Articles

17.01.11 Publication: The Times

Here is a number that should be memorised by all those who sneered last week at the French prime minister, Francois Fillon, and his request to Britain to...

03.01.11 Publication: The Times

The past few years have been hard for lovers of democracy, and this one also starts awkwardly. Freedom House, the New York-based think-tank that monitors...

31.12.10 Publication: La Stampa

Journalists often think news is defined in terms of days or even minutes. Politicians seem far-sighted if they think in weeks, or visionary if they can see as...

20.12.10 Publication: The Times

It is the time of year when people are at their least price-sensitive. Grumble though they might at the cost of turkeys or of record prices for petrol and for...

06.12.10 Publication: The Times

They may not know it, but FIFA’s executive committee have just made a forecast about the oil price over the next seven years and, perhaps related to that,...

03.12.10 Publication: La Stampa

The good news about the latest Wikileaks disclosures of American diplomatic reports on Silvio Berlusconi is that they take the focus away from the president of...

25.11.10 Publication: L´espresso

The strangest thing about Silvio Berlusconi is that he has appeared unconcerned about leaving any kind of a legacy, any set of achievements through which he...

24.11.10 Publication: La Stampa

It is tempting to regard the firing of artillery shells at an island on the other side of the world as unimportant. That temptation is especially strong when...

22.11.10 Publication: The Times

When you are in trouble, especially trouble of your own making, it is always nice to have someone else to hate. During the financial crises of the 1980s and...

08.11.10 Publication: The Times

It is never easy or comfortable for a western leader to make an official visit to China, as David Cameron will on Tuesday. On one shoulder, an elf whispers in...

07.11.10 Publication: La Stampa

The global economic crisis of 2007-09 has done us all a disservice in more ways than just the obvious ones of having caused rising unemployment, falling living...

04.11.10 Publication: La Stampa

So America´s mid-term Congressional elections have, as expected, brought a dramatic defeat for the Democratic Party in general and Barack Obama in particular,...

01.11.10 Publication: The Times

The streets of Rome are generally lovely at this time of year, yet now the air is carrying the strong, unpleasant smell of "la fine di un regno", or...

21.10.10 Publication: La Stampa

It is an extraordinary gamble: cutting 500,000 public-sector jobs, in a programme of dramatic fiscal retrenchment, with ministries’ budgets being cut by an...

11.10.10 Publication: The Times

It has not been a comfortable few days for China, except for those Chinese hardliners for whom foreign criticism just acts to stiffen their spines. To give the...

09.10.10 Publication: La Stampa

They are not always known for their bravery. Too often, they follow fashionable sentiment, in a rather weak way. But this year the Nobel Peace Prize Committee...

04.10.10 Publication: La Stampa

As Barack Obama gets down to the serious task of campaigning for Democratic Party candidates in an effort to stem his party’s losses in America’s mid-term...

04.10.10 Publication: The Times

When you have got yourself into a mess, it can be comforting to find that your neighbour is even worse trouble than you are. That unfortunate role is being...

20.09.10 Publication: The Times

An aspect of politics that never fails to surprise us non-politicians is how often politicians lay time-bombs for themselves. We know a week is a long time,...

14.09.10 Publication: La Stampa

It has been flattering to us British that so often during the Italian debate about politics and the electoral law, our system has been praised. It was even...

06.09.10 Publication: The Times

If you had been asked on inauguration day in 2009 to define what might count as “success” for Barack Obama nearly two years later, what would you have...

08.08.10 Publication: The Times

The traditional newspaper name for this period is the silly season. For economic commentators, however, it feels more like a season of contradictions, when one...

26.07.10 Publication: The Times

Cue, inevitably, headlines about passages to India, jewels in crowns and Cameron-sahib. Cue, probably, pictures of the last Tory prime minister to visit the...

12.07.10 Publication: The Times

There is an uncanny resemblance between the arguments used last week to exonerate climate scientists at the University of East Anglia by the independent...