …
5 October 2020 On Sunday New Caledonia voted to remain French by a majority of 53.3% to 46.%. That’s hardly an overwhelming majority, but it was the second referendum in two years to reject independence in the South Pacific archipelago, so we may take it as a done deal. The odd thing about that outcome …
13 September 2020 “I’ve got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel,” said Blackadder’s sidekick Baldrick in the BBC’s brilliant historical comedy series ‘Blackadder’. In fact, he said “I have a cunning plan” in almost every episode, but the plans hardly ever worked, and it became …
25 August 2020 In what is probably the poorest region of the world, West Africa, there is an unsung success story. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) doesn’t just work for economic integration; it tries to defend democracy and prevent war among its member states, and often it succeeds. Right now it is …
22 July 2020 Is there going to be a new Cold War with China? Probably not. Consider the case of Huawei. Mike Pompeo swept into London on Tuesday like an overweight Darth Vader, while his local satrap, Boris Johnson, waited nervously in Downing Street for judgement. People swore they could hear Pompeo’s cloak swish as …
“Hello, dictator!” said Jean-Claude Juncker cheerily to Hungary’s leader, Victor Orbán, at a European Union summit meeting a couple of years ago. The president of the European Commission was only joking, of course, but it was gallows humour. Dictatorship was clearly where Orbán was heading – and now he has arrived. On Monday the Hungarian …